LOS ANGELES | Downtown Project Rundown 4.0

[LA/OCman]

Originally Posted by alki

I don't know. Those condos sit above the Ritz Carlton and are adjacent to where the Lakers play. It seems to be a natural location for someone like Leo to have a pied-a-terre. I think if the Coke signs are the problem, they would have turned them off.........they're digital right?

I really shouldn't argue this point.........I lost a sense of the real estate market in LA years ago. You may be right.........that I am being too harsh. But I don't think there are any other condos in DTLA more pricey. Maybe Brigham knows better.......in terms of priciness and why they are not selling well.

I don't think the Ritz Carlton condos are a good example either. Some weathly individuals have bought Downtown...but it really was the uncertainty in the economy that put things to a halt. Johnny Depp bought penthouses Downtown. Mary Hart bought in the Ritz. Anchor and TV news personality Laura Diaz bought in South Park. And this weekend Patt Morison's interview in the Times with Diane Keaton brought this response from Diane:

L.A. has superb public buildings like the library, and fascinating private houses. You see a Greek Revival house next to a Mission style next to a Mid-century Modern. It's like a backlot.

It is like a backlot. We have every possible style known to man right here in L.A. We have downtown L.A., it's beyond beautiful, with our bridges, the Pabst Blue Ribbon brewery. One of my fantasies is somehow, sometime, to live down there.

Downtown has never been a really livable neighborhood until recently. The next few years you will see it become even more of a draw. The penthouses in the Eastern Columbia started at $1 million on up. EVO and LUMA were very pricey when they sold. There actually is a good mix of real estate at the lower end and the upper end. Downtown was hit hard during the recession and the values really plummeted. It has been all about short sales...but hopefully that is changing as well. To me, the biggest problem is the concentration of homeless people. The City is building some housing but we need so much more to rectify the problem.

[StethJeff]

Originally Posted by Illithid Dude

Also, just a sidenote, a parking lot doesn't go away for every picture of one you post, CityWatch. We all know the state of downtown, we don't need you showing us it every three posts.

She's been told this a million times. She doesn't care. She'll keep doing it ad nauseum.

[pesto]

[QUOTE=alki;5551491]I don't know to what 20 year period you are referring but this was the 90s. I wasn't in LA in the '80s. How I know what happened in SM is because I had been appointed by the councilman to the review board for the Hollywood CRA. One of the presentations given to the board was by the SM CRA equivalent. They carefully outlined the process by which they went about reviving 3rd Ave.....if memory serves me at the time of the presentation, 3rd Ave was already in an upswing. Apparently Westwood was in decline, overrun by UCLA students and theater companies were looking for a new locational venue to showcase their new features. SM encouraged them to consider 3rd Ave and made financial incentives to make it happen. In the same way, they encouraged restaurants to open up, pointing out that the new theaters would provide a fairly steady clientele. The rest is history.

[QUOTE]Artists do not spark a neighborhood's revival. They move in because prices are near the bottom but there is some uptick in the market that has moved it out of "skid row" status. Typically, large unimproved space is available. Sometimes the neighborhood goes up in value; sometimes it just stays as an artsy enclave. Similarly, hipsters may be the final stage of redevelopment, or they too may get priced out if an area becomes truly desirable, and the well-to-do move in.[/QUOTE]

Pesto, I think you're quibbling. Yes, artists move in because the rents are cheap......its what they can afford. That's a given. And eventually, small restaurants and coffee shops follow suit because of the growing artist population. Eventually hipsters 'discover' the area and start moving in. Its at that point where the revival becomes well known among the general population and the neighborhood takes off.

Why this formula usually works and neighborhood values generally go up significantly is because the artists typically pick neighborhoods where the architecture is pleasing to them even in its run down state. You know....its the artist eye........the artistic aesthete. And once those bldgs get rehabbed they have appeal to the general population.

I only mention this because the real drivers in making an area desirable are things like an easy commute, safe streets, well-maintened public facilities, good schools, efficient government. Bringing in restaurants, artists and hipsters, and hoping others will follow is confusing cause with effect.[/QUOTE]

But that's just it.......many of those neighborhoods are frequently off the beaten path with lousy services and public facilities and rampant with crime. SOHO's revival which is in DT Manhattan started when the center of influence was midtown and uptown. Georgetown was on the periphery of the District, close to neither the affluent NW or Capitol Hill. It was a broken down port area that was rife with crime.

But I do agree with you a good location does help. SOMO was the dangerous tenderloin district of SF. It was the area people circumvented to get to DTSF. Same with Pioneer SQ in Seattle. However, both were close to their DTs which made them more interesting.

SM redevelopment started in the 1960's (as did Pasadena, Burbank and others; Glendale was effectively blocked by small retailers for another 10 years, loosely speaking). The first wave of improvement was small scale street improvements and renovations. Some theaters and restaurants moved in, but it was still about 50 percent derelicts spread out on every available bench and much of the sidewalks. These typically did very poorly and went through multiple changes. Tailors, vaccuum cleaners shops, war surplus, etc., lingered on.

By 1980 or so things started to change for the better (for you defenders of the role that artists played, check out SM, Pasadena, Glendale: artists played about zero role, because local prices were never as low as they were in DT LA; artists are bottom-feeders, not value adders). The nearest significant areas for artists to SM is Bergamot which is some distance and has had relatively little development.

I won't say there was one key to change finally coming, but presumably longer commutes, quality of schools, city services, etc., played some role. The sheer size of the problem in DT and Hollwyood is also a factor in the process, but it will also result in their becoming world-class urban areas as the process progresses.

[pesto]

Oddly, I think almost everyone made good points about LA's plusses or minuses.

NY and Chicago are in a different league when it comes to slums, disrepair and 3rd world housing as compared to LA. Of course, the point is most people don't get out of the Loop or Manhattan. Try Jamaica or most of the Bronx.

As some have said, the problem is that most European (and Latin and Asian) cities have vigorous city authorities that maintain well-kept city centers and run the poor and derelicts to the outer rings, often under physical pressure. Walk the outer areas of Paris and you will see unpaved streets, barefoot children, drug use, areas where you don't go unless you know people there. European urban housing in general is very old, very outdated and very small compared to what even Westlake or DT LA are like.

LA is much more nodal, so you from poor to middle to rich several times in an average day. The lack of clear class distinction also makes it easy to move from ELA to DT to Koreatown to Culver City to SM without making you feel out of place.

Personally, I hate above ground rail, above ground utilities, fire escapes. Pretty much any nice area has gotten rid of them. I admit that many happening areas of Manhattan have fire escapes, but I don't consider them an improvement to the oftern beautiful architecture that they disfigure.

[alki]

Originally Posted by Illithid Dude

I've been to cities where there is not a spot of dirt on the sidewalks. And I've left those cities feeling that, thought they may be aesthetically pleasing, they lack a certain aspect of 'soul', a unique character that differentiates them from another city. I hardly think anyone would call L.A. not a unique city.

Look no further than Beverly Hills. If perfect is no graffiti, no trash in the steet, well designed street fixtures, rarely a parking lot or empty lot and lots of street trees, BH is the very concept of perfection. And yet, I could count on two hands how many times I went to BH went I lived in LA. I would much rather be in SM or Venice or Silverlake or Pasadena........or DTLA. I didn't hate BH.........I just wasn't drawn to it like I was to those other parts of the city.

[alki]

Originally Posted by citywatch

Your girlfriend's reaction reminded me so much of my own & that of my daughter's, & the family members who were with us when we drove down broadway last yr. I was caught off guard cuz I didn't realize that so many rundown swapmeets still were in business on that street. It's one of the rare times when I would have actually been happier or relieved to see mostly vacant shops in dt.

This need to sanitize is a very suburban concept. Lots of money has been spent trying to make American cities look like their suburban counterparts. That's what Bunker Hill is all about. And I understand its origins.........if its clean looking, its probably safe. But for some of us that means boring.

Most DTs will never be without grit because they are not brand spanking new. Putting utilities underground is an expensive proposition esp when an urban infrastructure already exists and is in place. Its much easier and less expensive when you are starting with a raw piece of land.

DTLA is never going to be perfect. Its never going to look like Laguna Niguel or Irvine. Its always going to have its odd corners and unkempt areas. There will nice sections [see Bunker Hill] and there were be rough sections [see the artist district]. That's what differentiates cities from their suburbs.

What made the Left Bank of Paris exciting for me was the mish mash of shops, odd alleys with food vendors selling their wares, the weird food smells, the incessant odor of Gauloise cigarettes, the smell of weed and the trippy people. The streets were filthy and crowded. For some people, that was the best part of Paris.......for others, they preferred the calm and affluence of the 16th Arrondissement. Cities are about choices and diversity. Grit can be good so long as it doesn't overwhelm.

[alki]

[QUOTE=pesto;5552234]

Originally Posted by alki

SM redevelopment started in the 1960's (as did Pasadena, Burbank and others; Glendale was effectively blocked by small retailers for another 10 years, loosely speaking). The first wave of improvement was small scale street improvements and renovations. Some theaters and restaurants moved in, but it was still about 50 percent derelicts spread out on every available bench and much of the sidewalks. These typically did very poorly and went through multiple changes. Tailors, vaccuum cleaners shops, war surplus, etc., lingered on.

Pesto, for me, the 50s and 60s were the dark ages in city building in this country. If you read what was going on at that time, it was the wholesale demolition of city neighborhoods........whole sections of DTs were leveled. I can't imagine what they were thinking. It was the time of Bunker Hill. I think it had little to do with what happened with 3rd Ave in SM in the 1990s.

By 1980 or so things started to change for the better (for you defenders of the role that artists played, check out SM, Pasadena, Glendale: artists played about zero role, because local prices were never as low as they were in DT LA; artists are bottom-feeders, not value adders). The nearest significant areas for artists to SM is Bergamot which is some distance and has had relatively little development.

I think you're little bit cynical about artists and their impact on the revival of neighborhoods. Yes, they are bottom feeders out of economic necessity but that doesn't mean they don't have an eye for good architecture and they don't improve a neighborhood once they move in. And of course, they are not the only group that can signal the revival of a neighborhood. Gays frequently are at the forefront of neighborhood change. And you might be surprised......there were artists throughout Old Pasadena during its revival in the 90s.

I won't say there was one key to change finally coming, but presumably longer commutes, quality of schools, city services, etc., played some role. The sheer size of the problem in DT and Hollwyood is also a factor in the process, but it will also result in their becoming world-class urban areas as the process progresses.

I think American cities are back in fashion after being out a fashion [except for a notable few] for long, long time.

[citywatch]

Originally Posted by pesto

As some have said, the problem is that most European (and Latin and Asian) cities have vigorous city authorities that maintain well-kept city centers and run the poor and derelicts to the outer rings, often under physical pressure.

I recall reading a comment on some webpage (I don't think it was at ssp) from someone of latino descent, or possibly from mexico or another latin american country, who expressed resentment over ppl who like to say that the gritty condition of broadway, with both its slumlords & swapmeets, was authentic to the latino culture. Out of curiosity I did a google streetview of mexico city & was astonished at how, in certain ways, large sections of that city look like more $$ & elbow grease have been invested in them to display the qualities of a true capital city than what I notice all over LA. That was one of those times when I wanted to say "oh oh, we have a problem here in ciudad de los angeles."

[Illithid Dude]

Well, in other news, the final EIR for the Downtown Connector Subway was released today.

[citywatch]

Originally Posted by alki

This need to sanitize is a very suburban concept. Lots of money has been spent trying to make American cities look like their suburban counterparts. That's what Bunker Hill is all about. And I understand its origins.........if its clean looking, its probably safe. But for some of us that means boring.

If "sanitize" means a city is full of truly large, impressive devlpt, old & new, where all the trappings of success & high achievement are on full display----inc lots of nice hotels, big office bldgs, pricey condo & apt bldgs, big dept stores, lots of cultural & entertainment offerings----then you're describing much of NYC.

I would say most ppl, esp fussy, demanding travelers, would describe the major cities across the atlantic---inc paris or london----as being clean & rather safe looking, at least by the standards of broadway in dtla, or all the pockmarked sections around LA live or where the eleven, luma & evo condo bldgs were put up a few yrs ago.

So I would say that words like "sanitize" or "clean" don't necessarily mean boring or burban.

[alki]

Originally Posted by LA/OCman

I don't think the Ritz Carlton condos are a good example either. Some weathly individuals have bought Downtown...but it really was the uncertainty in the economy that put things to a halt. Johnny Depp bought penthouses Downtown. Mary Hart bought in the Ritz. Anchor and TV news personality Laura Diaz bought in South Park. And this weekend Patt Morison's interview in the Times with Diane Keaton brought this response from Diane:

L.A. has superb public buildings like the library, and fascinating private houses. You see a Greek Revival house next to a Mission style next to a Mid-century Modern. It's like a backlot.

It is like a backlot. We have every possible style known to man right here in L.A. We have downtown L.A., it's beyond beautiful, with our bridges, the Pabst Blue Ribbon brewery. One of my fantasies is somehow, sometime, to live down there.

Downtown has never been a really livable neighborhood until recently. The next few years you will see it become even more of a draw. The penthouses in the Eastern Columbia started at $1 million on up. EVO and LUMA were very pricey when they sold. There actually is a good mix of real estate at the lower end and the upper end. Downtown was hit hard during the recession and the values really plummeted. It has been all about short sales...but hopefully that is changing as well. To me, the biggest problem is the concentration of homeless people. The City is building some housing but we need so much more to rectify the problem.

Thanks. Those are positive indicators.........esp. the comments by Keaton........she's in the business of restoring all houses. And I also noted a few weeks back when Zooey Deschanel made positive comments about DTLA. They were all the more positive because she is an LA native.

Nonetheless, I would still like to hear Brigham's read on the DT condo market.

[citywatch]

Originally Posted by LA/OCman

Downtown has never been a really livable neighborhood until recently.

that's why I believe the hood in one key way is actually better today than it was even over 60 yrs ago. Or back when dt still was THE place to go to for ppl interested in shopping, seeing a movie, working in an office, visiting their doctor or insurance agent, there really wasn't much in the way of nice housing. there were a few nice hotels----too many of them long since gone to seed (though a few are being revived)----but that was about it, & they were mainly for visitors or tourists.

Originally Posted by StethJeff

She's been told this a million times. She doesn't care. She'll keep doing it ad nauseum.

and I'm not going to be any less "ad nauseum" than those ppl who complain that big parking garages included in new devlpt are somehow destroying the future of the hood or making it too burban. Or their main complaint being about that, & NOT over such space requirements making new projs so $$$ to build, they end up getting cancelled. If I weren't so lazy, I'd insert photos of the large, multi level parking spaces under the 2 famous iconic circular apt towers in a prime part of chicago, or the large parking garage that was built under the Lincoln ctr for the performing arts in NYC.

[alki]

Originally Posted by citywatch

If "sanitize" means a city is full of truly large, impressive devlpt, old & new, where all the trappings of success & high achievement are on full display----inc lots of nice hotels, big office bldgs, pricey condo & apt bldgs, big dept stores, lots of cultural & entertainment offerings----then you're describing much of NYC.

I would say most ppl, esp fussy, demanding travelers, would describe the major cities across the atlantic---inc paris or london----as being clean & rather safe looking, at least by the standards of broadway in dtla, or all the pockmarked sections around LA live or where the eleven, luma & evo condo bldgs were put up a few yrs ago.

So I would say that words like "sanitize" or "clean" don't necessarily mean boring or burban.

I think you know what I mean by sanitize. Too many Americans want our cities to be 'disneyed' so they sparkle. If its not new and shiny, then its tarnished. If there are overhead wires, then there is two much grit. The irony of your photoshopping is that I didn't notice the wires until you removed them.

[alki]

From Brigham's blog:

Global Architect Giant SOM Returning to Los Angeles with Corporate Headquarters in Downtown LA

http://brighamyen.com/2012/01/13/global-...merrill-returns-to-downtown-los-angeles/

[citywatch]

Originally Posted by alki

Too many Americans want our cities to be 'disneyed' so they sparkle. If its not new and shiny, then its tarnished.

alki, I think you're being too cynical about all those ppl in america who will visit, for example, europe & won't marvel over 300 yr old great manor houses in britain or grand old castles of vienna by saying "oh, how nice....but they're so old! I'd otherwise like them as much as my new burban hood in the states!"

btw, most ppl do take their surroundings for granted. They won't notice things they've lived with all their life, or have grown accustomed to. in my case, I was so curious why so many ppl would say things similar to what I posted yesterday. Or comments about LA being a city that ppl had to live in for a few yrs before they liked it. Personally, I think it's much better than that, but others seem to feel differently. Why that is, or why there's a feeling of apathy or towards it in the beginning, is something I've wanted to get to the bottom of. Ppl may not be able to point outright to what is amiss about LA, but I'm guessing they do notice weak points about it on a subliminal level.

[Illithid Dude]

Originally Posted by alki

From Brigham's blog:

Global Architect Giant SOM Returning to Los Angeles with Corporate Headquarters in Downtown LA

http://brighamyen.com/2012/01/13/global-...merrill-returns-to-downtown-los-angeles/

I'm actually really excited about this. Not just because it is more offices being built in DTLA, but because they said they want to have a large 'street presence'. It would be great for them to clean up a historic building and have some sort of showroom on the bottom floor. I can't wait to see what becomes of this.

[pesto]

Originally Posted by alki

This need to sanitize is a very suburban concept. Lots of money has been spent trying to make American cities look like their suburban counterparts. That's what Bunker Hill is all about. And I understand its origins.........if its clean looking, its probably safe. But for some of us that means boring.

Most DTs will never be without grit because they are not brand spanking new. Putting utilities underground is an expensive proposition esp when an urban infrastructure already exists and is in place. Its much easier and less expensive when you are starting with a raw piece of land.

DTLA is never going to be perfect. Its never going to look like Laguna Niguel or Irvine. Its always going to have its odd corners and unkempt areas. There will nice sections [see Bunker Hill] and there were be rough sections [see the artist district]. That's what differentiates cities from their suburbs.

What made the Left Bank of Paris exciting for me was the mish mash of shops, odd alleys with food vendors selling their wares, the weird food smells, the incessant odor of Gauloise cigarettes, the smell of weed and the trippy people. The streets were filthy and crowded. For some people, that was the best part of Paris.......for others, they preferred the calm and affluence of the 16th Arrondissement. Cities are about choices and diversity. Grit can be good so long as it doesn't overwhelm.

Not so. Over the last 40 years Paris, London, Manhattan (mid-town, 5th Ave.) have had huge cleaning projects to remove the filth and make the cities look half-way decent again. This was a national scandal and worldwide news story in the 1970's when Paris had basically turned dark gray. There should be many websites with before and after pictures.

//www.atkielski.com/PhotoGallery/Paris/General/OperaCleaningSmall.html

[ladowntowner]

Originally Posted by colemonkee

Driving on the 110 this morning I noticed a crane in the general vicinity of Los Angeles Trade Technical College. Looked to be south of 23rd. Anyone know what's going on here? Could this be the start of Palmer's proposed residential TOD?

colemonkee, I drove by this the other evening and can confirm that the crane you mention is in the exact location outlined in yellow in a photo on Palmer's website captioned "Lorenzo:"

[colemonkee]

^ Makes sense. I haven't had a chance to head up that way and check it out in detail.

[JDRCRASH]

Okay. Updated Lorenzo and moved it to U/C.