LOS ANGELES | Downtown Project Rundown 4.0

[bobcat]

Originally Posted by citywatch

^ so LA, even if it doubles----DOUBLES!----the amt of hotel business it gets----& which won't even begin to happen for another 5 yrs----still will be well below SD & SF?! You mean it currently gets only around 270,000 bookings per yr?! You mean a city like SF gets almost over 3 times that per yr?!

I don't see what there is to be upset about. SF and SD are both top convention cities and the fact that LA could be nipping on SD's heels in only 5 years is actually quite promising. With improved tourism infrastructure it looks like LA should pass SD in convention bookings within 10 years.

[Illithid Dude]

CityWatch, you seem to have unreasonably high standards. You really expect our convention center, which is much smaller then something like San Diego, to have just as high a rate of bookings as San Diego? And anyways, a nice convention center does not make a city. Vegas has a great convention center, but it is still Vegas.

[ocman]

Originally Posted by citywatch

Downtown L.A.: A nightmare on Every Street


It was around this time that "For Rent" signs in other neighborhoods started to catch my eye. I also took the subtle hints from my daughters. "Daddy, I hate living downtown. Why did you bring us here? I thought you loved us."



Mike Armstrong writes screenplays and television scripts in Los Angeles.

Bullshit, his daughter said that. This is just bad writing. Can Hollywood ever write believable child characters and stop resorting to false preciousness?

[DistrictDirt]

Originally Posted by ocman

Bullshit, his daughter said that. This is just bad writing. Can Hollywood ever write believable child characters and stop resorting to false preciousness?

Wow, that's bad. He could have tried to make it sound more believable!

[alki]

Originally posted by LAofAnaheim

There are definitely some parts of Boston/New York that you don't want kids hanging out......so you should expect the same for downtown LA. There are some parts that are not right (Industrial district, Arts district), but other areas where it's perfectly legit (South Park, Little Tokyo, Chinatown).

So to say that it's okay in Boston, New York, but not okay in DT LA, is kinda an unfair comparison... We cannot generalize the whole area for one thing.

First my comments were not intended to be a condemnation of DTLA but rather a criticism of the father who after making a mistake seems to want to blame that mistake on DTLA. And yes, there are parts of Boston and NYC that are not fit for kids either......and most parents in those cities are smart enough not to locate in those areas. As far as DTLA being ready for families, we'll have to agree to disagree. There is a time coming when it will be but I just don't think DTLA is there yet. Just my opinion.

[alki]

Originally posted by citywatch

^ so LA, even if it doubles----DOUBLES!----the amt of hotel business it gets----& which won't even begin to happen for another 5 yrs----still will be well below SD & SF?! You mean it currently gets only around 270,000 bookings per yr?! You mean a city like SF gets almost over 3 times that per yr?!

This is not news. SF and SD always have had more convention business than LA since at least when I lived in LA during the 90s. Most of the tourist industry in LA County skews to the Westside and Hollywood. In SF and SD, unlike LA, the attraction is their downtown areas [although that's changing for LA]. Easier to sell a convention when the surroundings have tourist appeal. In addition, if memory serves me, SF and SD have very competitive convention halls in terms of size...........in fact, I think SF's convention hall is larger than LA's. LA was always a laggard when it came to the size of its convention hall. Right now, I think LA has only one or two hotels suitable for large conventions in the downtown area. SF has many; SD more than two. All of these factors play a role as to whether a city lands a convention or not. LA has never played that game very well.

[alki]

Originally posted by BrighamYen

This was obviously not always the case in Little Tokyo. There was a serious homeless issue with the area even a few years ago.When American Apparel was located at 2nd/Central, a few doors down from where it is today, I was told my the sales associates that homeless people would come into the store and take an entire stack of clothes and run out! Of course you couldn't do anything because the homeless would probably be just thrilled if you sent them to a warm prison cell of the night with some hot food.

When I lived in LA, Little Tokyo was pretty much dead even during the day. That area has really grown as a commercial hub.

BTW I finally had a chance to look at your blog. You've done a really nice job with it. I know its good for your work but it also serves as a great resource for the DTLA and Pasadena communities. Congrats!

[LosAngelesBeauty]

Originally Posted by alki

Originally posted by BrighamYen



When I lived in LA, Little Tokyo was pretty much dead even during the day. That area has really grown as a commercial hub.

BTW I finally had a chance to look at your blog. You've done a really nice job with it. I know its good for your work but it also serves as a great resource for the DTLA and Pasadena communities. Congrats!

Thanks Alki! Just to clarify:

I am no longer a traditional real estate agent. I work for Redfin (www.redfin.com), so ALL our leads come through our website (we get over 5 million hits a month IIRC). So my blog really has ZERO connection to my real estate career. It is just something I enjoy doing very much!

[citywatch]

Originally Posted by Illithid Dude

CityWatch, you seem to have unreasonably high standards. You really expect our convention center, which is much smaller then something like San Diego, to have just as high a rate of bookings as San Diego? And anyways, a nice convention center does not make a city. Vegas has a great convention center, but it is still Vegas.

I wish it were as simple as that, illithid. I had a hunch that SD actually has a smaller convention ctr than LA, & it does. But I never believed the lower number of guests staying at hotels in dtla compared with SD was due mainly to the lack of enough space in the LACC. While that hasn't helped, it's but one of a variety of things that have worked against the hood.

Anaheim Convention Center
City: Anaheim (Downtown)
Size: 1,400,000 sq. ft. of exhibit space

San Francisco Moscone Center
City: San Francisco (Downtown)
Size: 1,200,000 sq. ft. of exhibit space

Los Angeles Convention Center
City: Los Angeles (Downtown)
Size: 720,000 sq. ft. of exhibit space

San Diego Convention Center
City: San Diego (Downtown)
Size: 700,000 square feet of exhibit space

Long Beach Convention Center
City: Long Beach (Downtown)
Size: 220,000 sq. ft. of exhibit space

Las Vegas Convention Center
City: Las Vegas (Airport)
Size: 1,040,000 q. ft. of exhibit space

btw, I understand the number of conventions in LA are split between hoods towards the north, inc dt, & areas to the south, mainly anaheim. I thought that if the total number of conventions in both dt & anaheim were added together, that would easily equal or even surpass the amt of room bookings in other towns in Ca, esp SF. But now I'm not too sure about that.

[bobcat]

I'm not familiar with SDCC, but I think LACC is hurt by its space being noncontiguous. Also, LACC is hurt by lack of hotel rooms in downtown, particularly within walking distance.

[citywatch]

Originally Posted by bobcat

I'm not familiar with SDCC, but I think LACC is hurt by its space being noncontiguous. Also, LACC is hurt by lack of hotel rooms in downtown, particularly within walking distance.

when you mention the lack of contiguous space & enough hotel rms, those things are like the pieces of a big puzzle. And if all the pieces don't fit together correctly, the whole thing ends up a jumble. Or one problem leads to another.

As I was going through signonsandiego.com to find out more about sd's convention ct, I ran into the following story. Talk about sheer coincidence or bad timing. This pretty much slams shut any hopes I had that big new projs like the parkfifth tower across from pershing sq would be revived in the future----at least before the yr 2050.

AP Enterprise: Stadium plan could aid AEG's condos

By JACOB ADELMAN, Associated Press

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

LOS ANGELES — The company that wants to build an NFL stadium in downtown Los Angeles announced a milestone in mid-February: It had sold the first unit in its nearby luxury condo project that towers above the skyline. Anschutz Entertainment Group neglected to acknowledge, however, that it had bought the Ritz-Carlton-branded condo unit itself.

That omission obscured how hard the housing slump has weighed on the company's flagship residential project, which has been hit with millions of dollars in mechanics' liens in recent months as it struggles to unload its pricey units in the soft market.

Recognizing those troubles could give added bargaining leverage to city officials working on a stadium deal with AEG, which has cast Los Angeles as the big winner - in jobs, development and prestige - if the plan for a 72,000- to 76,000-seat sports venue on the city's convention center site goes forward.

...the financial crisis had slowed demand for housing to a trickle, and AEG has apparently struggled to find buyers for the upscale condo units that range in price from $850,000 to $9.3 million. As of Tuesday, grant deeds had been recorded for only 32 units, according to county records.

That number includes the project's first two sales, dated Feb. 10: One went to AEG's parent company, Denver billionaire Philip Anschutz's Anshutz Corp.; the other was bought by AEG CEO Tim Leiweke. Other units have gone to AEG's vice president for real estate, Ted Tanner, to its chief legal officer, Ted Fikre, and to a corporation that lists AEG chief operating and financial officer Dan Beckerman as its agent for service. Loans from AEG itself helped finance the latter two sales, county records show.

....Roth acknowledged that the units were not moving as briskly as originally hoped. "According to schedule, we thought we'd be sold out by now," Roth said.

With little revenue from selling condos, the company has been hit with stacks of unpaid bills, county records show. In April and May alone, contractors filed at least $7.4 million in mechanics' liens against Olympic and Georgia Partners LLC, the AEG subsidiary set up to develop the property.

Around the same time, the project's part owner, a real estate investment fund managed by San Francisco-based MacFarlane Partners, allowed itself to be bought out at a loss, leaving AEG as the project's sole stakeholder, Roth and MacFarlane spokeswoman Julie Chase confirmed.

Krueger, who has no connection to the condo deal, said AEG and MacFarlane each probably had their investments in the development largely - if not entirely - wiped out by debt service and operating expenses...

[bobcat]

Originally Posted by citywatch

This pretty much slams shut any hopes I had that big new projs like the parkfifth tower across from pershing sq would be revived in the future----at least before the yr 2050.

Nah, only until the next real estate bubble, which in CA comes roughly every 20 years--just long enough for the next generation to forget this crash and convince themselves that their situation is "different."

[LosAngelesBeauty]

Originally Posted by citywatch

when you mention the lack of contiguous space & enough hotel rms, those things are like the pieces of a big puzzle. And if all the pieces don't fit together correctly, the whole thing ends up a jumble. Or one problem leads to another.

As I was going through signonsandiego.com to find out more about sd's convention ct, I ran into the following story. Talk about sheer coincidence or bad timing. This pretty much slams shut any hopes I had that big new projs like the parkfifth tower across from pershing sq would be revived in the future----at least before the yr 2050.

It's like the critics who contend that "rail transit" will never fly in LA because "they don't see the throngs of transit riders that other cities are experiencing in ridership." What they don't realize is that transit depends on creating a network that gets people places. So as each new line is completed, the ridership will continue to grow. And of course the actual rail line itself must be through an area that a lot of people want to go, i.e. Purple Line down Wilshire Blvd. If the Wilshire Blvd Purple Line is built AND there are still very little ppl using transit, then I'll concede that LA just isn't cut out for transit.

This applies to the high end condos. Building ONE tower is NOT going to attract the wealthy Westsiders because Downtown LA IS NOT a mature city center yet. It's got a little while more before Westsider and Orange County WASPs will want to move in. You have to fill in a lot more parking lots, add a lot more "upscale" retail options, and bring in just generally more of everything. And don't forget that Ritz Carlton is not exactly a regular high end condo tower that you will find in a city like New York. I would prefer to see high end condos like The Century, Carlyle, and the Californian kinds, which are not tied to any hotel or "entertainment district."

[ChelseaFC]

Originally Posted by bobcat

I'm not familiar with SDCC, but I think LACC is hurt by its space being noncontiguous. Also, LACC is hurt by lack of hotel rooms in downtown, particularly within walking distance.

LACC is only "bigger" than SDCC because they count their basement/parking lot as convention space. In reality, SDCC is newer, larger, and is located in a much more attractive neighborhood on the waterfront.

[JDRCRASH]

Originally Posted by citywatch

As I was going through signonsandiego.com to find out more about sd's convention ct, I ran into the following story. Talk about sheer coincidence or bad timing. This pretty much slams shut any hopes I had that big new projs like the parkfifth tower across from pershing sq would be revived in the future----at least before the yr 2050.

Come on... are you really serious? That's several real estate cycles. There is no way in hell you can justify that it will take that long for projects like Park Fifth to be revived. It's like you're completely ignoring the massive infrastructure investments LA will make in the next few decades.

I've been pessimistic before, but not on this silly scale.

[all of the trash]

I wonder what makes people think the economy will rebound to the levels experienced a decade ago, much less rebound at all especially in a city with stagnant population growth like Los Angeles.

[all of the trash]

Originally Posted by BrighamYen

This applies to the high end condos. Building ONE tower is NOT going to attract the wealthy Westsiders because Downtown LA IS NOT a mature city center yet. It's got a little while more before Westsider and Orange County WASPs will want to move in. You have to fill in a lot more parking lots, add a lot more "upscale" retail options, and bring in just generally more of everything. And don't forget that Ritz Carlton is not exactly a regular high end condo tower that you will find in a city like New York. I would prefer to see high end condos like The Century, Carlyle, and the Californian kinds, which are not tied to any hotel or "entertainment district."

I would rather the westside urbanize than trying to turn DTLA into the westside. I'm perfectly okay with DTLA's growth as a mid-level hipster hood of urban pioneers, and the catalyst for LA's transit infrastructure. There's no need to make it BH. I think we do a disservice to LAs potential charms by aiming too high or too misguidedly. But thats just me

[Muji]

Well, I dont think anybody wants downtown LA to turn into the West Side. I think the goal is to make downtown as inclusive a place as possible for the city and its metro area. I think we can agree that so far, its revitalization has made it a very desirable place for bourgeois-bohemian types (which is of course a great improvement from the past). But if we want it to be more than that I think we'll definitely need plenty of new construction and infill development to fill in the many dead zones that still linger.

[citywatch]

Originally Posted by JDRCRASH

I've been pessimistic before, but not on this silly scale.

the devlpr of that proj might have said the same thing over 25 yrs ago. And I would have agreed with him.

But 25 yrs later, in 2011, add the past 25 yrs of inaction to the number of yrs til anything probably is built on that site, & I can easily see a total of 40 yrs of false starts. I'm also assuming that whatever is built on that corner in the future will be more than a 6 floor woodframed apt bldg, or something like that.

Park Fifth was a planned $1 billion double tower luxury residential high-rise condominium complex overlooking Pershing Square in Los Angeles. The skyscrapers were to be part of the revitalization boom in Downtown Los Angeles. Park Fifth 1 would have been a 732 residential unit tower, making it the taller of the two towers, and the tallest residential tower west of Chicago, at 76 stories and 250 m (820 ft).

The project was to stand at 5th and Olive streets on the site of the former Hazard's Pavilion, which was demolished to build Temple Auditorium, later renamed Clune's Auditorium, which was the historic home to the Los Angeles Philharmonic. It was demolished by developer David Houk in 1985 to make way for an office and hotel complex.

The office boom of the '80s collapsed before Houk could build on the site.

when land was first cleared on bunker hill back in the late 1960s----over 40 yrs ago----who would have thought that the large amt of space where the grand ave proj is supposed to be built would still be sitting vacant as of july 2011? I'd have said back then that such a forecast was overly pessimistic.

[bobcat]

Originally Posted by all of the trash

I think we do a disservice to LAs potential charms by aiming too high or too misguidedly. But thats just me

Aiming too high? How about aiming for a level commensurate with the 2nd largest city in the wealthiest country in the world? And for the record, BH is not LA, even if some people think it is. The key point being that LA loses out on a lot of tax revenue that it could have if DTLA were able to compete with areas like BH or SM.