LOS ANGELES | Downtown Project Rundown 4.0

[LosAngelesDreamin]

Originally Posted by HunterK

Would I be allowed to say on this forum that we should find the architect responsible for the current Pershing Square (Ricardo Legorreta) and beat unconscious?

Just looked it up. Hes dead.. Guess he wont be able to piss $15M down the drain and ruin another cities main park.

This is such a scar on downtown. If it wasn't so amazing before, I wouldnt be pissed. But is was.

OMG if you guys have instagram you all have to check out HunterK's pics HES SO GOOD!!! IMPRESSIVE VIEWS OF DOWNTOWN LA... makes me wanna go back and just take it all in again

[ConstructDTLA]

Originally Posted by LosAngelesDreamin

OMG if you guys have instagram you all have to check out HunterK's pics HES SO GOOD!!! IMPRESSIVE VIEWS OF DOWNTOWN LA... makes me wanna go back and just take it all in again

Haha thanks man.

[bobcat]

Originally Posted by Mojeda101

Compare it to the original plans for the project. Granted, all projects tend to suffer downsizing in this economy, even the Wilshire Grand, but in 10 years, you'll look back and say, this was actually supposed to be the site of 2 35 floor towers. I'm fine with Grand Park, but the Broad tower is a completely different story. I hate it, that's just how I feel.

I'll take the Broad Museum over residential towers any day. The towers could be built anywhere, but the museum is one of a kind.

[StethJeff]

Originally Posted by pwright1

Also I walked past the Broad and noticed the little street between it and that new apt bldg site is closed off and dug up. Its all dirt now.

That part of Kosciuszko has been closed for just over a month now.

[Rail Claimore]

Originally Posted by BrighamYen

An LAPD officer stands at the corner of 7th and Fig waiting for pedestrians to walk into the crosswalk after the timer starts to give them tickets ($175 a pop)

This is an issue that really frustrates me and feel we gotta change.

Getting penalized for walking in Downtown LA:

http://theweek.com/article/index/235515/an-argument-for-jaywalking

Cops in LA write all kinds of stupid petty tickets. I've noticed during my last two trips through LAX that they love giving tickets to people who pick passengers up in an area not designated for passenger pick-up simply because the pick-up lines next to the doors are too congested. By ticketing some driver who was trying to save time, the cop only made things worse!

[Mojeda101]

Originally Posted by bobcat

I'll take the Broad Museum over residential towers any day. The towers could be built anywhere, but the museum is one of a kind.

The Museum and the towers aren't the same thing. The museum would still be there, only different would have been two 35 floor towers rather than the 19 going up soon. Whatever, I'm dropping the subject.

[LosAngelesSportsFan]

a quick FYI regarding the Taget... i was just there and the place was very busy and the crowd is a good mix of locals, students, professionals etc.. A very necessary store that i think will spur more retail asap as people get hold of the numbers. i bet sales will be very high, similar to how the Ralphs surprised people who underestimated the power of Downtown LA.

also, i emailed the companies that own 8th and grand and the 9th and olive lots inquiring about project details and timelines. I let Carmel Partners (8th/Grand) know my thoughts about how they should go with the original proposal for the lot since its strategically located and should be maximized. Obviously, i dont expect them to take my word for it, but i figured it would hurt.

[Easy]

Thanks LASF! Looking forward to their replies.

I think that the Target will be a big success as well. One thing that surprised me was how large it is. Everyone was saying that it's smaller than a regular Target, but it's actually pretty close to what I'm used to. The Target's near me were torn down and rebuilt just a few years ago and the downtown Target seems pretty close to what most Targets were back in the 90's.

[citywatch]

Originally Posted by LosAngelesSportsFan

a quick FYI regarding the Taget... i was just there and the place was very busy and the crowd is a good mix of locals, students, professionals etc.. A very necessary store that i think will spur more retail asap as people get hold of the numbers. i bet sales will be very high, similar to how the Ralphs surprised people who underestimated the power of Downtown LA.

lasf, you have a knack for often coming up with the most informative or helpful postings here. It really does pay for forumers in this thread to be residents of or regular visitors to dt.

it will be interesting what effect Target has on the level of sales at ralphs, & how the new smart & final down the street affects both target & ralphs.

meanwhile, several blocks away.....

In downtown L.A., sealed-off hotel rooms offer peek into the past

A developer plans to turn an abandoned wing of the once-prestigious Alexandria Hotel into small apartments. The century-old deluxe rooms are a time capsule.


Developer Nick Hadim stands inside a storage area next to the Alexandria Hotel at 5th and Spring streets
downtown. Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times

By Roger Vincent, Los Angeles Times
October 27, 2012

Real estate developer Nick Hadim made a risky climb through an upstairs window of an abandoned building to see what he and his investors had gotten themselves into. Downtown's Alexandria Hotel had long been rumored to be haunted. But instead of ghosts, he found a time capsule. There, in a sealed-off wing of the otherwise bustling complex, he encountered a dusty suite deserted in some haste in the 1930s. A crumbling bowler hat lay next to a torn armchair. An antique typewriter sat ready for use on the side of a wooden desk. In the bathroom was a cast-iron claw-foot tub last filled with water during the Great Depression.

"It's freaky," said Hadim, a Culver City entrepreneur with experience renovating old downtown buildings. Hadim plans to spend $3 million turning the Alexandria's abandoned wing into small apartments, which he hopes to rent at premium rates in what he will call the Chelsea Building.

What his investors bought were century-old deluxe hotel rooms once part of the Alexandria, a stalwart presence at 5th and Spring streets since the early 1900s, now a low-priced apartment complex. Hadim's group purchased just a small slice of the old hotel building, a wing that was sealed shut on all seven floors in a fit of pique in 1938 and has been seen by few eyes since then, except those of wandering birds and the occasional vandal. What most of the 35 rooms hold is a mystery, because the corridors lack an entrance other than the hallways of the Alexandria — which have been walled off for nearly 75 years.



Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times

The lowest of the building's six hotel room floors can be accessed from an adjacent roof and has been stripped by scavengers. Still, its tall, wide windows, high ceilings and dark wood floors retain their grandeur even as pigeons flit in and out of the broken windows.

Outside on 5th Street, Hadim will wash the grimy brick walls and scrub the twin griffins guarding the Beaux Arts-style building. For many decades each griffin held in its mouth a chain with an illuminated globe, a detail Hadim may bring back.

In the decades after World War II, the Alexandria's prime neighborhood at 5th and Spring gradually fell into decline. So did the hotel. In 1988, city officials called the Alexandria the worst drug-trafficking spot in Los Angeles. Now the city's historic downtown-turned-skid row is reviving, with new restaurants, bars, shops and thousands of affluent residents living in converted office and industrial buildings.

Hadim figures that by eliminating the utility closets on each floor and a total of seven guest rooms, he can create enough space for an elevator and stairs. He'll work from the original plans by John Parkinson, a famed Los Angeles architect whose later projects included City Hall and Union Station.

Hadim hopes to start work on the Chelsea by January and finish in the winter of 2013. He plans to rent the street retail spaces to a cafe and perhaps a clothing boutique. The building's deep two-story basement might be turned into a nightclub or lounge.

Across 5th Street, another developer recently finished converting the 1923 vintage Chester Williams Building from offices into apartments. A Walgreens drugstore will rent the ground floor of the 12-story building. The first Starbucks in the historic district recently opened about a block away.

"A lot is happening," Hadim said. "In five years, it's going to feel like Manhattan around here."


Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times

^ I'm always amazed at how many bldgs from the distant past had such low window sills. I guess ppl were less fearful of heights back then? They were less worried about tripping & falling out of such windows? I know if I lived in that bldg, I'd have to put a handrail a few feet above the bottom of the sill.

[Quixote]

^ Whoever designed the ground-floor facade of the Alexandria needs to be locked up. Just atrocious.

[citywatch]

Originally Posted by Mojeda101

Makes me sick to my stomach when something so grand(lol) is downsized to what it is now.

Not sure why you think that part of the devlpt was downsized. actually, it wasn't even part of the original first phase plans, which involved only the land east of Disney hall.....where the tinker toy parking structure is. That location was where plans from frank gehry were to be brought to life. It got lots of publicity several yrs ago.

the older apt tower that's south of the new broad museum....& was built around 1994?.....originally was going to have a 2nd phase tower. but as is typical of so much of the history of the hood, it was forgotten & never built. That was some time before Related got rights to the property, which is where they're supposed to put up their apt bldg.

Originally Posted by BrighamYen

Keep in mind, MOST jaywalking tickets are given to those who walk into the crosswalk while the timer countdown begins!

that's outrageous. I think most ppl, myself included, would think a jaywalking violation only occurs when a person goes against a signal that is fully red. I'm also just thinking about tickets being handed out in that way. And it's not like there are a lack of far worst infractions, such as drug use or public urination, occurring everyday in the hood.

Originally Posted by Westsidelife

^ Whoever designed the ground-floor facade of the Alexandria needs to be locked up. Just atrocious.

that's nothing compared with the way it was not too many yrs ago. for some reason the article on the old annex next to the alexandria includes a photo from before the hotel's 1st level was redone.....



Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times

^ that tacky red tile was a byproduct of the 1960s or 1970s. I always hated it, even more so when I'd see it pop up in the background of TV shows or movies shot in that part of dt.

& to the old red tile walls.

[LosAngelesSportsFan]

got a response regarding 9th and olive..


we are trying to finalize permits, once that is done we will be ready to go, hopefully in 2 weeks.

[StethJeff]

Originally Posted by Easy

Thanks LASF! Looking forward to their replies.

I think that the Target will be a big success as well. One thing that surprised me was how large it is. Everyone was saying that it's smaller than a regular Target, but it's actually pretty close to what I'm used to. The Target's near me were torn down and rebuilt just a few years ago and the downtown Target seems pretty close to what most Targets were back in the 90's.

I was thrown off by people's complaints as well. The size seemed just fine to me and seemed to have everything that I normally shop for. In fact, I was glad to see how much groceries they had.

My only problem with the new Target is the shopping cart situation and distance to the parking structure. It's not the most convenient store in the world to make large or bulky purchases.

[Mojeda101]

Originally Posted by LosAngelesSportsFan

got a response regarding 9th and olive..


we are trying to finalize permits, once that is done we will be ready to go, hopefully in 2 weeks.

Would you mind sending the emails over my way? I'd figure to ask my own questions.

[BOYCOTT 90210]

The building on the corner of Wilshire and Bixel looks almost done. I don't like the yellow paint on top, what the hell?

[alki]

Originally Posted by RuFFy

The NFL is doing what it always does, it attempts to lure competing bids to use as leverage in their negotiations locally and nationally. Locally because pitting Roski on AEG on the investors at Dodger Stadium and Frank McCourt yields the opportunity to negotiate more favorable terms. Also, having a red hot return to LA discussion on the table allows them to hijack tax payers in other cities afraid of losing their team to LA for new stadiums and stadium improvements. LA should just walk away from the table. Over the years over and over again the NFL has done this. I don't know why anybody would be surprised, it should be expected as a regular play from the NFL play book. I'd like to see AEG move on on the idea of the NFL and serve them a dish of their own medicine. LA, plainly and simply, just doesn't need the NFL the way the NFL needs LA.

And lets not forget, the NFL wants LA far more than LA, even DTLA, needs the NFL. LA is the second largest market in the country and its galled the NFL owners at the loss of all those teevee revenues over the years by not having a team in LA.

LA get the best deal possible from the NFL.........make them pay for that stadium.

[alki]

Originally Posted by HunterK

By the end of the DECADE!? Even I was thinking sooner than that. Surely by the end of the decade Apple's reign will be over. If I had to bet money I'd say 3 years out.

Patience. Changing demographics takes time.

[alki]

Originally Posted by BrighamYen

An LAPD officer stands at the corner of 7th and Fig waiting for pedestrians to walk into the crosswalk after the timer starts to give them tickets ($175 a pop)

This is an issue that really frustrates me and feel we gotta change.

Getting penalized for walking in Downtown LA:

http://theweek.com/article/index/235515/an-argument-for-jaywalking

Brigham, this is ridiculous. Two steps forward; one step back. Reminds me of the people who were against the subway; people in LA will never use it......they don't want to be separated from the sun for any length of time.

[alki]

Originally Posted by LosAngelesSportsFan

a quick FYI regarding the Taget... i was just there and the place was very busy and the crowd is a good mix of locals, students, professionals etc.. A very necessary store that i think will spur more retail asap as people get hold of the numbers. i bet sales will be very high, similar to how the Ralphs surprised people who underestimated the power of Downtown LA.

also, i emailed the companies that own 8th and grand and the 9th and olive lots inquiring about project details and timelines. I let Carmel Partners (8th/Grand) know my thoughts about how they should go with the original proposal for the lot since its strategically located and should be maximized. Obviously, i dont expect them to take my word for it, but i figured it would hurt.

BTW that lite fixture on Fig that's out.........did you tell the council office as well as the city? You might get better action if the council office is behind it.

[alki]

Originally Posted by BOYCOTT 90210

The building on the corner of Wilshire and Bixel looks almost done. I don't like the yellow paint on top, what the hell?

I don't know.......I like the contrast of materials used on the facade even with the yellow. Let's face it.......its hard to make a 7 story bldg look interesting while meeting its budget as well. I think the architects pulled it off with this one.