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Posted Nov 29, 2012, 6:30 PM
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Registered User
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Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 6,702
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Quote:
Originally Posted by LAofAnaheim
(cue Citywatch with the negativity)
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ok, laofanaheim, if you say so....
the proposed bldg is too short
the new bldg is bad cuz it has only 12 floors instead of 80
the proj has too much enclosed parking
the proposal is bad cuz it shouldn't have any space for cars
the proj's architecture is bad
the colors of the proj are bad
the new bldg would be better in the burbs instead of dt
the proposal is bad cuz it has an asshat
the proj isn't friendly enough to the sidewalk
the bldg has too much stucco instead of granite
the proj doesn't have stores on the 1st floor
the proj is bad cuz it's not of Pritzker prize caliber
the new bldg is bad cuz it's not as good as what's found in [insert name of other city here]
as for the following story, depending on one's POV, it's either good or bad...
Quote:
As downtown L.A. grows trendier, Spring Street Arcade is left behind
The stores that were once crowded with immigrant shoppers struggle to stay in business. The family that owns the 88-year-old complex has plans to try to attract young, hip residents.
Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times
By Sam Allen, Los Angeles Times
November 29, 2012
The salesmen at the Spring Street Arcade spend their day gazing out at a city that's passing them by. All around, a trendy downtown is on the rise — pet stores selling gourmet dog chews, chic bars with ginger and juniper soda cocktails, a new generation of mostly young residents jogging in spandex and cruising on bikes.
But inside the 88-year-old shopping arcade, with its giant curved skylight, arched Spanish Renaissance entryways and Beaux Arts exterior, many of the stores are vacant, and the remaining merchants seem stuck in another era. Bargain-rate clothes, toys, suitcases and DVDs share shelf space with dusty boomboxes and T-shirts from '90s rock bands like Korn and Nirvana.
Mohad Azimi lingers through the morning outside his kitchen appliance shop, chatting with the Taiwanese salesman at the toy store next to him. These days, the jokes focus on a new Starbucks that's just opened at Spring and 6th streets. Maybe that's where all the people are going now, the merchants say. "Look around here — business is dead," Azimi says as he looks across the arcade's empty corridor, which stretches from Spring to Broadway. "Nobody comes inside."
Azimi opened his business in the early 1990s, after emigrating from Afghanistan. Back then, Los Angeles was still enjoying a boom in immigration from places like Guatemala, Mexico and El Salvador, and the mall was so busy on the weekends that you could barely walk inside. Broadway was a bustling promenade, with shoppers pouring in on bus lines from all over the city.
But (now) he makes only a few sales each week, he says, and he's not sure he can make it to the end of the year. "The new residents, they don't have a family, they don't have anyone to cook for," Azimi says. "They just have a dog."
The retail economy was so strong that Broadway storefronts famously commanded rents similar to those of Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. But changes in immigration patterns, improved economic conditions in Mexico, competition in other communities and the recession have left many downtown merchants fighting to survive. While new, "500 Days of Summer" residents are frequenting bars and restaurants and coffeehouses, they have little need for the bargain shops that line the arcade.
"Any store you opened here on Broadway, it was a gold mine," says Cesar Balbuena, a 60-year-old electronics salesman who has worked downtown since 1971. For the last 28 of those years, he's been a fixture at Audio Video Plaza, a glass-walled electronics shop at the edge of the arcade.
The first signs of decline, he says, came around 2000, when an economic downturn hit many of the low-income workers who did their shopping at the arcade. Broadway began facing stronger competition from markets in such communities as East L.A. and Huntington Park and, later, chains like Costco and Wal-Mart. Mexico's economy was rapidly improving, cutting the supply of shoppers who would come north to buy merchandise.
These days, the dozen or so remaining businesses inside the arcade are desperate. Many of the merchants scrape by on month-to-month leases, and aren't sure how much longer they can hold out. Before the Great Recession, Balbuena says, Audio Video Plaza cleared more than $10,000 in sales on a good day. Now, it hopes for $3,000. "It's empty!" Balbuena says as he steps out into the open corridor of the mall. "Ten years ago, eight years ago, there was no way you could pass."
Over the last decade, the Hellen family has watched as the arcade's fortunes have faded. The Australian family bought the landmark in the 1980s during the boom times. Like many property owners along Broadway, the Hellens generated their revenue from storefront rents and didn't bother to lease out the eleven floors above, which were in such disrepair that the city ordered them vacated.
But in the last few years, the family has started to embrace a vision of a trendier Broadway, fueled by downtown's growing residential population. The family recently converted the floors above the arcade into upscale apartments. Next, they're working on major renovations to the arcade itself, hoping to attract the new downtown dwellers.
By this time next year, the family hopes to add an English pub and a host of new restaurants to the mall offering gourmet tacos, vegetarian cuisine, crepes and gelato. Construction work has already begun in some of the arcade's vacant shops, says Greg Martin, a vice president at the Hellens' company, Downtown Management Inc. "The dynamic has changed," Martin says. "But Broadway is still a valuable piece of the puzzle."
"The 'cowboy days' of Broadway are slowly coming to an end," says Tom Gilmore, a veteran developer in the historic core. "Landlords are beginning to invest in a longer view of how the street evolves."
Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times
Josh Gray-Emmer, Flora Bates and Max Perry, from left, relax outside the Spring F-o-r Coffee shop across
the street from the Spring Street Arcade in downtown Los Angeles. The arcade is trying to attract young
hip residents with renovations.
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