LOS ANGELES | Downtown Project Rundown 4.0

[BrandonJXN]

Originally Posted by pesto

Amen. It should be a no-brainer to remove the County Buildings and resdesign the space for attractive mid-rises, easy pedestrian flow and comfortable outdoor gathering spaces. Just a little bit of class architecture or streetscape could make this another DT draw and link to Little Tokyo, etc.

No. The County Buildings need to be destroyed and replaced with more park space.

[pesto]

Originally Posted by ThreeHundred

No. The County Buildings need to be destroyed and replaced with more park space.

Well, reasonable people can disagree, and I'm a huge fan of more park space downtown.

But Civic Center does not need more open space; it has plenty if used properly. It needs attractive buildings mixed with usable open space and an appropriate flow. And a lot more people, living, working and visiting.

Now if you want more park space on Bway, Spring, Main, Hill, etc., I could buy into that. There the density of buildings is fine but you need more local amenities to lure people in.

[LAsam]

Originally Posted by pesto

Well, reasonable people can disagree, and I'm a huge fan of more park space downtown.

But Civic Center does not need more open space; it has plenty if used properly. It needs attractive buildings mixed with usable open space and an appropriate flow. And a lot more people, living, working and visiting.

Now if you want more park space on Bway, Spring, Main, Hill, etc., I could buy into that. There the density of buildings is fine but you need more local amenities to lure people in.

That park would definitely be a nice spot for a mid-rise hotel, some mid-rise apts condos, and some ground level retail/restaurants. You could also sprinkle in some new mid-rise governmental office space if the demand is there.

[all of the trash]

Originally Posted by pesto

Well, reasonable people can disagree, and I'm a huge fan of more park space downtown.

But Civic Center does not need more open space; it has plenty if used properly. It needs attractive buildings mixed with usable open space and an appropriate flow. And a lot more people, living, working and visiting.

Now if you want more park space on Bway, Spring, Main, Hill, etc., I could buy into that. There the density of buildings is fine but you need more local amenities to lure people in.

The point of razing the county buildings is to create connectivity to 1st, temple and grand. its not necessarily about park space but whats unique for this particular park. the park should edge the sidewalk all around. in a dream world, spring, hill and broadway would go underground and the park would be one large seamless plot of green, a badly needed forest in urban LA. there's plenty of surface lots around downtown for midrise and other parks/pocket parks.

[yeah215]

I agree. The point of replacing the courthouse and the county hall is not to replace them new mid-rise buildings. The point would be to open up the park to 1rst, Temple and more broadly along Grand.

That doesn't mean there can't be any buildings on those blocks. Those blocks are very large and could have some governmental office space.

The truth is that all the county buildings there are old and should be replaced. The law library, house of records, and the criminal courthouse should all be replaced.

I think there should be serious plan to replace the courthouses, county hall of administration, and so forth. The current county mall is a good place to rebuild them, including on the old state building site, Parker Center site, and back behind Little Tokyo on the other side of Alameda.

There is another option for the County Hall, which could be a nice big, skyscraper type building on the site on Fig across from the the 7+Fig, the Cal Plaza 3 site, or perhaps something along the lines of the old Pacific Stock Exchange proposal.

[citywatch]

Originally Posted by bobcat

Civc Park fountain testing. Much nicer than I expected!

• Video Link

^ That's a good example of how much better the hood is today than it was over 50 yrs ago, when dt ironically enough still was considered more of THE center of LA. When ppl say LA was so much better a looong time ago, & get nostalgic for its past, they better consider the difference between what's shown in that vid compared with what used to be there ....



blog.hemmings.com


blog.hemmings.com


kcet.org

^ that's another example of why the hood was so vulnerable to falling apart, even before many of today's fwys were built or cars had become so popular, & way before the old red cars train system had been shut down. It was a hood that many ppl found far too easy to walk away from, cuz it wasn't nice enough to make them want to stick around.

btw, I think the main problem with the existing govt bldgs on either side of the new civic ctr park is that they block the view of major things behind the bldgs, mainly the new fountain. But even if ppl could see around those bldgs, & could finally easily appreciate the geysers of the large fountain, I don't think they'd necessarily start pouring into the park.

Bringing lots of ppl into that part of the hood is more likely to happen when all the parking lots south of 1st st are filled in with new devlpt, esp the grand ave proj across from disney hall. Parks of & by themselves aren't automatically going to be crowd pleasers, whether they're surrounded by bldgs or not. I recall pointing to the example of a large park in pasadena that is very easy to see, & very green & nice. It's not too far from old town pasadena----which serves as that city's dt----But it's strangely quiet during most hrs of most days of the wk.

[BrandonJXN]

So I went downtown yesterday and I observed a few things:

-The renovation of 845 Fig is underway.

-The Luxe Hotel (the former Holiday Inn) is wrapping up work for it's new entryway.

-Renovations at the Hall of Justice seem to be underway.

-I actually went to the DWP Building at night and walked around the moat (something I've never done) and it looks beautiful. They have installed LED lights under the panes of glass that line the walkway from Hope to the entryway. And the fountains are really really beautiful.

-Something else I noticed is the huge amount of law enforcement. You would think we were at level orange with the amount of cops on foot, bikes, and just driving around.

[Mojeda101]

Has anyone passed by The courtyard Marriott lately? I went last week with no progress done for a while. Hoping they might kickstart this weekend.

[Trojan]

I had lunch at the new Counter Restaurant on 7th. It was great, so nice to have another solid restaurant on the row.

[Easy]

Originally Posted by ThreeHundred

-Something else I noticed is the huge amount of law enforcement. You would think we were at level orange with the amount of cops on foot, bikes, and just driving around.

It was reported a week or two ago that LAPD assigned extra cops downtown. I had assumed that it was more in the skid row area, but it sounds like it's all over.

[Mojeda101]

Drove by the Courtyard Marriot site. They removed some of the blue covering the site. Why?

[sings twin]

Originally Posted by Mojeda101

Drove by the Courtyard Marriot site. They removed some of the blue covering the site. Why?

Is it because they are about to break ground or would they not remove the blue covers to do that?

Anyone heard anything to contrary?

[Illithid Dude]

Speaking of hotels....

Brigham reports that a building in South Park on the corner of Pico and Flower is being turned into a botique hotel.



This was formally a SRO hotel, so... good news.

Also, an art and design store is opening up in the Arts District. It is called 'Poketo'

http://www.laimyours.com/16346/opening-up-shop-a-preview-and-a-word-with-poketo-on-their-space/

[JDRCRASH]

Thanks Illithid!

Thats next to City Lights Fig lofts. And it's right across the street from Hooters and the South Figueroa project parking lot. Hopefully some action will happen here, and something will be built on that giant slab of emptiness.

[ziggy331]

• Video Link

[DistrictDirt]

Pretty slick video! I imagine this will get people even more pumped about the stadium.

[colemonkee]

Great video, but this goes nowhere without an NFL team in that stadium. Right now that's the biggest hurdle.

[Virtual Urban Vision]

The fountain looks amazing I look forward to getting off at the Civic Center Red Line station in order to see it. The civic center has been a major focal point for city planners for several decades. It seems as though after the hall of records was torn down they just lost focus. I am glad to see this completed in my lifetime.

[pesto]

Originally Posted by citywatch

^ That's a good example of how much better the hood is today than it was over 50 yrs ago, when dt ironically enough still was considered more of THE center of LA. When ppl say LA was so much better a looong time ago, & get nostalgic for its past, they better consider the difference between what's shown in that vid compared with what used to be there ....

Like the fountain. Reminds me of the Mulhooland Fountain over on Los Feliz. Been changing colors for 70 years or so now.

[LosAngelesBeauty]

Originally Posted by all of the trash

The point of razing the county buildings is to create connectivity to 1st, temple and grand. its not necessarily about park space but whats unique for this particular park. the park should edge the sidewalk all around. in a dream world, spring, hill and broadway would go underground and the park would be one large seamless plot of green, a badly needed forest in urban LA. there's plenty of surface lots around downtown for midrise and other parks/pocket parks.

Wow that's the first thing I've ever completely agreed with you on!