LOS ANGELES | Downtown Project Rundown 4.0

[alki]

Originally Posted by Illithid Dude

And I'm sure I missed some, but that's all I got. Would this be something you would like me to continue doing on a weekly basis?

I vote for once a month.......unless you think things are changing that quickly.

Sorry about repeating the Parish posting.......missed it in your post.

[colemonkee]

GREAT retail roundup, Illithid Dude. I think Le Ka has been under construction for approximately 65 years now.

There's a ton happening in the retail and restaurant scene downtown. That list is pretty damn comprehensive, and still doesn't include the French restaurant going in across Grand Ave. from Bottega Louie. Or Josef Centano's new restaurant opening up in the old Urban Noodle space. Or the salad place that's supposed to go in on the Main Street side of Medallion. Or Badmaash, the Indian-themed gastropub that will eventually go into the old Charcoal Grill space on the 2nd Street side of the Higgins Building. There's an incredible - and hopefully sustainable - amount of retail activity and momentum going on throughout downtown, that, as a longtime resident, is more exciting than the new highrise developments proposed.

[alki]

Originally Posted by mhays

Because in Seattle they can have much less parking...commonly 0.6 or 0.8 spaces per unit. That makes smaller properties viable (14,000 sf sometimes), and greatly reduces construction costs.

Also, people will pay more of a premium to live within walking distance of the CBD in Seattle than in LA. Here, greater Downtown is the center of nearly everything, vs. the dispersed model of LA. Plus there's more of a walking and transit culture.

I don't know how long you've been posting here but if you are new, welcome to this forum. You'll find it more introspective and interactive than the Seattle forum with a good moderator who doesn't jump all over me if I disagree with him.

[LA/OCman]

Originally Posted by alki

Pesto, that's my point........why should it be on the Westside and why should it have to take up 40 acres??? There are any number of vacant one acre sites DT that would have been more than adequate to site the complex; locations that would have been much more democratic.

I don't mean to be argumentative or derogatory but you are thinking just like an Angeleno. A new museum? Of course it has to be on the Westside. And of course, it has to be on this huge expanse of land. And it has to be isolated on a mt top so the masses can't get to it.

Lets not forget the greatest museums.....Le Louvre, the Whitney, the Art Institute of Chicago etc......all have urban locations. For me, the Getty was a wasted opportunity. It should have been DT.

Alki, I really do respect your opinions and am amazed at your knowledge and history of Los Angeles..but I have to disagree on the Getty Downtown. If you read the Yelp reviews...you will see why. The Getty does not have the collection...say the Norton Simon does. Yelpers give the Getty 4.5 out of 5. Why? The panoramic views, gardens and architecture. The collection is loved by some, but it will take generations to evolve. MOCA and the (future) Broad fit in quite nicely Downtown. So does the Museum of Natural History by USC which has been renovated and has added a educational garden (replacing a parking lot). The Calif Science Center has completed another addition in Exposition Park and the shuttle will make a home there. The Grammy Museum is also Downtown which is a nice place to spend a couple of hours.

I am the biggest advocate for Downtown...but I like my escape to both the Getty Center and the Getty Villa in Malibu. And I love the architecture, the travertine, the landscaping and views and evidently so do the tourists as well. The galleries are first class. Of course it doesn't hurt having a good restaurant and the opportunity to have a bottle of wine outside on a beautiful day. BTW, the two Getty's outdraw the Art Institute of Chicago, the Tate Britain in London (not the Tate Modern) and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

[112597jorge]

It would be great if a new Getty musuem opened in downtown, that would be arguably one of the best museum if it has that same uniqueness the other Gettysburg have and also because of it's great location in LA.

[Illithid Dude]

Originally Posted by pesto

I haven't been DT in some months; any suggestion on 4 or 5 new places to eat/drink that I should definitely catch?

I just ate at Towne the other day, and it was fantastic. Lots of ex Bottega Louie people. Baco Mercato is great, and relatively cheap for that kind of high concept restaurant. I haven't been to Industriel or Kitchen Table yet, but both have generally favorable reviews (even though LAW hated Industriel). Lastly, Mo Chica opened on 7th down from Bottega Louie and is, IMO, fantastic. To use that word again, it's hipster Peruvian.

Originally Posted by alki

I vote for once a month.......unless you think things are changing that quickly.

Originally Posted by colemonkee

GREAT retail roundup, Illithid Dude. I think Le Ka has been under construction for approximately 65 years now.

There's a ton happening in the retail and restaurant scene downtown. That list is pretty damn comprehensive, and still doesn't include the French restaurant going in across Grand Ave. from Bottega Louie. Or Josef Centano's new restaurant opening up in the old Urban Noodle space. Or the salad place that's supposed to go in on the Main Street side of Medallion. Or Badmaash, the Indian-themed gastropub that will eventually go into the old Charcoal Grill space on the 2nd Street side of the Higgins Building. There's an incredible - and hopefully sustainable - amount of retail activity and momentum going on throughout downtown, that, as a longtime resident, is more exciting than the new highrise developments proposed.

Don't forget, I only posted things that happened in the past week. So, ColeDayMan, I didn't post info on those restaurants because there was nothing new on them in the past week- though Badmaash sounds particularly interesting. And yes, Alki, I do believe things are changing that quickly

[mhays]

Originally Posted by alki

Although its changing, Seattle has high parking requirements DT. You guys have got to understand........developers live to develop. If the demand is there, they will find a way to build. Its as simple as that.

Seattle has required zero (0) parking for Downtown housing for since the mid-80s (CBD and other districts west of I-5). Peripheral urban districts also have lowered requirements in the past few years including some now at zero. Now we're debating farther transit-friendly nodes.

I even lived in a building built in the late 80s with no parking. There are many examples of 0, including new buildings, as well as conversions.

Typically new apartment towers have 0.5 to 0.8 spaces per unit.

Here's a blog post I wrote for the Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce a couple months ago. http://www.djc.com/blogs/SeattleScape/2012/05/08/council-may-right-size-parking-requirements/

[citywatch]

Originally Posted by blackcat23

Working class people need places where they can afford to run a storefront and shop too. Can't expect everything to cater to people of greater affluence.

But at the very least that doesn't excuse owners of bldgs in LA for allowing them to rot. that's even truer if claims going back over 25 yrs that the $$ that owners get from stores renting space along broadway are very high. And what does it say about the type of shoppers on that street if they're attracted to dives? even more so since stores like 99 cents, walmart or the dollar tree have opened up all over since the 1990s, so it's not like broadway still is the only game in town.

It's that I'm hoping that the shoppers who started fleeing from the hood over 40 yrs ago begin to return to dtla, while the shoppers who've allowed broadway to become such a & start staying away from dt & going to other hoods.

but your pov is just one reason that so much of LA, but esp dt, has been stuck in the way described by alki.......

Originally Posted by alki

But I never understood why so many bldgs like the one above were allowed to deteriorate. ...... ther cities would kill for a neighborhood like McArthur Park while LA ignores it. Why?! The answer is a complex one........but I think you are capturing the jist of it. Throw in some corruption and LA's strange politics and I think you get the answer in totality.

btw, I think that fussing over the getty being in brentwood instead of dt is an exercise in futility, if only cuz what's done is done, & cuz, as described by la/ocman, the getty is a nice addition to LA. It adds to the culture of the whole city, & doesn't represent a sticking point the way that things like the roxie theater on broadway do. iow, we've got so many really things to deal with, that arguing about the getty today....15 yrs since it opened....really is a case of crying over spilt milk.

I think hoping for more improvements like this is more realistic in light of how things have evolved in LA....



grandpark.lacounty.gov

it's no longer the way it used to be....


plinko923

^ Getting rid of gaps & deadzones like that & making the hood look less should remain the prime target.....more than just the issue of improving transit, increasing the height of bldgs, banning parking podiums, reducing the amt of parking per se, making sure that condo towers have stores on their 1st floor, or telling architects to make their projs look more urban. That goal also won't be as difficult if ppl in LA don't make excuses for the slumlords & swapmeets on streets like broadway.

[pesto]

Originally Posted by alki

Pesto, that's my point........why should it be on the Westside and why should it have to take up 40 acres??? There are any number of vacant one acre sites DT that would have been more than adequate to site the complex; locations that would have been much more democratic.

I don't mean to be argumentative or derogatory but you are thinking just like an Angeleno. A new museum? Of course it has to be on the Westside. And of course, it has to be on this huge expanse of land. And it has to be isolated on a mt top so the masses can't get to it.

Lets not forget the greatest museums.....Le Louvre, the Whitney, the Art Institute of Chicago etc......all have urban locations. For me, the Getty was a wasted opportunity. It should have been DT.

Of course, you cite museums in flat cities, so they're not likely to build on a hillside.

Basically, a category mistake. The Getty is not a great art gallery, it's a center for art and manuscript study, restoration and related techniques, that caters to the world. It also has an art gallery, gardens, ponds and views.

You already have LACMA, the Fowler, Broad and Norton Simon in urban areas. The Huntington and the Getty would be ridiculous in a high rise on 1 acre. The have a dozen buildings, gardens, lakes, etc. Look at SF, who put the De Young in a park away from other buidlings or the Palace of Fine Arts in a remote suburban area away from transit. The POINT is to have a beautiful location, not a packed-in one. The Getty could not have gotten the land on the westside to do so without excessive costs and delays.

You are also exaggerating the remoteness. It's in Brentwood, 1 mile from Wilshire and the Purple Line and basically on the 405.

[pesto]

Some here are still thinking backwards: blame the people who don't shop DT and the "slumlords". The people left because the suburban centers made it easy to shop there, while DT clung to an old image of what shopping should be like.

The slumlords don't want to be slumlords: half the buildings are EMPTY or so near that they might as well be. The only rented parts are 200 sq. ft. facing the sidewalk on the 1st floor; the rest are often either storage or, more likely, just plain empty.

The slumlords would love for the area to be Rodeo or SaMo, but it isn't. Efforts to have quality retail DT started failing 60 years ago and collapsed completely maybe 50 years ago. With zero demand for enormous empty buildings, prices dropped and lower price renters moved in. Reality speaks for itself: the only lessees were retailers and service providers to the bottom end of the market. Why would this area look like anything other than Tijuana?

As we know, this is now changing. With some hope of recouping their investments, "slumlords" are improving their buildings, especially off of Bway. On Bway, it is a slower process because the old "down" model is still viable. It's caught between those who are doing fine with Fallas Paredes and those would love to charge higher rents for trendy clubs, with rented space above them, but aren't getting enough demand due to Fallas Paredes.

[Valyrian Steel]

that I'm hoping that the shoppers who started fleeing from the hood over 40 yrs ago begin to return to dtla, while the shoppers who've allowed broadway to become such a & start staying away from dt & going to other hoods.

You never fail to outdo yourself with your comments.

[citywatch]

Originally Posted by pesto

The slumlords don't want to be slumlords: half the buildings are EMPTY or so near that they might as well be.

pesto, does that include the owner of the roxie theater who is so 'slummy' he isn't even willing to do something as simple as removing the haphazardly placed lettering on his bldg's marquee? I won't even mention how owners like him (or them) are so cheap or lazy, that there isn't even an effort made to find a matching color when painting over portions of the outer wall, which I'm guessing have been tagged over the past few yrs or months. but I guess we should all be happy that such owners at least bother to remove graffiti to begin with.

meanwhile, there's more good news not too far away from the other good news that the grand civic ctr pk finally is going to be officially opened later this wk. Another gap is going to be filled in!

$100-million Little Tokyo apartment complex to be developed


Sares-Regis Group plans to build this $100-million apartment complex at San Pedro and 2nd streets in
Los Angeles. (Sares-Regis Group / July 21, 2012)

By Roger Vincent
July 22, 2012

Construction of a long-planned 240-unit apartment complex in the Little Tokyo district of downtown Los Angeles will more forward with a new developer.

Irvine-based Sares-Regis Group bought a 1.74-acre parking lot at 2nd and San Pedro streets where it will build a $100-million apartment community. The complex was planned years ago by the seller, the Related Cos., which has developed other apartment buildings nearby.

Little Tokyo, near City Hall, is one of the oldest residential neighborhoods in the area. Additional apartments, restaurants and shops have arrived in the last decade.

“Little Tokyo has had shopping and housing for a long time,” said Bill Montgomery, president of multifamily development for Sares-Regis. “We think it’s a dynamic little enclave in the middle of downtown.”

Sares-Regis expects to start work in March on a seven-story complex that will include apartments, town houses, shops and a public parking garage. It will have a pool, fitness club and rooftop outdoor deck.

The developer, and financial partner Pritzker Realty Group, expect most tenants will be young professionals who work downtown and would like to be able to walk to their jobs. Average monthly rent will be about $2,200, Montgomery said.

Sares-Regis has a portfolio of more than 13,000 apartments that it owns or manages.

“We are in expansion mode,” Montgomery said. “Nobody built much in the last four or five years.”

^ that proj is across from the doubletree hotel in little tokyo, & 2 blocks from city hall. The only thing for some ppl is that I recall it originally was penciled in as possibly a 10 or more story tower.

It will be on the no. 2 lot, next to no. 1, which was publicized not long ago as the location of another new apt proj, that's supposed to break ground later this yr.......



maps.google.com

Nothing better than when another piece of the puzzle is filled in

[alki]

Originally Posted by mhays

Seattle has required zero (0) parking for Downtown housing for since the mid-80s (CBD and other districts west of I-5). Peripheral urban districts also have lowered requirements in the past few years including some now at zero. Now we're debating farther transit-friendly nodes.

I even lived in a building built in the late 80s with no parking. There are many examples of 0, including new buildings, as well as conversions.

Typically new apartment towers have 0.5 to 0.8 spaces per unit.

Here's a blog post I wrote for the Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce a couple months ago. http://www.djc.com/blogs/SeattleScape/2012/05/08/council-may-right-size-parking-requirements/

My apologies..........I thought parking was still required DT since many new bldgs do have parking. I thought parking could be reduced only on appeal by the developer.

Thanks for the link. From my experience, most new bldgs in DT Seattle do have some parking..........we're not at zero parking yet.

If you want to continue this discussion, lets do it on the Seattle forum..........its a bit OT here.

[alki]

Originally Posted by pesto

Of course, you cite museums in flat cities, so they're not likely to build on a hillside.

Basically, a category mistake. The Getty is not a great art gallery, it's a center for art and manuscript study, restoration and related techniques, that caters to the world. It also has an art gallery, gardens, ponds and views.

You already have LACMA, the Fowler, Broad and Norton Simon in urban areas. The Huntington and the Getty would be ridiculous in a high rise on 1 acre. The have a dozen buildings, gardens, lakes, etc. Look at SF, who put the De Young in a park away from other buidlings or the Palace of Fine Arts in a remote suburban area away from transit. The POINT is to have a beautiful location, not a packed-in one. The Getty could not have gotten the land on the westside to do so without excessive costs and delays.

Sorry but there are plenty of museums in hi rise locations in cities that are not flat.......Seattle is just one of many examples. Frankly, hilly cities should encourage museum development in dense urban locations for a number of reasons.

You cite the Broad which is under construction...........however, at the time the Getty was built, DT had one very small museum. Here is the second largest city in the country and its DT is virtually devoid of museums. Talk about making a statement.

My point is that these public jewels........and yes, museums are jewels........don't come along very often. In fact, one every 20 years is an abundance of riches. IMO the opportunities they offer should not be squandered on some remote Westside location.

You are also exaggerating the remoteness. It's in Brentwood, 1 mile from Wilshire and the Purple Line and basically on the 405.

Uh.....if you live in East LA, its remote........if you live in HP, its remote......if you live in S. Central, its remote...........or don't you think people living in those locations would be interested in going to a museum?

DTs develop as a central location so that its accessible to most of a city's residents. Few cities are like LA which has tried for decades to make the Westside its DT.

[alki]

Originally Posted by citywatch

btw, I think that fussing over the getty being in brentwood instead of dt is an exercise in futility, if only cuz what's done is done, & cuz, as described by la/ocman, the getty is a nice addition to LA. It adds to the culture of the whole city, & doesn't represent a sticking point the way that things like the roxie theater on broadway do. iow, we've got so many really things to deal with, that arguing about the getty today....15 yrs since it opened....really is a case of crying over spilt milk.

I guess I am not making myself very clear. The same attitude which let DT deteriorate and ignored slumlords who were doing nothing to maintain their buildings is the same one that thought putting an important museum on top of a hilltop on the Westside was the best possible move.

And that attitude didn't start 20 years ago..........it started right after WW II when GM was allowed to buy up the old street car lines and rip them up so the city would buy its buses. Its the same attitude that thought anything east of La Brea was crap and should be ignored. Its the same attitude that allowed freeway after freeway to rip up one LA neighborhood after another. Its the same attitude that thought strip malls were the best thing since haagan dazs.

Its the same attitude that decided LA was cutting edge and could ignore the old urban paradigm of a central city surrounded by viable neighborhoods. Sixty years later, LA is trying to play catch up and recapture the DT it turned its back on many decades earlier.

Citywatch, if you're going to ignore the big picture, then stop with the nitpicking over telephone poles, overhead lines and parking lots. After all, they are the least of LA's problems.

[citywatch]

Originally Posted by alki

Citywatch, if you're going to ignore the big picture, then stop with the nitpicking over telephone poles, overhead lines and parking lots. After all, they are the least of LA's problems.

alki, the getty is a privately owned non profit cultural facility. the city over 20 yrs ago had absolutely no direct, major control over where it decided to place its museum. are we now going to somehow raise a few billion $$ to relocate it from brentwood to dt? I don't think so.

more importantly, the broad museum is now going up on grand ave, so that's on the schedule....& THAT was greatly helped by the support of the city. so what occurred over 20 yrs ago is now in the record books, & what has been done more recently with the broad museum still is an unfolding chapter.

So it's a case of either trying to rewrite history or ignoring that the apathy of the past....assuming that's THE reason the getty didn't move to dtla....has since been offset by city hall promoting the site on bunker hill for another museum.

btw, the museum of contemporary art & the colburn school of the performing arts were BOTH greatly supported by the city, which is a major reason they're now in dtla.

as for 'nitpicking' over the fugliness that you single out, THAT is 100% controlled & owned by the city. So unlike the idea of moving the getty from brentwood to dtla.....& remembering the fact that the Getty is privately owned & controlled....it's still reasonable to assume that the idea of removing phone poles & wires isn't like hoping we'll all win the $1 billion lotto....or hoping that the Getty will move from a hilltop next to the SD fwy to somewhere around MOCA or the colburn school.

btw, for those keeping track of the large parking lot in little tokyo where a new apt proj mentioned in an article today is planned to go up, this would be the neighboring proj to it.....



Brigham Yen and TCA

^ there wasn't any press release on that proj a few months ago....& it seems to have been mentioned only by brigham yen. So I hope the late 2012 groundbreaking date isn't too sketchy or overly optimistic.

[LosAngelesDreamin]

Originally Posted by alki

It was what was both annoying and exciting for someone like me living in LA. Most cities in this country......at least the more dynamic ones...........have saved most of their good historic bldgs and turned them into important contributors to the urban fabric. In LA, that process is way behind which was good for me because that's what I liked doing......turning ignored and deteriorated bldgs with good bones into viable bldgs again.

But I never understood why so many bldgs like the one above were allowed to deteriorate. McArthur Park, a district with great historic bldgs and a beautiful park, should be an incredible DT adjacent neighorhood where people who work DT live. Instead, landlords are allowed to rent 10 undocumented workers to a 1 bd apt, doing minimal upkeep and accelerating the deterioration of these bldgs. Other cities would kill for a neighborhood like McArthur Park while LA ignores it. Why?! The answer is a complex one........but I think you are capturing the jist of it. Throw in some corruption and LA's strange politics and I think you get the answer in totality.

I agree.. when me and my sister visited Los Angeles last july we drove passed McArthur Park and thought it was beautiful despite all the trash around and rundown looking bldgs... the area has A LOT of potential.. it just needs to be cleaned and have more new development =] more highrises and midrises would be a nice mix

[LosAngelesSportsFan]

Originally Posted by citywatch

pesto, does that include the owner of the roxie theater who is so 'slummy' he isn't even willing to do something as simple as removing the haphazardly placed lettering on his bldg's marquee? I won't even mention how owners like him (or them) are so cheap or lazy, that there isn't even an effort made to find a matching color when painting over portions of the outer wall, which I'm guessing have been tagged over the past few yrs or months. but I guess we should all be happy that such owners at least bother to remove graffiti to begin with.

meanwhile, there's more good news not too far away from the other good news that the grand civic ctr pk finally is going to be officially opened later this wk. Another gap is going to be filled in!






^ that proj is across from the doubletree hotel in little tokyo, & 2 blocks from city hall. The only thing for some ppl is that I recall it originally was penciled in as possibly a 10 or more story tower.

It will be on the no. 2 lot, next to no. 1, which was publicized not long ago as the location of another new apt proj, that's supposed to break ground later this yr.......



maps.google.com

Nothing better than when another piece of the puzzle is filled in

excellent news, and it looks good!

Also, I had emailed the Omni group, the owners of the parking lot abutting the Chase on 9th and Olive to confirm the August start date, and the representative responded that they are still on schedule for a mid August ground breaking!

[Virtual Urban Vision]

I think hoping for more improvements like this is more realistic in light of how things have evolved in LA....



grandpark.lacounty.gov

plinko923

Not sure why but the lot had been vacant for half a century, civic center planners had been trying to make over the area, including old Bunker hill since the 20's. They tore down the Hall of Records in the 60's and just left it that way for decades. Finally something that adds beauty and cohesion to the city will now take the place of the long lost Hall of Records, which should have never been torn down in the first place.

[pesto]

Originally Posted by citywatch

pesto, does that include the owner of the roxie theater who is so 'slummy' he isn't even willing to do something as simple as removing the haphazardly placed lettering on his bldg's marquee? I won't even mention how owners like him (or them) are so cheap or lazy, that there isn't even an effort made to find a matching color when painting over portions of the outer wall, which I'm guessing have been tagged over the past few yrs or months. but I guess we should all be happy that such owners at least bother to remove graffiti to begin with.

meanwhile, there's more good news not too far away from the other good news that the grand civic ctr pk finally is going to be officially opened later this wk. Another gap is going to be filled in!






^ that proj is across from the doubletree hotel in little tokyo, & 2 blocks from city hall. The only thing for some ppl is that I recall it originally was penciled in as possibly a 10 or more story tower.

Nothing better than when another piece of the puzzle is filled in

Drive down Central, Los Angeles, Vermont or 50 other streets all the way to LB and tell me how many dilapidated buildings, bad sign, boarded up windows, graffitti, etc., you see. When you have very low demand, you get the poorest tenants, rents are very low and services are very low. DT is nothing special and it isn't the "slumlords", it's the "landlords" that are taking a chance trying to make a nickel with miniscule revenue and (often) difficult tenants.

Just for fun, why don't you go to a commercial broker and tell him you are interested in buying one of these buildings and see how the income pencils out? You might find that abandoning the building is you best bet (100,000's of building have been abandoned in the US).