LOS ANGELES | Downtown Project Rundown 6.0

[Niftybox]

Originally Posted by Quixote

I disagree, as that would create a "Toronto effect" whereby the skyline is anchored by a core cluster of tall (750'+) office skyscrapers surrounded by much cheaper-looking residential towers with the generic bluish-greenish glass. The Beaudry is a nice departure from that and complements 777 Figueroa, Wilshire Grand, and the Wedbush building.

450-500' is the minimum height needed to make a dent in the skyline but not change its profile other than giving it a denser and/or elongated silhouette. We need half a dozen 750'+ towers in South Park of high quality and varying architecture.

Some would say Toronto has a top skyline, it's hard to argue that it's not up there with the top 3 in North America. LAs skyline needs exactly that, elongation and density, several very talls will do nothing but exacerbate its prominence making it worse, and any project under 400 feet will be effectively invisible in the bigger picture. Bunker Hill makes it even worse by adding height to already tall and bulky buildings.

[craigs]

Originally Posted by Mojeda101

Photos from yesterday:
. . . .
Such fine additions to the skyline. They fill in two massive gaps. We could use a dozen of these projects of similar scale.

Thank you for posting your photos, and agreed that Beaudry and 8th + Fig positively enhance the skyline.

[citywatch]

This is regrettable because I wanted to see his proposed apt bldg on Main St across from the PE lofts...on a big parking lot...be developed. He also had at least one other apt tower around Hill St that was being proposed. But his reputation for awhile has been hinky. As one of the major players in dt for the past 10 yrs in the process of converting old office bldgs, his reputation doesn't exactly help speed up the improvement of the area.

Barry Shy didn’t disclose defects in $400M deal: suit

When Laguna Point Properties bought a portfolio of apartments in Downtown L.A. for $402 million, it wasn’t expecting tenant litigation, a pile of utility bills and violations of city fire codes. But the Orange County-based investment firm alleges it faced all these costly challenges when it acquired the five buildings from prominent L.A.-based developer Barry Shy, according to a lawsuit filed with L.A. County Superior Court last week. The company is now looking to recover an unspecified amount in damages.

Two days after the sale contract closed in April, a group of tenants at 215 West 6th Street sued the entity that owns the property — now under Laguna Point — for negligence and for making the property inhabitable.

Laguna Point also alleges Shy was still collecting rent from tenants for two months after the deal closed — at least $307,000 in payments — and failed to pay “significant utility charges to avoid payment.”

Shy, who has built hundreds of apartment units across Downtown L.A., has been accused of overcharging brokers and tenants and skimping on construction work in the past. He maintained all of his projects were “high quality” in a 2009 interview. A reader once asked Curbed L.A.: “Is Barry Shy really the Antichrist? I’m looking into units downtown to buy, but every bit of research I do on any of Shy’s buildings only confirms his slumlord status.”

[colemonkee]

Ahhhhhhh, Barry Shy. If I never interact with that man in my life, I'll be better off for it. When we sued him in 2008 or 2009 (can't remember the date), I remember our attorneys saying that there were something like 117 lawsuits pending behind us.

[Blesha13]

Crane is coming down at the Beaudry.

[Easy]

Originally Posted by colemonkee

Ahhhhhhh, Barry Shy. If I never interact with that man in my life, I'll be better off for it. When we sued him in 2008 or 2009 (can't remember the date), I remember our attorneys saying that there were something like 117 lawsuits pending behind us.

I don't know it works, but it seems almost inconceivable that his legal history and outstanding utility bills wouldn't be discovered during escrow.

[colemonkee]

^ Yeah, methinks Laguna Point didn't do their homework.

[citywatch]

^ dt needs all the devlprs & renovators it can get. So when one of them flakes out, that slows everything down.

I was hoping he'd be able to begin work on this....


la.urbanize

https://la.urbanize.city/post/design-tweaks-proposed-historic-core-tower


Although the proj on Main St across from the PE lofts never seemed as likely compared with the equity apt bldg at 4th & Hill St. That proj not going forward is more exasperating....equity residential is a major devlpr based in the midwest, plus their site next to grand central mkt is more visible than the site across from the PE lofts bldg. Equity also didn't at least clean up their site, whereas the site of Shy's proj is just a parking lot.

EDIT: Barry shy being both an unreliable devlpr & poor landlord slows down the improvement of dtla. But other devlprs & landlords like Equity residential in chicago aren't helping things move faster either. Ppl like this or Ira yellin are what dt need more of....plus getting projs underway asap means such ppl are more likely to see what they've wanted or hoped for. Frank gehry is now in his 90s....how long ago was Disney hall built across from the still semi unfinished Grand LA proj? Let's get crackin, ppl!


• Video Link


meanwhile, this youtube pg is apparently giving regular updates of the major proj in the arts district....


• Video Link


This walking vid gives a good view of brookfield's beaudry apt proj & the Mitsui bldg across Fig....

• Video Link


^ dtla has a friendlier, more Mediterranean climate look than certain other urban ctrs do...one in particular that's famous for busy, hectic sidewalks....but to me an environment that increasingly comes off as having the vibe of Northeastern weather overkill But to each person, his or her own.

[DownTown Giant]

The Barry Shy project, and "The Zen Tower" were the long awaited, major projects. A lot has changed without their impact. Where was the Zen Tower proposed ?...4th or 3rd streets ?

[wisheye]

https://www.latimes.com/business/sto...-arts-district

Another studio proposal Downtown. This one's at 6th and Alameda. They're trying to engage with the street in a less insular way, which is good.

[citywatch]

^ thanks for posting that...it made me look again at a story about a new studio I came across last wk but I thought was referring to the conversion of the LA times printing press.

this segment of the article is interesting to me....because the architect is from london, because that city is grabbing a lot of movie & TV production, & because everyone is in it to win it.

Existing soundstages in the county have been almost fully rented for years, which can make it hard for new productions to find places to work, said Paul Audley, president of FilmLA, the nonprofit that handles film permits in the region.

“We’ve seen streaming growing at an average rate of 35% a year,” he said. “Even if that backs off, which some people are now predicting, we still don’t have enough stage space to deal with that.”

The design by London-based architecture firm Grimshaw is intended to stack the elements commonly found in a suburban-style studio campus into an urban setting.

The developers hope to secure city approval for the ADLA Campus within two years and complete it two years after that. It’s the fifth and largest entertainment development for East End Studios, which has a project in New York and four others in the Los Angeles area, including Glendale.

One of them is near the ADLA Campus across the recently opened 6th Street Viaduct, a $588-million span connecting the Arts District to the historic Eastside and Whittier Boulevard. At Jesse Street and Mission Road, East End Studios plans to build a facility with five soundstages.

The studio projects are part of a wave of development that includes nearby downtown competitor 8th & Alameda Studios on the site of the current Los Angeles Times printing plant. That planned project would eventually have 17 soundstages on 26 acres.

[Easy]

Originally Posted by DownTown Giant

The Barry Shy project, and "The Zen Tower" were the long awaited, major projects. A lot has changed without their impact. Where was the Zen Tower proposed ?...4th or 3rd streets ?

Zen is long dead, not long awaited. IIRC it was supposed to be at the Kawada Hotel. I wasn't expecting that Shy would really build a tower after all of this time, but the sale made me hopeful.

[hughfb3]

The crown on AC/Moxy has a diagonal slant when viewed from the west

[IMG]Untitled by Hugh B, on Flickr[/IMG]

[IMG]Untitled by Hugh B, on Flickr[/IMG]

[LosAngelesSportsFan]

Shy has 3 land parcels set for development that he has been trying to sell since he would never develop them. Olympic and Broadway, 6th and Main and the parking lot on Hill behind the Ace hotel. They are all important parcels but have remained stagnant for years due to ineptitude and greed.

Also, a super high end X pot restaurant is coming to the Wilshire Grand, leasing 8000 sq ft. Its chef is Michelin rated too

[Radio5]

The crane at the Chinatown Broadway tower was taken down before they even started. This was one of my favorite projects

[citywatch]

^ oh, oh, I hope you don't mean this one....

laurbanize.com

Only two months after breaking ground near Los Angeles State Historic Park in Chinatown, the arrival of a red tower crane shows construction progressing at 200 W. Mesnager Avenue, site of a new mixed-use apartment complex from Portland-based developer NBP Capital.

^ Since that's not on broadway, but on mesnager ave, I'm assuming another crane has been installed & now taken down in chinatown?

[colemonkee]

Correct, Zen Tower was planned for the northeast corner of 3rd & Hill, on the surface lot directly across 3rd Street from the Grand Central Market parking structure. The tower if i remember correctly, was sited on the corner with a parking podium that ran along Hill up to the building directly southwest of the Kawada Hotel.

Originally Posted by Easy

Zen is long dead, not long awaited. IIRC it was supposed to be at the Kawada Hotel. I wasn't expecting that Shy would really build a tower after all of this time, but the sale made me hopeful.

[citywatch]

this youtuber gives a good view of the apt towers being built by Mitsui at 8th & Fig & the one across the street being built by brookfield.

https://youtu.be/Me-gJiYNrHk?t=378

Walking vids have changed the ease of seeing what's going on in dtla...elsewhere too. I admit they've spoiled the way I dealt with the internet in the past. Videos are more full dimensional & give a better sense of a proj & the environment around it. But Youtube is not ideal if a person has an older computer...things like a slow video card....or lacks an app that cuts out ads.

[colemonkee]

Speaking of Brookfield, driving through downtown on my way home from work tonight (I know, I know, very LA of me), noticed that the crane at The Beaudry is making it's way down. No pictures (safety first!!), but appeared to be about 20% of the way down around quitting time (shortly after 6pm).

[Blesha13]

https://planning.lacity.org/pdiscase...8347c32f18/pdd

A little more than a year ago..