LOS ANGELES | Downtown Project Rundown 6.0

[Niftybox]

Originally Posted by citywatch

I was texted this vid a short while ago....reminds me of how competitive everyone & everyplace has become....it's not the architectural style or other details of this new proj in russia that impressed me....it's the amt of time & $$$ put into big projs, & how professional things are, in countries that aren't thought of as 'whoa'. Although Russia did have an advanced space prog yrs ago that was on the heels of NASA.

Makes me think of the time I saw photos of the skyline of a city in northern brazil I had never heard of. It was Recife, brazil....not even rio or Sao Paulo. even a city like Recive can make dtLA seem like it's barely keeping up.

how long is the oceanwide proj on fig taking to be completed? At least the grand ave proj is under construction....planned since disney hall was completed in 2003. but better late than never.

Oceanwide has been stalled for over a year now, not sure they can afford to keep it stalled for much longer, some projects that began a year ago in the surrounding area have already completed, it's been a drag. They lucked out from Covid 19 by not being open, but the city is finally re-opened so lost revenue is still on their minds for sure.

This past decade many smaller countries had ramped up development at a much higher rate (per capita) than the U.S. esp dependent on Chinese investment and steel (Canada, Australia, Brazil etc). Melbourne for example surpassed Los Angeles in around 5 years, it has many more skyscrapers and much better styling now. But since COVID 19 a lot of these countries can't afford to continue this trend, let alone continue a bad relationship with China. The U.S. has been at a more consistent, slower development rate over a much longer period of time.

[Doctorboffin]

The new proposal from Onni (https://urbanize.la/post/onni-group-proposes-36-story-arts-district-tower) is quite exciting in scale and exactly what I hope to see more of in the Arts District. It seems like 520 Mateo really broke the ceiling for taller projects in the area. Here's hoping 6AM and the Bjerk Ingels project actually materialize. The latter might be my favorite development proposed in the city.





I pray the river redevelopment project goes through because this skyscraper wall will look amazing.




In other news, I detailed my model of the Morrison Hotel redevelopment which is a seriously under-appreciated project. I love the variety in massing and scale it has.



Since my last post 1130 S. Hope was proposed, which is pretty small but will be decent infill. I'm definitely happy to see some of the skinnier lots being filled instead of more wide podium projects.



I also detailed 1212 Flower and 1133 S. hope, which are obviously already completed, but not yet on Google Earth.



And lastly, by popular request, I hid a bunch of the models for the less realistic and possibly dead projects to get a more reasonable assumption of how DTLA could look in 10 years.







While not as flashy, it still looks incredibly impressive and dense imo. Really the biggest changes come not from the massive towers, but the retrofitting of older projects in the historic core. If that continues and the city gets more public spaces, DTLA will truly be a good urban environment. On a related note, what's up with the Broadway Trade Center? Are they still planning on doing the green roof?

[LosAngelesSportsFan]

Fantastic job, really exciting to see it all laid out like this! We have made huge strides and you are right, its the less flashy conversions of historic properties that will make the biggest impacts. There are dozens of rehabs underway on broadway and hill alone

In regards to the broadway trade center... Still no action unfortunately. Last i heard right before the pandemic was that they had a buyer but who knows now

[Niftybox]

Thanks for trying to make it more realistic, it looks noticeably more dense and I am hopeful more of those revamps continue to happen. Also, I don't think that 'LA Grand' tower revamp is going to happen being Shenzhen World Group and all, it kind of ruins the skyline being too tall on the edge, especially in your last image. That's one project I wouldn't mind being shorter and from a different developer/financier. Also there are still so many ugly areas just waiting to be replaced by much nicer planning and design, such as the river front area. Remember these LA river redevelopment proposals from 2017?
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=http...CA0QjhxqFwoTCKj34ozxluoCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAD

[LosAngelesSportsFan]

Man, I wish that would happen. Can't Eli broad donate a couple billion for this and the freeway caps on the 101 and 110? Lol

[Niftybox]

Any news on the grounds for Olympia project? Have they started clearing away the footprint yet?

[circuitfiend]

Where's the mock-up of the hotel behind the Microsoft Theatre, which will connect with the convention center?

[Doctorboffin]

Originally Posted by circuitfiend

Where's the mock-up of the hotel behind the Microsoft Theatre, which will connect with the convention center?

It's on page 461

[LA21st]

I visited downtown for the first time since COVID. Grand Avenue adds so much to that part of downtown, wow. Look north on Grand ave will look amazing. 8th and Figueroa was fenced off. Any news?
The two new hotels at 4th and Spring should be a nice addition.

Also, what is going to be built at 2nd and Broadway? The south east corner?

For a bad observation, the east side of Broadway north of 4th looks like shit. Almost all of that stuff should be torn down already.

[Doctorboffin]

Originally Posted by LA21st

I visited downtown for the first time since COVID. Grand Avenue adds so much to that part of downtown, wow. Look north on Grand ave will look amazing. 8th and Figueroa was fenced off. Any news?
The two new hotels at 4th and Spring should be a nice addition.

Also, what is going to be built at 2nd and Broadway? The south east corner?

For a bad observation, the east side of Broadway north of 4th looks like shit. Almost all of that stuff should be torn down already.

You mean this tower?

https://urbanize.la/post/fresh-renderings-56-story-dtla-apartment-tower

[LA21st]

Damn, i forgot how big that was gonna be.
That's great.

[caligrad]

So in the news conference about Jose Huizar being arrested, they felt the need to mention the new LA Grand Hotel development being one of the reasons for his arrest. Sooooooo, just looking for someone to tell me its going to be ok, should we be concerned about it moving forward? or do we have to wait 10 years for it to be sold to a different developer?

I know its tall and will throw the skyline off completely but.....even if it take a height cut, i feel for development in that area, it will do wonders. To bad it couldnt be across from fig and 7th.

[citywatch]

Originally Posted by Niftybox

Any news on the grounds for Olympia project? Have they started clearing away the footprint yet?

everyone is going to have to adjust their hopes & expectations....we're now entering uncharted waters, both economically & culturally.

even before the shutdown, projs like oceanwide were having problems with funding, from china & otherwise. now that first domino is hitting the entire world.

forms of this, from financial to social to governmental, are going to be affecting dtla and other parts of the country & world in the immediate future....we're now in a topple & slowdown phase.

fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night....


• Video Link

New York City was finally open for business, but their corner of the once bustling neighborhood was a ghost town.

As restaurants and stores entered the second phase of a gradual reopening across a city once known for its round-the-clock activity, an unwelcome realization set in: With significantly fewer office workers, residents and tourists, business was not going to be booming for the foreseeable future.

The program brought measured relief at George’s New York, a diner near the World Trade Center that withstood the Sept. 11 terror attacks, a blackout, Hurricane Sandy and a recession.

“The difference with this one — this is the worst I think [of] all of them — is the unknown,” restaurant owner Bill Koulmentas said in an interview.

“You have literally three to four moving trucks a day I’m seeing in this neighborhood, people moving out,” he said. “What scares me is that even if office [business] does come back, they’re realizing now they don’t need so much space.”

“Less people, less mouths to feed,” he added.

George’s opened to a small outdoor crowd on Monday, buoyed by Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer who showed up for eggs and moral support. Still, the two-level restaurant can only serve about 20 people, a fraction of its former capacity of 140. The nosedive in revenue has not been met with a discount on an annual property tax bill of $70,000 and other monthly expenses.

The manager of Friendly Pizza, who asked not to be named, said his business is down nearly 90 percent. A nearby office tower that normally employs 5,000 workers who frequent his shop has been virtually empty for months, tourists are nowhere in sight and residents have moved out, he said.

But while offices were permitted to reopen, landlords said most of their tenants chose to continue working remotely. Social distancing measures and other Covid-related protocols were put in place, they said, but companies still appeared hesitant to send employees back.

Based on initial data collected Monday, Rudin Management Company said it reached just 5.2 percent of normal occupancy across its 14-building commercial portfolio.

[Quixote]

Originally Posted by Doctorboffin

Is there any other established global city in the developed world that has more potential than Los Angeles? Look at all that room to the east! Plenty of space to build one of the world’s most impressive and vibrant urban cores, squeezing in 500,000 people in a 4.5-square-mile geography. With all the high-quality proposals in the Arts District (an isolated no-man’s land), it gives me hope that we’ll eventually see skyscrapers pop up in the areas between Los Angeles and Alameda Streets.

[Niftybox]

Originally Posted by Quixote

Is there any other established global city in the developed world that has more potential than Los Angeles? Look at all that room to the east! Plenty of space to build one of the world’s most impressive and vibrant urban cores, squeezing in 500,000 people in a 4.5-square-mile geography. With all the high-quality proposals in the Arts District (an isolated no-man’s land), it gives me hope that we’ll eventually see skyscrapers pop up in the areas between Los Angeles and Alameda Streets.

Yeah there is a small ocean of 1-3 story warehouses that can be taken down in a matter of days if not hours and not to mention parking lots lol. The problem is you can only build so much so fast, butts need to fill the seats so to speak. I believe that's why the most recent approvals have large quantities of affordable and extremely affordable units.

[Quixote]

The DTLA 2040 plan is projecting that Downtown will account for 20% of the city's population growth through 2040. And with tastes in lifestyle slowly but surely changing continuously over the last 15-20 years combined with the housing crisis, it's really not a pie-in-the-sky vision. Currently, all signs are pointing in the direction of eastward expansion. The major challenges will be providing quality transit options capable of supporting that level of density and, of course, the homeless population.

[Doctorboffin]

I'll be disappointed with anything less than this.

[Niftybox]

I love all the optimism right now, we might need it. ^ That's from the movie 'Her' just for anybody curious.

[DJM19]

Would love to see development of 15-20 story buildings continuing west of downtown along Wilshire and a couple blocks north or south of Wilshire all the way to Hoover, to integrate those Wilshire towers with Downtown.

[MN/WI]

Originally Posted by Niftybox

I love all the optimism right now, we might need it. ^ That's from the movie 'Her' just for anybody curious.

Thanks, I was guessing it was this past season of Westworld. They did a wonderful job of many future cities including and mostly LA.