LOS ANGELES | Downtown Project Rundown 6.0 - Page 34

ConstructDTLA · #**661** Posted **Apr 6, 2016, 11:08 PM**

Recently:

Urbanize LA’s video coverage of the first big pour at Oceanwide Plaza:

• Video Link

Full Article:
http://urbanize.la/post/inside-oceanwide-plazas-big-concrete-pour

Oceanwide Plaza / Circa by Hunter, on Flickr

Downtown Los Angeles Skyline by Hunter, on Flickr

Metropolis by Hunter, on Flickr

Ten50 by Hunter, on Flickr

The Bloc by Hunter, on Flickr

Wilshire Grand by Hunter, on Flickr

Metropolis by Hunter, on Flickr

Oceanwide Plaza / Circa by Hunter, on Flickr

Staples Center by Hunter, on Flickr

Blossom Plaza by Hunter, on Flickr

State Historic Park by Hunter, on Flickr

Topaz by Hunter, on Flickr

Garey Project by Hunter, on Flickr

And a closer look at the crown going up on the 1st Metropolis tower:

Metropolis by Hunter, on Flickr

Metropolis by Hunter, on Flickr

Blossom Plaza / Gold Line

• Video Link

LA Federal Courthouse

• Video Link

brudy · #**662** Posted **Apr 7, 2016, 12:17 AM**

Really awesome stuff!

BrandonJXN · #**663** Posted **Apr 7, 2016, 12:49 AM**

That Hooters next to Circa is on borrowed time. It really needs to go. Blossom Plaza is pretty nice but I have a minor gripe: even though it's in Chinatown, can Metro please redesign the Chinatown Gold Line station into something a bit more contemporary and not so Ching Chong Chinaman?

NativeOrange · #**664** Posted **Apr 7, 2016, 2:08 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by BrandonJXN

That Hooters next to Circa is on borrowed time. It really needs to go. Blossom Plaza is pretty nice but I have a minor gripe: even though it's in Chinatown, can Metro please redesign the Chinatown Gold Line station into something a bit more contemporary and not so Ching Chong Chinaman?

The proposed hotel towers on that site include the Hooters lot.

WestCoastSupertall · #**665** Posted **Apr 7, 2016, 3:05 AM**

Amazing update Hunter, I love the drone shots! That 4k camera makes it look like a video game.

Mojeda101 · #**666** Posted **Apr 7, 2016, 3:25 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by NativeOrange

The proposed hotel towers on that site include the Hooters lot.

Just close your eyes for a second and imagine Figueroa by 2024. As the athletes of the Olympics drive through Downtown in their cars. The road has been modified with a bike lane and more trees. The streetcar runs by all the new projects that have since risen. The recently revamped convention center in it's colorful new facade. The massive Circa and Fig Central towers loom and cast shadows while lighting up the street with their massive LED signs. Hanzen and Olympic Tower fill in the gaps inbetween the rest, and the double tower hotel on the hooters site welcomes those from the freeway. It's going to be the hottest street in downtown, mark my words.

One can dream. Let's hope it turns into reality.

citywatch · #**667** Posted **Apr 7, 2016, 3:27 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by ConstructDTLA

Metropolis by Hunter on Flickr

Quote:

Hollywood Locations had newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst’s grandiose vision for building the Los Angeles newspaper, Herald Examiner, in Mission Revival and Spanish Colonial Revival styles to thank for its launch into the movie locations business. In fact, not only did the film location company have Hearst to thank for building the newspaper’s headquarters – ornately designed with gold, marble hand-painted floor tiles in downtown Los Angeles in 1914, it had Hearst’s contentious, near decade-long battle with striking unions to thank for the newspaper’s demise in 1989 when it folded.

“We were one of the first companies to specialize in the commercial world,” said Santa Clarita resident since 1986, Pete Brosnan, a principal of Hollywood Locations and Los Angeles Center Studios.

“We lobbied the Hearst Corp. for their old Los Angeles building in 1989 when it went out of business. Julia Morgan designed it and we found a great way to keep it alive. We repped the building from 1989 until six months ago when a developer bought it. The Herald was a flagship for us.”

...Hollywood Locations took over the old Union (Oil) headquarters located near the Bonaventure Hotel. The movie location company then built eight 18,000 square foot stages in a joint venture to co-develop and co-own the operation in August 1999. Located just west of the 110 Harbor freeway in downtown, Los Angeles Center Studios spans 20 acres between 5th, Bixel, Boylston, and Maryland streets off Beaudry Avenue. Brosnan said production companies love it because they can “soak up the energy of downtown,” but being west of the freeway gives creative folks a buffer from the downtown grind.

As for the Herald Examiner building in Los Angeles, the landmark will be converted into mixed-use space to attract creative office users and ground floor retail users. New York developer Georgetown Co. is partnering with the Hearst Corp. on the $40 million project to redevelop the building, including restoration of the lobby and Spanish-Moorish façade, while opening up the street-level arched windows that were enclosed decades ago during a 10-year strike against the paper, reported the Los Angeles Times.

Steve Hearst, vice president of the Hearst Corp. and great grandson of William Randolph Hearst, told the Times that the building has “been asleep a long time. It's time to wake her up.” And given that, the building also needs a good polishing after sitting vacant nearly 30 years.

“The Hearsts finally entered into a development deal about six months ago and we no longer represent it for filming,” Brosnan said of the historic building that launched Hollywood Locations. “The film industry cried a bit of a tear because the Herald Examiner building won’t be there anymore.”

.

NativeOrange · #**668** Posted **Apr 7, 2016, 6:55 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mojeda101

Just close your eyes for a second and imagine Figueroa by 2024. As the athletes of the Olympics drive through Downtown in their cars. The road has been modified with a bike lane and more trees. The streetcar runs by all the new projects that have since risen. The recently revamped convention center in it's colorful new facade. The massive Circa and Fig Central towers loom and cast shadows while lighting up the street with their massive LED signs. Hanzen and Olympic Tower fill in the gaps inbetween the rest, and the double tower hotel on the hooters site welcomes those from the freeway. It's going to be the hottest street in downtown, mark my words.

One can dream. Let's hope it turns into reality.

Also, given the position of the convention center and staples guarantees those glass facades will be illuminated by the sunset every day. Should be quite a view from the right vantage point.

cesar90 · #**669** Posted **Apr 7, 2016, 4:49 PM**

• Video Link

Wilcal · #**670** Posted **Apr 7, 2016, 5:33 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by citywatch

.

Citywatch,
my words exactly. The Salvation Army and whoever owns/occupies the building on the left, and for that fact all other owners of the small decrepit buildings along Francisco and the surrounding blocks, are sitting on gold mines. Its time to sell out and leave. Allow progress to proceed

caligrad · #**671** Posted **Apr 7, 2016, 5:42 PM**

^^^ Yeah they should have sold when Metropolis broke ground. I'm guessing the owners are playing the waiting game for the highest bidder. Once the Marriot expansion happens, those plots will be on borrowed time. I thought AEG was in the process of trying to buy up properties surrounding their Marriot expansion along Francisco street?

In Regards to Cesar90 video

Wow, crazy how you were able to capture Downtown Long Beach way from the Getty.

Wally West · #**672** Posted **Apr 7, 2016, 5:46 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by caligrad

Wow, crazy how you were able to capture Downtown Long Beach way from the Getty.

You'd be surprised how much one can see after a rainy day. That's why I enjoy going hiking after it rains because the views are the best.

caligrad · #**673** Posted **Apr 7, 2016, 5:56 PM**

^^^ Yeah ive never had the luck of getting to the hills or the Getty on a clear day.

On a side note, Anyone else notice in hunters pics that they are already starting the core formwork for Oceanwides tallest tower? and looks like they already have some steel beams in place for the Flower street wall, they are moving really fast now, thankfully.

black_crow · #**674** Posted **Apr 7, 2016, 8:04 PM**

@cesar90

Some of your shots are just insane good. I don't even know how you can get a shot like that one with the Getty Museum.

I might sponsor you a drone one day, just let me use one of your shots once in a while.

Keep up your good work.

@Hunter

Also some really nice pictures.

cesar90 · #**675** Posted **Apr 7, 2016, 9:56 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by black_crow

@cesar90

Some of your shots are just insane good. I don't even know how you can get a shot like that one with the Getty Museum.

I might sponsor you a drone one day, just let me use one of your shots once in a while.

Keep up your good work.

Thank you black_crow. A lot of them made possible by the still reliable "the Beast" that tours me around the states.

you should just tell me what shot you want.

• Video Link

Eightball · #**676** Posted **Apr 8, 2016, 2:18 PM**

Despite recent violent incidents, violent crime down this year DTLA
http://www.scpr.org/news/2016/04/07/59353/crime-dropping-in-downtown-la-despite-recent-viole/

Resident · #**677** Posted **Apr 8, 2016, 4:19 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eightball

Despite recent violent incidents, violent crime down this year DTLA
http://www.scpr.org/news/2016/04/07/59353/crime-dropping-in-downtown-la-despite-recent-viole/

Crime went up 50% last year. And now it dropped 0.3%. So that means it is up 49.7% from two years ago.........

colemonkee · #**678** Posted **Apr 8, 2016, 4:31 PM**

LA Forumers, there is an amazing section of this forum where discussions on crime rates and homeless people can flourish. You can view it here: http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/forumdisplay.php?f=24

Please feel free to start a discussion there. In discussing it here, you'll need to provide some sort of documentation of crime rates somehow effecting known developments, or it will be considered off topic in this particular thread, and summarily deleted or moved. I'm only doing this because you all know too well how quickly this thread tends to veer off track.

Thank you!

Wilcal · #**679** Posted **Apr 8, 2016, 5:07 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by colemonkee

LA Forumers, there is an amazing section of this forum where discussions on crime rates and homeless people can flourish. You can view it here: http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/forumdisplay.php?f=24

Please feel free to start a discussion there. In discussing it here, you'll need to provide some sort of documentation of crime rates somehow effecting known developments, or it will be considered off topic in this particular thread, and summarily deleted or moved. I'm only doing this because you all know too well how quickly this thread tends to veer off track.

Thank you!

I see what you are saying, however, your stipulation would be impossible to accomplish. It is only my intuition (along with many other forumers, I'm sure) that crime rates do factor into development decisions. After all, these developers are not investing millions or billions of dollars into a community which is rife with street dwelling homeless and resultant increases in serious crime. In more practical words, Joe and Jane Smith are not going to lay out $650,000 for a condo and have some drug addled or alcoholic homeless person camping on the sidewalk below their unit. Nor will Jane enjoy having to hold on to her purse as she walks past very questionable types hanging out on the corner. Worse yet, she will especially not appreciate it when she haplessly step in human shit on the sidewalk, ruining her $500 shoes she just bought at a very nice boutique on 9th and Broadway. You get the idea. Mark my words, if this does continue unabated, development will stop, and this forum will have nothing to talk about. In fact, it would cease to exist.

colemonkee · #**680** Posted **Apr 8, 2016, 5:40 PM**

^ I totally hear you, but so far that is all speculation or anecdotal, and most certainly not showing up in any trends, meaning, the 50% increase in crime year over year from 2014 to 2015 did nothing to measurably decrease or prevent development. In fact we saw an increase.

But what these - at this point purely speculative - discussions do have an effect on is devolving the thread and starting arguments, which causes me to have to come in and clean up the thread and (sometimes) suspend forumers. In an effort to both allow the conversation to continue, and mitigate the suspension and forumers and the time I have to spend cleaning up the thread, I'm putting my foot down and having these discussions moved to the City Discussions sub-forum, where these kinds of discussions are already happening. It's not an LA thread thing, it's a forum-wide thing.

If there is an article that links the rise in crime specifically in downtown Los Angeles to a downturn in development, or a downturn in sales or rentals, that would be wholly appropriate to put here. But rampant speculation or discussion about how it might affect development in the future can, should, and will happen in City Discussions, where it happens for all other cities.

Hopefully this makes sense. Frankly I don't believe that this stipulation is impossible to achieve: you are all reasonably bright people who can make the delineation between development news and speculation on crime.

Just as a heads up, I am going to delete any further discussion on this topic in this thread, and or move it to another thread that I'll create when I have some free time for that discussion to continue.