LOS ANGELES | Downtown Project Rundown 3.0

[JRinSoCal]

^Nice picture. They should've included completed renderings of all the other towers going up in the area and the other ones that are proposed like LA Central.

BTW, what is happening with Jardin? Is that another stale proposal?

[Just-In-Cali]

Im back from Puerto Rico, and already things are a mess! Medallion is down for the count, and that damed parking structure is open for business. Im sooo sorry Citywatch...I lay a wreath there.
This was interesting...if it means anything...from DTNewsonline.

Council Approves Park Fifth



News Brief



The City Council on Tuesday, May 13, approved the 76-story Park Fifth project. The $1.3 billion complex, which is being developed by a team led by David Houk, would include a 76-story tower and a 44-floor tower housing a hotel and condominiums, connected by a 15-story residential building, plus retail and restaurant space. It would rise on a lot north of Pershing Square. Park Fifth is the first major development to utilize the city's Transfer of Air Rights Ordinance, a measure adopted last year that allows Downtown developers to purchase "unused" space above the Convention Center to build taller, denser buildings than zoning restrictions currently allow. "In my mind, it's been entitled all along," said Houk, "but it's a relief to have it formalized." Houk has said he expects to break ground by the fourth quarter of this year.

[DowntownCharlieBrown]

^Doesn't mean it is going to be built, but that was a necessary step that had to be taken if its ever going to get out of the ground.

Now we have The Grand, LA Central, and Park Fifth all approved, just waiting for the right time to move in gear. These three project will add six towers and a total of 281 floors to DT if all are built. That gets one of these:

Note: Colemonkee - I believe the shorter Grand Tower is 19 floors, not 25?

[Downtown Los Angeles]

MODERATOR EDIT: This article was already posted only two posts above. Please check previous posts before posting articles.

[colemonkee]

Howdy folks! I'm back from Houston, and finally found some time to update the first page. The following changes have been made:

1. Park Fifth moved to "Approved"
2. Grand Ave. Tower 2 revised to 19 stories, updated render from the Grand Avenue web site, which is now full of content. Check it out when you get a chance.
3. Trinity Tower updated to 18 stories, with newer rendering, though the rendering is off as it shows it at 24 stories. But as RALossi deftly points out, the application with the city is 18 stories, so that's the most accurate info. We just don't have an 18-story render.

As a bonus, here's the updated render of the Grand Ave. project, from the official project web site.

[Steve2726]

Great find! The render posted below ;-) from the corner of 2nd and Olive Streets shows a lot of improvements have been made. They appear to have opened up those 2 sides to their respective streets by a fair amount.

[colemonkee]

I believe this is the one you're talking about. And yes, it does appear that they've addressed some of the issues people had with pedestrian connectivity on Olive. This is important because this side of the development is how it will connect with residents of the OBD.

[citywatch]

^ It's good they've finally updated the grand ave web site. The Related cos has been such a slow poke & missed so many groundbreaking deadlines that it never occurred to me anything might have changed on the proj's Internet page.

The angle of the devlpt looking to the NW, with Olive St to the right, & (not shown) Grand Ave to the left, & (also not shown) the Music Ctr's Pavilion in the background directly between the tall & short bldgs, has never been available before.

I wonder how the multiple levels of the first few floors open to the public will work together & how easy it will be to navigate between all of them?

I've experienced various retail projs through the yrs (Hollywood/Highland, Bonaventure Hotel, SaMo Main Place, Weller Ct in little tokyo) that had dead spots cuz there were too many nooks & crannies or too many floors for ppl to walk through. So I hope the Grand Ave projs avoids that pitfall.

Originally Posted by Just-In-Cali

Im sooo sorry Citywatch...I lay a wreath there.

Your condolences are much appreciated. And in lieu of flowers, a donation can be made to the following noteworthy cause.

'Tinker Toy' Lot Reopens

The parking structure bounded by Grand Avenue, First, Second and Olive streets, sometimes referred to as the Erector Set or Tinker Toy lot for its purely functional look, has reopened. The county-owned facility was closed on Dec. 1, 2007, to make way for developer Related Cos.' $3 billion Grand Avenue project. It temporarily reopened on May 1 following Related of California President Bill Witte's announcement that groundbreaking for the project has been tentatively pushed back from this summer to Feb. 15, 2009. The first phase of the project, formally titled The Grand, is expected to open in 2012. Related cited the difficulty in securing a construction loan in the current market as the reason for the delay. Once The Grand gets underway, the decades-old lot, which houses more than 1,000 spaces, is slated for demolition.

page 3, 5/19/2008

[Easy]

Now Brady Westwater and Curbed LA are reporting that Medallion is back on! I predict lots of movements to different sections of the first page before this one is done!

[citywatch]

Originally Posted by Easy

Now Brady Westwater and Curbed LA are reporting that Medallion is back on!

Medallion Project Back On Track?

UPDATE - Medallion Reboot Confirmed!

That's the word on the street today. The mixed use project at 4th and Main that was postponed for one year according to an announcement last week - is now supposedly going to resume construction after progress was made on construction costs and retail leasing.

UPDATE -- Just talked with Tom Gilmore at Pete's - and the builder called him Friday and told him the project is going ahead immediately. Also heard from another source that the bank wasn't too crazy about extending the construction loan which also played a role in the project's resumption. Have also heard from another developer that his bank also still feels good about funding new rental projects downtown.

[DJM19]

Still not crazy about the base of the large Grand Ave Tower. Are developers alergic to letting a tower's facade reach all the way to the floor?!

[BrandonJXN]

I actually like it like this. It makes the tower appear to be much taller than it is. And while it's on a podium, the podium consists of retail. Also unlike most projects, it looks to be retail on all 4 sides. Good stuff.

[colemonkee]

Good news on the Medallion, though I really don't need another job right now (updating the front page every six minutes). If it was to add new projects, that would be one thing, but...

As soon as we get confirmation (either pictures or first hand reports from forumers or respected DT bloggers) of construction resumption (what's your function?), I'll move it back to "Under Construction" on Page 1.

[Quixote]

Aerial view of Downtown LA with 717 Olympic, Concerto, and 717 Ninth...


From Flickr, by hridaybala

[futurearchie317]

sorry in advance if this is common knowledge, but does anybody know what the deal is with the massive ditch between 777 fig and its parking garage? its right behind the "7+fig" complex or whatever they call it and there seems to be construction equipment down there. btw, if you look closely you can see the space i'm talking about in ^that picture^.

[Steve2726]

Originally Posted by futurearchie317

sorry in advance if this is common knowledge, but does anybody know what the deal is with the massive ditch between 777 fig and its parking garage? its right behind the "7+fig" complex or whatever they call it and there seems to be construction equipment down there. btw, if you look closely you can see the space i'm talking about in ^that picture^.

See this thread-
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=149567

[Easy]

Nice picture. That must have been taken just yesterday. You can see that the LA Live crane had already made the jump.

Does anyone else notice a big hole in the skyline right where Metropolis is supposed to go?

I hope that they sell that land at some point so that something gets built there!

[k3d]

Originally Posted by Easy

Nice picture. That must have been taken just yesterday. You can see that the LA Live crane had already made the jump.
(

Here is another view of the crane jump still in progress.


Concerto


717 Ninth


All three

[colemonkee]

Great shots, k3d. That last one really shows how Met Lofts (and a number of downtown buildings) could benefit from green roofs. It would really help downtown as a whole, reducing the heat island effect we get on days like this.

Also, that lot on the northeast corner of 11th and Fig is screaming for a 40-50 story tower on it.

[ziggy331]

Originally Posted by colemonkee

Also, that lot on the northeast corner of 11th and Fig is screaming for a 40-50 story tower on it.

Does AEG own this parcel of land too? Either way, I'm surprised nothing has been proposed for that lot.