Downtown Los Angeles

Overhead, bold letters on a giant slab of plywood read: “$1.50-1ST 20 MIN., $3.50-ALL DAY — NO ATTENDANT AFTER 5:30 P.M.” It is mid-day, the sign is fastened to a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire which spirals a quarter-mile, takes a sharp ninety-degree turn, and continues thereafter for another quarter mile. I peer through the fence and scan a parched asphalt sea. Gangly weeds sprout from a few cracks and an occasional fence post. A small regiment of automobiles packs the far corner near the entrance, overshadowed by a rising cluster of office towers.

This is downtown Los Angeles. Even though nearly everyone claims this place is booming, much of downtown L.A. feels more like an urban wilderness than the heart of the nation’s second largest city. The apparent nothingness is partly due to the fact that the area is choked by arteries of concrete named the 110, 101 and 10, which ferry weekday commuters to far-flung destinations like Santa Monica, San Bernadino, and Pasadena. Unlike most American cities, however, these freeways do not radiate from downtown, nor do they terminate here. Los Angeles possesses no center. The entire metro area functions via a web of multiple centers interconnected by an extensive network of freeways. Therefore, for many, downtown L.A. is simply a place to crisscross and bypass.

Still, the seven square miles inside this tangle of freeways is more vital to the region than a quick look might indicate. Downtown possesses the largest concentration of government buildings outside Washington and the largest concentration of office space in the L.A. region. Downtown also serves as home to many of the region’s poorest people, including one of the nation’s largest and most concentrated homeless populations. 38% of downtown residents make less than $25,000 annually, and 66.3% do not have an education beyond a high school diploma.

While downtown possesses unique assets and challenges that separate it from other activity centers of the Los Angeles region, downtown is nearly impossible to identify or describe as one monolithic entity. In fact, downtown is comprised of a series of smaller centers, each anchored by a few core institutions and highly distinct in character, demographics, and industry. Although lengthy stretches of surface parking isolate one district from another, the loose assortment of districts is a key factor in making downtown a far more unique and complex place than the apparent lack of activity might suggest.

An incredible number of projects are currently in planning stages, on drawing boards or under construction. Large-scale projects, followed by a wave of smaller-scale developments, are slated to boost downtown L.A. into an active, bustling 24-7 region. Will the coming transformation destroy the complex multi-centered balance that makes downtown L.A. unique, in favor of a more generic, big-project-focused, style of development? Or will this development enhance each district’s existing role in the broader downtown, perhaps creating a new multi-centered model for how cities can grow smarter?

Before answering this key question, it is critical to understand the function each sub-center plays in the downtown area, and how the current wave of development will change each.

Bunker Hill & Civic Center Districts

Bunker Hill and the Civic Center, located in the northwest corner of downtown, serve as the business and government center of downtown. Bunker Hill is recognized by its collection of soaring office towers, mostly built during the late 70s and 80s. During lunchtime, office workers descend upon Angelus Plaza, a private enclave of corporate terraces, polished granite amphitheaters, and cascading waterfalls — all conveniently shaded by trim plantings and soaring skyscrapers. The plaza connects easily via sidewalks to the office towers of Grand Avenue — the north-south backbone of Bunker Hill. A $12.5 million street improvement plan will provide a wider landscaped promenade for pedestrians moving throughout the area.

The Civic Center, sandwiched between Bunker Hill and the 101 Freeway, is the local and state government center for Los Angeles and Southern California. California state officials are lobbying Congress for a new $414 million federal courthouse. An additional $93 million in federal funds is near approval for upgrading the existing Federal Building.

Due to an effort by civic and government leaders to fuel after-hours activity in the district, Bunker Hill is also emerging as L.A.’s premier cultural hub. Dotting the length of Grand Avenue is a series of cultural landmarks including the Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA) and the Music Center. Locally based and internationally acclaimed architect, Frank O. Gehry, showcases his signature architectural sinuosity with the nearly completed Disney Concert Hall, which will house the Philharmonic L.A. Opera, L.A. Master Chorale, and a below-grade parking garage. After the completion of the Concert Hall, two residential towers and a colorfully landscaped art park will rise next door. A performing arts high school is also under construction near the Music Center. A few blocks north, Spanish architect Jose Rafael Moneo recently unveiled solid, block-like forms and crystalline glasswork in the new Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. Recently dedicated, the sanctuary will serve the largest Roman Catholic diocese in the nation, welcoming hundreds of Sunday worshippers.

Little Tokyo & The Arts District

Located east of Bunker Hill and the Civic Center, Little Tokyo and the Arts District make up the northeast quadrant on downtown. Between the Civic Center and Little Tokyo, construction has begun on the new headquarters for the state and city transportation departments (CalTrans). Developed by Urban Partners and designed by local firm, Morphosis, this $171-million building will take advantage of the southern California climate by means of a large indoor-outdoor atrium and a façade that opens and closes in accordance with the movement of the sun.

Partly because numerous Japanese corporations have built factories in outlying communities such as Torrance and Carson, the Japanese American community in Little Tokyo has dissolved considerably in years’ past. Recent projects, however, have begun to reverse the community’s demise. The Japanese Village Plaza, an intimate pedestrian zone with small sushi restaurants, street performers, and ice cream stands, attempts to create an active sidewalk district, but disengages foot traffic from the rest of downtown with its internalized plan. Across the street, the Japanese American Museum, neighbors the Museum of Contemporary Art at the Geffen Contemporary, providing a cultural anchor for the district.

Furthermore, a proposed children’s museum will soon join the other museums via an art park with subterranean parking. On the same site, however, the Japanese American community is vying to build a multi–purpose gymnasium/recreation center, expecting to attract young people and boost local business. The dispute is currently pending city approval, and a compromise solution of integrating the two projects is being reviewed. Additionally, efforts are underway for a new Japanese American Cultural and Community Center (JACCC), which will incorporate a learning center, community hall and gallery.

The Arts District is anchored by the Southern California Institute of Architecture (Sci-Arc) occupying a newly renovated quarter-mile long train depot. The school serves as the visual terminus of Traction Avenue, a semi-active, and somewhat distinctive strip of loft housing, sidewalk cafes, an architecture bookstore, as well as a scattering of off-beat art galleries. Spearheaded by artists and students, the rate of loft conversions and the growth of other residential units is moving slowly in comparison with the other districts mentioned below.

Old Bank District & Jewelry District

Fanning to the east and south of Bunker Hill are several historic and densely built districts. Most buildings were once former theatres or commercial warehouses. In the Old Bank District, numerous smaller-scale developers have collectively sparked a preservation resurgence by adapting many buildings into residential lofts. The rise in market-rate housing units is introducing residents with ample disposable incomes to the once exclusively commercial area. The recently renovated Shrine Auditorium, once the largest theatre in the world, recently hosted this year’s Emmy Awards, and has re-injected prestige into the historic area.

Connecting Bunker Hill via the public landscape of Pershing Square, the Jewelry District is also experiencing increasing amounts of loft development. Sidewalk jewelry boutiques thrive during business hours, and continued renovations to the floors above are turning many buildings into jewels themselves.

South Park, Convention & Staples Centers

Located in the southwest corner of greater downtown, the ever-expanding convention center and recently built Staples Center Sports Arena sweep the 110 and 10 freeway interchange. Public disputes erupted recently regarding the use of taxpayer funds for a state-of-the-art multi-purpose sports facility. L.A. 9th District Councilmember, Jan Perry echoes other proponents in saying that “projects like the Staples Center add to the success of this flourishing community, bringing evening entertainment and providing downtown with a much-needed nightlife.” Critics, however, have pointed to a significant increase of surface parking, and claim spectators rarely spend time in the area before and after events. In an effort to address opponents’ concerns and retain spectators downtown, a team of developers recently launched a multi-phased plan for a $1 billion mixed-use mega center. Distributed among neighboring parking lots, the development will include several hotels, a health club, a 50,000 person outdoor plaza, a performing arts center, entertainment and retail space, and 800 residential units consolidated into two mixed-use towers. Adding another essential and long-awaited ingredient, downtown’s first major supermarket, Ralph’s, is in development stages, and will soon nestle amongst five proposed residential developments and neighboring Grand Hope Park. These developments will create a new town environment centered around a major sports facility, a type of district that has few precedents elsewhere in the country.

Industrial, Fashion, & Wholesale Districts

Although these eastern and southern downtown districts appear to be the most blighted, underused and neglected areas, at certain times, activity is abundant. For example, parking in the Fashion District is becoming increasingly difficult during peak times, and might even cost you $10.00. If you are willing to wake before dawn, you’ll find the Seafood District flopping and hopping as fishermen haul in their catch for wholesale, storage and processing. Construction at the nearby Santee Court, a $120 million loft, mixed-use, mixed-income project, is expected to be complete in October 2003. The presence of residents may give the area a desperately needed lift.

These districts also share a large burden of L.A. County’s homeless population, displaced from outlying areas. Determined to curb the problem, the city and the SRO Housing organization have introduced plans for the $1.6 million James M. Wood Community Center, located in heart of the Skid Row neighborhood. Intended to provide supportive services for area residents, the center will provide educational and meeting space, a rooftop park, as well as transportation, meal, and social services for people with special needs.

Downtown L.A.’s Unique Challenges

With so many proposed projects underway, downtown Los Angeles holds the raw material of investment and development that could make revitalization efforts successful. But understanding what these many projects will mean for downtown as a whole requires taking a step back to look at how they will address common challenges that all downtown districts face.

Increasing Residential Units: An overwhelming consensus exists that the most critical issue in making downtown an integrated, vibrant community is substantially increasing the number of market rate residential units. According to the Downtown Center Business Improvement District, a local, privately funded organization that promotes downtown, 13,657 housing units exist today in greater downtown. Among these, 5,155 are market rate units, and 8,502 are affordable housing units — mostly single-room-occupancy (SRO) hotel rooms. Yet by 2003, the proportion of market-rate to affordable housing will make a remarkable shift: of 8,053 market rate units proposed, a mere 343 affordable units are planned. While developers contend the broad disparity is the simple result of tremendous demand for market rate housing, affordable housing advocacy groups have filed lawsuits accusing housing developers of “creaming,” or taking advantage of governmental subsidies by building units catering only to the uppermost categories of the affordable housing market.

Another issue causing residential development to sputter comes from the region’s most familiar product, the Hollywood movie industry. In downtown, many potentially viable loft buildings are instead left vacant to lease for filmmaking and production. Often, a landlord can rake in more cash from one day of shooting than from an entire month of tenant rent. For the city, solving this problem has become a catch-22: while occupied sidewalk storefronts and residential units allow for an active street life, abandoning highly competitive filmmaking incomes would be a fiscal mistake. So the filmmaking business continues, and warehouses, vacant with the owner’s hopes of attracting film producers, remain as such.

Establishing Living Amenities: Along with the increased amounts of residential units, the need to provide livable amenities, such as schools, places of worship, grocery stores, parks and green space, is increasingly emerging as a parallel and critical issue in the success of downtown’s future development.

A number of public specialty schools are planned around the perimeter of downtown. A performing arts school near the Music Center and orthopedic hospital high school are planned. Additionally, development is underway for a new elementary school, three high schools, and the Belmont Learning Center, a massive 4,800 student school developed in partnership with a non-profit Latino education advocacy group.

In a drive to increase green space, numerous proposals to reclaim parking lots, brownfields, and even the banks of the trickling Los Angeles River for parkland have emerged. Thus far, the most feasible concept calls for establishing a network of ‘vestpocket’ parks — termed for their easily manageable size and abundant locations. Advocates for these parks contend a great number of green micro plots within close proximity to many residents are easier to manage and patrol than vast acres of consolidated parkland. Meanwhile, parks in Bunker Hill and Pershing Square, among others, are already stimulating such a fabric for downtown.

Confronting the Homeless Situation: The Skid Row Housing Trust, a non-profit organization preserving housing for homeless and people in transition, estimates the current homeless population at nearly 11,000 people. Jim Bonar, Chief Executive of the Trust, says the concentration of a majority of Southern California’s homeless in downtown L.A. is partly due to “prior practices of police officials who released drug convicts and inmates just outside the prison, located in downtown, instead of returning inmates to where they were picked up.” This recently discontinued procedure increased the concentration of would-be homeless and people in transition in downtown, while ensuring that outlying areas did not have to deal with the problem.

While this policy change may decentralize downtown’s homeless population eventually, the challenge of dealing with the current downtown population remains. City officials have increased support and collaboration with downtown homeless service organizations and other city departments, and have worked to build new facilities such as the James M. Wood Center in Skid Row. But Bonner says that while his organization has “experienced an increase in help from the city, it simply is not enough — more is needed.”

Transportation and Parking: City officials increasingly have trouble striking a balance between providing parking for residents and filling holes in the urban fabric caused by surface parking lots. Parking lot owners are resistant to give up their land, since many have been conducting business for decades, and the low overhead for parking operations provides easy and lucrative profits. In order to find win-win solutions, effective parking plans require tremendous cooperation between private and public sectors. When solutions do come, they occur mainly through agreements in which parking garages are integrated within brand-new buildings, such as the Staples Center area developments. However, in dense areas such as the Old Bank District, retrofitting automobile space into historic loft buildings is extremely costly. Oftentimes, demolition of neighboring buildings is the solution — though such demolition in the long run threatens the very character that makes these districts popular.

Also, because of Los Angeles’ car culture and horizontal development, even downtown residents need parking. Some hope for reversing the parking dilemma resides in Los Angeles’ new three-line subway — an addition that most visitors (and many L.A. residents for that matter) are not even aware of. While some communities, such as Beverly Hills, repeatedly voted against incorporating a subway line, other communities have embraced it, allowing for L.A.’s public transit system to continue expansion. The new Metro Gold Line will connect downtown’s recently renovated Union Station terminal to Pasadena. Another six mile, $760 million light rail branch will link downtown with the relatively lower income neighborhoods of East Los Angeles, Boyle Heights, as well as East L.A. Community College. Members of both public and private sectors are working to make walking and public transit more attractive options, perhaps reducing the parking crunch in the long term.

Aligning Divergent Paths of Growth

The above set of issues — housing, amenities, transportation, and homelessness — represent common challenges for all districts in downtown Los Angeles. Many of downtown’s sub-centers are addressing these challenges using similar methods, such as incorporating parking space into new buildings, as well as downsizing and distributing green space into vest pocket parks. So far, these similar approaches have occurred informally, without any kind of formal master plan. As the pace of development accelerates, the danger of mediocre development and planning that further isolates districts or diminishes a district’s unique identity grows. In addition, the question of what to do with the vast asphalt gaps between districts becomes more and more pressing.

A master plan for all of downtown will likely be needed in order to deal with these questions. Ideally, such a plan would set up the common infrastructure needed to allow the districts to relate to each other and create a framework for dealing with the district’s common issues, while preserving the differing interests and approaches which make the districts unique and attractive in the first place. The danger is that a centralized master plan, if done poorly, could tend to homogenize all of the districts in the hopes of creating a common identity. Planning for downtown is necessary, but must be done without instituting heavy-handed rules and reforms that would preclude the creative, diverse approaches that have sprung up in the absence of the burdensome regulation characteristic of many other American urban and suburban centers.

Various entities have recently attempted master plans, but it is too early to tell if the plans will be successful in maintaining the various districts’ characteristics. In May, the City Council and the Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) drafted a new redevelopment plan in May 2002 calling for a 30-year, 879-acre project covering the southern and eastern quadrants of downtown. The implementation of the plan has been stopped by a Los Angeles County lawsuit proclaiming 30 acres in the plan are not in need of redevelopment and a homeless advocacy group lawsuit claiming the plan fails to provide adequate relocation assistance for homeless and SRO dwellers.

Meanwhile, at the time of writing, two business groups, Downtown Center B.I.D. and the Central City Association, unveiled a 10-year plan to attract more visitors to downtown, as well as unify the area by encouraging development of residential and commercial activity. It is uncertain if the plan will be approved by the city or carried out solely by the business community. Also, yet to be seen is how much the plan deals with issues such as homelessness and green space that lie beyond the business community’s traditional concerns.

Continued development of these plans and others will have to strike a careful balance between the goal of creating infrastructure that can support the rapid rate of development in downtown and the danger of over-planning that could destroy unique district identities and allowances for creative development.

Implications on revitalization efforts elsewhere

As other metro areas work to revitalize their downtowns, the Los Angeles approach stimulates broader questions for the future of cities and communities elsewhere. Foremost, is there still a need for a central core in the American city? Should traditional downtowns continue to be preserved and revitalized as administrative, commercial (and more recently, entertainment and cultural) centers? Or should efforts instead be directed towards developing and redistributing multiple mini-centers throughout a metro area?

Los Angeles can teach us valuable lessons. First, multi-centered cities might be a solution to curbing suburban sprawl, where growth and decline is likely to occur within an urban soup of mini-centers. Secondly, the movement of people and goods — whether it be by means of automobiles, mass transit, bicycles or feet — within a multi-centered, mixed-density region is highly distributed, and eases the current one-way, radial movement patterns to and from a common center. This model can also work at smaller scales — as in downtown L.A., where diverse districts almost constitute a reduced form of the greater Los Angeles.

A common refrain throughout greater Los Angeles is that it is already “built out” in that land for new developments is no longer available. The revitalization efforts now underway in downtown L.A. may solve that problem by stimulating a new era where a city’s ebbs and flow, decline and growth, deterioration and renewal occur naturally and continually within the same land area. Environmental devastation to farmland, natural areas and destroyed wildlife habitat can be reduced with a multi-centered plan. Furthermore, in a post-9/11 era, security can be heightened with a redistributed, decentralized series of centers. Among its many challenges, Los Angeles’ greatest lies in creating diverse modes of transportation which can serve this new model for urban growth. If successful, Los Angeles, once the prototype for a generation of suburban development, just might once again become the future of the American city.