LOS ANGELES | Downtown Project Rundown 6.0

[ChelseaFC]

Anyone who wants jacarandas downtown clearly hasn't lived in a neighborhood with jacarandas.

[pwright1]

Jacaranda trees are all over downtown Los Angeles right now. Bunker Hill, Hill St, 8th St, the Arts District.

[craigs]

UCLA has a ton of jacaranda trees in North Campus, especially the sculpture garden. They're pretty, and the blossoms mark the arrival of spring every year, but soon enough they shed leaves like crazy. That's okay if you're talking about a carpet of purple covering the grass, but not busy streets.

[JDRCRASH]

If you’re trying to discourage street parking, then umm sure, jacarandas are great. Your car’s paint and wax job just won’t ever be the same.

[LA/OCman]

Originally Posted by LosAngelesSportsFan

Great tour and update!

Apartment vacancies are basically to normal already. It's much busier now than even 3 months ago and significantly better than 9 months ago. As mentioned above, we're gonna see a lot of people coming back over the next 2 months

I recently rented out a loft unit I own in the Eastern Columbia and I had no problem filling it. It took only 24 hours. There were multiple people wanting to rent it. I recently read that Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica has 40% of its storefronts vacant. Downtown will be back before you know it. Keep building!

[LosAngelesSportsFan]

Originally Posted by saybanana

Crepe myrtles would be a nice street tree for commercial corridor with a mix of others. They aren't that tall maybe 20 ft max so it won't block business natural light. Thin trunks that won't uproot sidewalks or take up sidewalksspace, different colorful flowers, in summer to fall.some light filter, leaves fall off in Nov. Not really good for residential streets since they aren't shading much or tall.

Wouldn't mind that at all actually

[LA21st]

Originally Posted by LA/OCman

I recently rented out a loft unit I own in the Eastern Columbia and I had no problem filling it. It took only 24 hours. There were multiple people wanting to rent it. I recently read that Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica has 40% of its storefronts vacant. Downtown will be back before you know it. Keep building!

I was on 3rd street a few weeks ago. I don't remember it being 40 percent.

[LA/OCman]

Originally Posted by LA21st

I was on 3rd street a few weeks ago. I don't remember it being 40 percent.

Other news sources also quoted the 40% vacancy.


https://therealdeal.com/la/2021/08/09/sa...omenade-could-open-up-to-housing-hotels/

[mrnyc]

just got home from a leisurely and long visit to olde el lay.

here’s a pic i took of the very grand gehry grand two days ago.

its still u/c but almost done.

impressive!

[craigs]

Cool pic, mrnyc!

[Illithid Dude]

The stucco on the base looks awful

[LAsam]

Originally Posted by Illithid Dude

The stucco on the base looks awful

It does... but maybe they aren't finished yet?

[colemonkee]

I think it's precast and not stucco, but agreed, it looks cheap. Real stone would have been 1,000% times better. They could have even done polished quartz if they didn't want to totally cheap out, but that precast just looks like precast. Which looks like 🞵🞵🞵🞵 like 95% of the time.

[Yackemflaber69]

The whole project looks cheap. I actually like the taller tower but the shorter tower looks terrible, should've been one taller tower. 6/10

[hughfb3]

Originally Posted by colemonkee

I think it's precast and not stucco, but agreed, it looks cheap. Real stone would have been 1,000% times better. They could have even done polished quartz if they didn't want to totally cheap out, but that precast just looks like precast. Which looks like 🞵🞵🞵🞵 like 95% of the time.

It’s definitely precast and yes, it should have been stone. The shorter building looks good in person as the upper cladding mimicks that of the concert hall’s sails. But there is a stone portion of the concert hall that this base is supposed to mirror and it totally fails. The stone on the concert hall looks great.

[citywatch]

Originally Posted by Yackemflaber69

The whole project looks cheap.

you better be careful....somehow this may end up back in that location...


https://www.lapl.org/collections-resources/blogs/lapl/rip-parking-lot-17


lapl.org

Even before the garage was built, it was subject to a rousing chorus of derision and dire warnings that the structure would have a “deleterious effect on the fabric of the city.” Time magazine wrote of PPSI’s structures, “Their appearance—which is most charitably described as functional—does not do much to improve the aesthetics of a neighborhood.”

Richard G. Mitchell of the Community Redevelopment Agency feared the erector set appearance of the garage would hinder the CRA’s Bunker Hill Urban Renewal project. Critics also suspected that the temporary structure might not be so temporary. Architect Eugene Hougham went so far as to suggest the city and county put up bonds to guarantee its removal.

It is somehow fitting that in Los Angeles, where nothing is permanent, something meant to be temporary lasted nearly 50 years.

meanwhile the oceanwide proj on fig still sits uncompleted. Now that's something worth complaining about.

the tinker toy parking lot lasted longer than the historic atlantic richfield tower. this stood from only 1929 to 1969....



jalopyjournal.com


I read that bldg was given a negative review by the urban beat writer of the LA Times when it was completed. so everyone is a critic.

[Yackemflaber69]

Considering what the original plan was I think we have a right to be.

https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-...ait-session-for-the-news-photo/109188301

[citywatch]

^ The grand ave proj already has to face the declining popularity of shopping malls & movie theaters....the theater for Grand was dropped some time ago....someone said equinox has cancelled plans to run the proj's hotel. Covid may make the hotel & travel industry way more iffy over the next few yrs.

business users also tend to pay the biggest leases psf, not retail or residential.

Given these trends, I'm relieved the base of the proj at least is colored concrete instead of stucco. Right now, dtla's economy is resting on the pillar of mainly residential, & not enough beyond that.

The area has had a double digit vacancy rate of office space for over 25 yrs....most economists would consider that a pretty severe recession...maybe even a depression.


https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-08-19/aecom-to-move-los-angeles-headquarters-to-dallas

AECOM says it’s moving its L.A. headquarters to ‘talent magnet’ Dallas
Aug. 19, 2021

Joining a parade of large California corporations relocating to Texas, engineering and construction giant AECOM announced plans to move its headquarters from Los Angeles to Dallas in October.

The Fortune 500 company plans to keep 2,500 employees in its Los Angeles offices and other California locations but will relocate Chief Executive Troy Rudd and several other corporate leaders effective Oct. 1 to existing offices in Dallas and other locations in Texas, the company said in a news release.

[Yuri]

Guys, bringing a post of mine from a City Discussion thread:

Originally Posted by yuriandrade

Downtown Los Angeles



As the US 2020 Census numbers are available, I decided to bring some actual figures. For Los Angeles, I used a 25 census tract area, that matches with the most usual definitions for Downtown LA.


-- 2020 ---- 2010 ---- 2000 ---- 1990

74,349 ---- 52,538 ---- 40,836 ---- 32,786 ---- 41.5% ---- 28.7% ---- 24.5%


It's a 14.86 km² area, for a density of 5,003 inh./km². Lots of room to densify. The growth is nothing but impressive. Almost doubled in the past 20 years.

One interesting thing I noticed while put the numbers together is the only area dropping was the census tract where Union Station is located. And dropped big: from 10,800 in 2000 to 5,500 in 2020. It represented over 1/4 of total population back then and now it's mere 7.5%.

Los Angeles Downtown now counts 74,000 inh., posting a very impressive 41% growth over 2010.

[craigs]

Originally Posted by yuriandrade

Guys, bringing a post of mine from a City Discussion thread:
Los Angeles Downtown now counts 74,000 inh., posting a very impressive 41% growth over 2010.

For our American friends, that's a downtown LA population of 74,349 in an area of 5.7 square miles, yielding a population density of 12,958 ppsm.