LOS ANGELES | Downtown Project Rundown 4.0

[citywatch]

Originally Posted by Illithid Dude

Are you actually upset over the Glass Tower?

I'm bothered cuz it's the only proj I'm aware of where the builder was quoted in a few articles about having the funding & would break ground in only a few months. he said that very clearly & confidently. And yet we know nothing ever happened with his proposed tower. I'm not aware of any other proj whose owner was like that. he must now be selling used cars in the valley.

Originally Posted by alki

You brought up the fact that LA allowed areas around and including DTLA to deteriorate and decline. I pointed out it was an attitudinal thing; not apathy.

alki, I think it's just as much a legal thing.

you must have seen my previous post that includes a snippet about the owner of a rundown apt bldg in dt who is suing the city for requiring that he shut his bldg down. Sort of the opposite thing happened to the previous owner of the cecil hotel on main st. he wanted to upgrade his bldg & cater to more discerning guests, but the city wouldn't allow him to do that cuz they require that rooms for low income tenants be preserved.

so damned if you do, damned if you don't.

however, I do agree that the downfall of the hood was due in part to an attitudinal thing. But apathy also was part of the problem. I believe there was a tude among many ppl yrs ago that dt wasn't nice enough, so they didn't feel committed to it. so ppl & many businesses left for other areas. I think apathy was closely combined with that, cuz it's hard to be enthusiastic about a hood when it's so & .

I remember yrs ago going to dt & thinking "is this all there is here...is this the best the city can offer ppl?!" at that moment, I'd often get a strong feeling of both apathy & disappointment, which would linger for many days after being in the hood.

Their largesse does not require city hall's intervention or the giving of financial gifts to get them to do the right thing. Its a concept that seems to be foreign to LA. More importantly, from an urbanist POV, citing an important public institution on a mountain top off to one side of the city......the Westside.......is a major fail.

You would have been more correct some yrs ago. but the very fact that the owner of the broad museum expressly wanted to move his art collection from samo to dtla, & got the support to do that is the reality of today, not back when the getty was selecting where to build its museum.

In a way, even though I think of myself as someone who on dtla, since the hilltop location of the getty is unique among major museums in this country, if not world, I'm actually glad it's there & not in some more typical urban location. Or on a site in dtla where it would make too many ppl think it was same ol, same ol. That it was just a newbie & forgettable knock off of urban based museums like the chicago institute of arts or the metropolitan museum.

to get back to the main topic of this thread, this is other images of the new apt bldg that's supposed to go up at 2nd & san pedro. It's from the website of one of ssp's major LA posters, brigham yen.



brighamyen.com

^ The first pic shows the view of the bldg from the east, the 2nd from the south, the 3rd from the north. the drawing that was published at latimes.com made the corner of the bldg look like it wasn't even connected to the rest of the bldg farther towards the west. Or for some reason the illustrator wanted to sort of fade out the part of the bldg towards the center of 2nd st.

[JDRCRASH]

^Thanks for that.

Originally Posted by citywatch

lasf, you have a knack for often posting the most interesting, helpful bit of info!

since you make the effort to keep us up to date, it's only fair that other forumers do a bit of legwork too.

Sorry if i'm not doing as much as i could be citywatch. But i've been really busy lately. I assure you though, when i get my drivers license and own a car (which could both happen as soon as next month, btw), i will be all over downtown taking pictures of projects U/C. i will also strive to muster up the effort to try and contact some of the developers of these projects, even though the chances i'll receive a response are slim to none.

IOW, i will do my best to do my share of "legwork".

Speaking of which, here's a challenge for someone that is in a position to do it:

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showpost.php?p=3566515&postcount=4944
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showpost.php?p=3566162&postcount=4933


Yes, i know that proposal is pretty old, but it's currently the only one that i know of for that lot. And the buildings that used to be there are for the most part gone, replaced by parking lots. so something might still be planned there.

[blackcat23]

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...postcount=4944

I actually like the look of this one, especially compared to the generic condo towers in the other render. Maybe it will come back one of these days.

[citywatch]

Originally Posted by JDRCRASH

Sorry if i'm not doing as much as i could be citywatch.

actually, jdr, I was referring to forumers like....me! Esp since I often feel guilty whenever I visit this thread & hope to come across a new post that has pics or info that shows me or tells me something I've not known about til now. better yet, when it's good news about a new proj or something that's ready to break ground. And then I feel when it's pretty much only postings about things we already know about.

that would definitely not include the pics at the link you're asking about....I've NEVER seen them before. I wasn't even aware that any major proj has ever been proposed for the site right next to the hotel figueroa. That's news to me. But I'm sort of glad I've not known about it til now cuz I have a feeling it's one of those pie in the sky projs that makes ppl excited at the beginning, then it sort of disappears. I do admit to still feeling very about the park fifth proj.

something else has just struck me.....the pic of the proposed apt bldg at 2nd & san pedro that was run by latimes.com does NOT look anything like the pic of that same side of the bldg that is at brigham yen's website.....

this.....


(latimes.com, Sares-Regis Group / July 21, 2012)

is NOTHING like this...


brighamyen.com

so I'm not sure if the first pic is the more current & accurate one, or if the group of pics is more like what the bldg will look like.

[colemonkee]

Originally Posted by citywatch

To get back to the main topic of this thread, this is other images of the new apt bldg that's supposed to go up at 2nd & san pedro. It's from the website of one of ssp's major LA posters, brigham yen.



brighamyen.com

Gah! Michael Graves just called from 1985. He wants all his bad design ideas back.

Seriously, though, this looks nothing like the render posted by the LA Times, which has a significantly different massing at the corner of 2nd and San Pedro. I wonder which one is more up to date. I guess neither of them are any good, so it doesn't really matter. What matters is getting some retail and additional residential density in that area.

I will continue on in my losing battle with shitty stucco buildings.

[Kingofthehill]

Wow! I haven't seen a building that visible - and appallingly - pomo in a long, long time! It looks like one of those failed 80s "urban renewal" buildings you come across in Long Beach.

[Illithid Dude]

According to Brighams website, the render he posted is a separate building then the one the LA Times posted. So, two different new proposals! Yay! Also, I like PoMo. With that in mind, I wouldn't call the new proposal PoMo. Just Modernism with wacky colors.

[Virtual Urban Vision]

Originally Posted by Illithid Dude

According to Brighams website, the render he posted is a separate building then the one the LA Times posted. So, two different new proposals! Yay! Also, I like PoMo. With that in mind, I wouldn't call the new proposal PoMo. Just Modernism with wacky colors.

I like pomo as well and had the exact same thought.

[citywatch]

Originally Posted by colemonkee

I guess neither of them are any good, so it doesn't really matter..... I will continue on in my losing battle with shitty stucco buildings.

If the typical person is a tough audience for bldgs like that, then is it any surprise that the city in general has often been treated like & by visitors from countries even like india?! iow, there's bad & then there's baaaaad, & LA has historically had plenty of the latter.

I know when I was doing a google street view of mexico city some time ago, I was startled by how far more of that city didn't necessarily look as poor & rundown as important parts of LA do. I admit to at first assuming much of it would look not much better than broadway in dtla. It's moments like that when I have to say 'oh oh....we've gotta big problem'.

Originally Posted by Illithid Dude

According to Brighams website, the render he posted is a separate building then the one the LA Times posted. So, two different new proposals!

I think you're confusing another devlpt from another owner that will go up on the side of the block that faces Los angeles st for the proj that is mentioned in the recent article. That one will face san pedro st, which matches the caption in one of the drawings. It's possible the illustration, which I assume the devlpr released to the media, represents a more current version of the proj, while the images that brigham got a hold of are older & no longer an accurate depiction of the apt bldg.

[citywatch]

Originally Posted by pesto

Bunker Hill is still as much part of the problem as part of the solution.

pesto, I think it's mainly cuz, decades after the fact, there's still things like this...


maps.google.com

I think you're correct to wonder why any proj....large or small....will be described as the ultimate solution to what ails the hood. But, in turn, I don't know why ppl will criticize a proj cuz it won't be so wonderful that it will be similar to someone waving a magic wand, so they say why even bother?

You write off the importance of large projs, but at the same time you also appear to be when a new proj isn't taller. I can't figure out your sense of things cuz whenever I'm in dt, the one thing that almost always strikes me is not that new bldgs aren't taller, or that bunker hill is mostly newer devlpt based on an older way of thinking, or that some bldg doesn't have retail on the 1st floor. What often hits me is that too much of the hood still isn't much better than what's shown in the pic I posted above.

[pesto]

Originally Posted by alki

You brought up the fact that LA allowed areas around and including DTLA to deteriorate and decline. I pointed out it was an attitudinal thing; not apathy. And trust me. That attitude is alive and well today. Something like that does not disappear overnite.

Someone else on this forum mentioned that people in other cities love their city and do what they can to enhance it. Their largesse does not require city hall's intervention or the giving of financial gifts to get them to do the right thing. Its a concept that seems to be foreign to LA. More importantly, from an urbanist POV, citing an important public institution on a mountain top off to one side of the city......the Westside.......is a major fail.

You have to get over this: everything you say is backwards. DT did not deteriorate because the city "let it". The city was pouring money into it from 1950's on, at the expense of the rest of the city. Bunker Hill, the Music Center, govt. buildings were all concentrated in DT. Dozens of companies (including Union Oil, ARCO, several banking and transport companies) were subsidized to move DT. The problem was that "people" (remember them?) didn't want to live there; they preferred less density, better schools, less crime and drugs, access to shopping, the beaches, etc.

If anything the city took the "urbanist" solution (high-rises, density, institutions, govt. intervention) rather than the "popular" solution, actually making life pleasant for people.

And, again, the center of LA is not the 10 blocks between Alameda and the 110. This is maybe 1 percent of the city's population, excluding the myriad other inner suburbs from SaMo to Pasadena, that are effectively part of the city and have their own residents who are willing to fund institutions.

Look at NY: LACMA is as close to DT LA as the Met is to Wall St.; the Getty is as close to Century City as the Cloisters is to Midtown NY.

[mhays]

Originally Posted by pesto

It's not like downtown NY or the SF Financial District are residential. Rarely do the wealthy live next to high-rise commercial buildings. The moving out and recent return of professionals to DT is a pattern seen pretty much everywhere.

The wealthy absolutely do live next to commercial buildings. Fewer residential buildings get built in CBD cores in part because the land might have more potential value as commercial (particularly before 2005 or so), but many cities have a lot of housing in core spots. Battery Park City and the new conversion trend are factors in Lower Manhattan for example.

[pesto]

Originally Posted by citywatch

pesto, I think it's mainly cuz, decades after the fact, there's still things like this...


maps.google.com

I think you're correct to wonder why any proj....large or small....will be described as the ultimate solution to what ails the hood. But, in turn, I don't know why ppl will criticize a proj cuz it won't be so wonderful that it will be similar to someone waving a magic wand, so they say why even bother?

You write off the importance of large projs, but at the same time you also appear to be when a new proj isn't taller. I can't figure out your sense of things cuz whenever I'm in dt, the one thing that almost always strikes me is not that new bldgs aren't taller, or that bunker hill is mostly newer devlpt based on an older way of thinking, or that some bldg doesn't have retail on the 1st floor. What often hits me is that too much of the hood still isn't much better than what's shown in the pic I posted above.

You wouldn't prefer a 20 story apartment in the heart of DT rather than a 7 story one? I have often said that, in areas zoned for highrise, six 20 story buildings beat two 60's. But one 7 doesn't beat anything; not even a vacant lot, which could become something taller in a year or two. This kind of desperation is practically an invitation to submit the cheapest possible design since everything is getting approved.

[colemonkee]

I find myself doing this over and over and over again, yet the conversations keep going further and further away from downtown LA projects, which is the sole purpose of this thread.

So let's play a game: the next person to mention Seattle, NY, or SF in this thread gets a week suspension from the forums. Starting..... NOW.

This should be a fun one.

[202_Cyclist]

The LA Times has an article, video, and several photos of the new Grand Park. I look forward to visitng when we're in LA in August.

New park in downtown Los Angeles inspires grand hopes
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-grandpark-20120725,0,297680.story

[Mojeda101]

July 28th is the day! Can't wait to see the festival. Although they say only a portion is being presented. Which section is not yet ready?

[JDRCRASH]

Originally Posted by Mojeda101

July 28th is the day! Can't wait to see the festival. Although they say only a portion is being presented. Which section is not yet ready?

[citywatch]

Originally Posted by Mojeda101

Which section is not yet ready?

I don't understand why the portion directly across the street from city hall won't be ready for another 3 months. I posted a pic of it a few days ago & it already looks like it's almost completed & can start receiving visitors well before October. The slowness in finishing the park is even more puzzling since, unlike a large tower or devlpt that involves lots of material & cranes, it is made up largely of ground space for landscaping & lawn.

[Mojeda101]

Originally Posted by citywatch

I don't understand why the portion directly across the street from city hall won't be ready for another 3 months. I posted a pic of it a few days ago & it already looks like it's almost completed & can start receiving visitors well before October. The slowness in finishing the park is even more puzzling since, unlike a large tower or devlpt that involves lots of material & cranes, it is made up largely of ground space for landscaping & lawn.

Just took a look at the pic again, and possibly the plants? Maybe they need more time to grow.

You know I was looking at some more shots on a few other sites. Realistically, couldn't this park extend all the way to Hope St?

[colemonkee]

^ No. The portion between Grand and Hope is an elevated plaza for the Music Center that sits above an existing parking garage, and has some ground floor retail at street level. There's also a pretty large fountain that's a legacy part of that plaza, along with some pretty nice sculptures. That space serves as a plaza for that entire complex of theaters and performance spaces, and really doesn't need to be part of the park.

As for why the southern most part of the Grand Park won't open until October, my guess is that the sod needs time to set and get healthy before opening up the park to the amount of foot traffic it will inevitably get. That was one of the mistakes (among many) that they made with the small pocket park on the LAPD property, and subsequently had to close it to re-sod all of the grass. Which, not coincidentally, is half dead yet again.