I am on-board with that kind of park. Some open air, some trees, some grass, a couple of reasonably nice kiosks selling food (no prominent signage, no chains). I think the area will have enough concrete as is.

How Bout How it Was Before?


http://i47.tinypic.com/2znswsl.jpg

That's Pershing Square. Something completely different.

yes, but that kind of park would be preferable to more cement like is currently planned for the civic center promenade.

I dunno, I'm 50/50 on the proposed park.

Pershing Square went through a few changes till we ended up with the Legorreta + Legorreta disaster we have now.

It once had a gazebo also. In its earlier days it looked very "spanish". (of course)

1871
http://www.theloftexchange.com/los%20angeles%20lofts/Pershing-Square(1871).jpg

Well the discussion was about Grand Park not Pershing Sq. But look at how beautiful that used to be.

I took a stroll today (as I do habitually) to DT, and did my own lil surveying, and I comprehend why they decided on a park with not much tall vegetation down the center, as some here would like.

That, would kill the two view points the park wants to focus on,.. that is City Hall at one end with an impressive frame, and the Music Center Plaza at the other.

I think people here are more into the natural approach. Getting those damn County buildings out of there and putting in grass. Make sure you take care of it- unlike the Police with their lawn, and carefully place the canopy with open space dominating the center.

Got it.

But most of the time the natural approach doesn't say "big city" or "monumental".

You know, I prefer something more symmetrical, lined with trees, and the mirror pool wasn't a bad idea.

This just looks too messy for me, even tho it does frame City Hall quite nice.

http://www.grandavenuecommittee.org/images/district_plan_large.gif

This..wasn't bad at all.........

http://www.grandavenuecommittee.org/images/contact_mainimg.jpg





with this.......



http://www.learcenter.org/images/Birkeland2.jpg

That only looks like a copy of the one in the Washington Mall.

http://www.keyofsolomon.org/images/Reflecting%20Pool.jpg

I'm over monumental. Grand Ave. itself is monumental enough, with a good view toward City Hall. Let the rest of the area be more human and natural in scale.

Frankfurt does a good job of this with quiet parks between skyscrapers at the edge of their bustling pedestrian streets.

Maybe.

But its gotta be something in between, people from all over the world come to Los Angeles not to see their own drab cities, but to be "stimulated", amazed.

oy! neither of us is getting what we want. "c'est la vie !"

Has Broad Made His Final Decision?
http://archpaper.com/e-board_rev.asp?News_ID=4340

Has Broad Made His Final Decision?
http://archpaper.com/e-board_rev.asp?News_ID=4340

Broad's Grand Plans
LA collector said to have selected downtown site for new museum

http://archpaper.com/uploads/image/BroadGrandAve.jpg
Eli Broad is said to have chosen a site that is now a parking lot adjacent to the Walt Disney Concert Hall (left) and MOCA (top right) for his foundation's new museum.
Courtesy Bing Maps

Could the protracted battle over LA philanthropist Eli Broad’s proposed art museum finally be over?


http://www.grandavenuecommittee.org/images/model_large.jpg
Broad's new museum would be included in the massive Grand Avenue project, on the far-right parcel. ...
COURTESY Grand Avenue Committee


Martha Welborne, Managing Director of the Grand Avenue Committee, which advises on development of The Grand, the giant mixed-use project in Downtown LA, has told The Architect’s Newspaper that Broad has decided to locate his new art museum within the project.

The proposed museum, which would display works from the Broad Foundation’s considerable contemporary art collection and contain its administrative offices, would be located on the site of two parking lots just south of the Walt Disney Concert Hall and across the street from the LA Museum of Contemporary Art and The Colburn School.

The site is currently slated for retail development within phase 2 of the now-stalled 3.5 million-square-foot, Gehry Partners-designed Grand, also known as the Grand Avenue Project. The project, developed by the Related Companies, has yet to begin construction, and Welborne said that, because of the economic downturn, Related has expressed a strong willingness to replace some retail (more than 100,000 square feet is currently planned) with a large cultural component.

“There’s been enough of a change that they saw the amount of retail was not viable,” Welborne said of the developer. Related representatives could not be reached for comment.

Welborne said that Broad is funding preliminary work to get the museum project started, including a revision to the Environmental Impact Report for The Grand as it pertains to the scope of development. By Welborne's estimate, the necessary changes could take about three months to complete.

Broad’s foundation, meanwhile, insists that it has not made a decision on the project. “We’re still considering three locations and Grand Avenue is one of them,” foundation spokesperson Karen Denne told AN.

Indeed, even if Broad does intend to land in downtown, the move is far from a done deal.

First there are the necessary approvals for the revised EIR and a new Disposition and Development Agreement from the Grand Avenue Authority, a joint-powers authority uniting the County of Los Angeles and the Community Redevelopment Agency of the City of Los Angeles. Related would also have to assign development rights to Broad, who would need to sign a ground lease. An architect would need to be chosen for the museum—Morphosis is rumored to be the frontrunner—and the project would need to secure subsequent entitlements.

But if Welborne is right and all goes according to plan, it would put to rest the much-publicized candidacies of Beverly Hills and Santa Monica for the museum. Broad had been investigating a site at the intersection of Wilshire and Santa Monica boulevards in Beverly Hills and one on land facing Main Street between the Santa Monica Courthouse and Civic Auditorium in Santa Monica. The two cities had seemed like the frontrunners until the Grand Avenue possibility surfaced in recent weeks.

“It makes a lot of sense,” said Welborne of the museum’s likely location on Grand Avenue. “Eli has invested so much in Grand Ave. with his philanthropy, be it with MOCA, with the Disney Concert Hall, the Performing Arts High School, or the Grand Avenue Project itself.”

“It would be a cultural anchor for the city and for the Grand project,” she added.

If Related's piece of the project goes forward, it would take up three city blocks, including an open-air plaza and two mixed-use towers by Gehry Partners. But that is a big if. The Grand Avenue Authority recently extended the deadline for Related to begin construction to February 2011, and Gehry, in an interview last March on the occasion of his 80th birthday, admitted to AN that he doubted the project would ever be completed. Asked about its prospects, Welborne simply said, "I don't know."

Sam Lubell

a good choice

There should be NO structures between The Music Center and City Hall.

I used to think these streets were cool to drive on back in the 70's, but I would be afraid to walk them today. Looks like a racetrack. . http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee192/trolltoast/album%202/BroadGrandAve.jpg

Tuesday of this past week I took this picture of the proposed park site how it looks right now.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4060/4477877873_517e002d1d_b.jpg

THAT is in NO way comparable to a "central park" of the west even if it were to be redeveloped... more like a bigger version of pershing square

Those county buildings have go to go. :ohno:

If you replaced the parking lot with greenspace you would technically have the park already...

You do sort of get the impression that every buidling in that picture was built by the same guy, using a square edge and a can of white paint (except Disney which doesn't show up much).

Those county buildings have go to go. :ohno:

If you replaced the parking lot with greenspace you would technically have the park already...

Destroy the county buildings and build a 65 story building on the site of Cal Plaza 3. Or just build Cal Plaza 3.

Beverly Hills pulls out of the running for Eli Broad's art museum [Updated] (http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2010/04/beverly-hills-out-of-the-running-for-eli-broads-art-museum.html)

It now looks as if the museum Eli Broad wants to build to house his 2,000-piece contemporary art collection is going to land in Santa Monica or at Grand Avenue and 2nd Street in downtown Los Angeles, literally a stone's throw from Walt Disney Concert Hall.

Culture Monster received this notice of surrender just now from a city spokeswoman in Beverly Hills, saying the city has "other project priorities" for its money than buying Broad a site for his museum.

"The Beverly Hills City Council has confirmed that it has concluded discussions with The Broad Art Foundation regarding the potential site of a museum at the intersection of Wilshire Blvd. and Santa Monica Blvd. As part of upcoming discussions on the adoption of the City’s fiscal year 2010-2011 budget, the Council will be reallocating to other project priorities the funds it had set aside for the potential acquisition of the property," the press release said.

"In a letter to Eli Broad, Beverly Hills City Manager Jeff Kolin said, 'While our City Council remains convinced that Beverly Hills offers an attractive location for your renowned art collection, we understand that The Broad Art Foundation is now considering other locations.'

"Kolin went on to say that should alternate sites not come to fruition, the City remained open to further partnership discussions."

We'll check with Broad or his art foundation minions in a moment and let you know what they have to add.

[Update, 6:15 p.m.] Broad has said the point of having multiple irons in the fire for his museum site is that competition between municipalities would ensure that bureaucratic red tape is minimized and planning moves ahead swiftly. Will Beverly Hills' dropping out increase the chances that the Santa Monica City Council and officials in charge of L.A.'s Grand Avenue Project could draw out the process and drive harder bargains because there's less competition to worry about?

"We're still interested in an expeditious process and decision," said Karen Denne, spokeswoman for the Broad Art Foundation. "All three locations had challenges, but we've still got two viable options." She said Broad still expects to decide the museum site by the end of spring.

Will Broad's collection be high profile enough for downtown? I wonder ....

It's kind of sad that everyone just accepts the fact that LA and SM just don't give a shit. Can you imagine if, say, Boeing and Airbus we're fighting to get the Broad? They would have teams camped in front of his house with proposals ready for signature at 5:00 AM the morning after the announcement. Any employees who got in the way of the deal would be found decapitated in the river.

It's not like this is a negotiation over price. All that Broad is asking for is for redtape to be minimized so that the project doesn't take years.

Am I confused, or does LA not figure that this would be beneficial for Grand Ave.? What's the second best choice, a Christmas tree lot or medical marijuana dispensary?

OK, I feel better now.

It's LA's convoluted planning process I believe. LA just don't wanna act right.

Los Angeles city officials consider giving land to billionaire Eli Broad (http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_14932258)

Amid repeated delays in the $3 billion Grand Avenue project, Los Angeles officials have proposed to let billionaire Eli Broad lease city property for $1 a year for 99 years for a museum to showcase his art collection, county officials said Wednesday.

The property was originally slated to be part of the massive Grand Avenue project, a complex of new retail shops, restaurants and hotels that was supposed to serve as a world-class centerpiece of a revitalized downtown Los Angeles.

The project was expected to generate tens of millions of dollars in tax revenue for the city and county, but the developer, The Related Cos., has had difficulty obtaining funding in the weakened economy.

Still, County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich is questioning the wisdom of giving up on potential tax revenue to benefit one of the country's richest men.

"Instead of a project that generates sales and property taxes, we'll now have an art museum that generates no property or sales taxes and Mr. Broad will get the land for free," said Paul Novak, planning deputy to Antonovich.

"So the question we are asking is why is the city proposing to give away one of the most valuable pieces of property in downtown Los Angeles to one of the richest men (in the nation) rather than putting it to tax-producing revenue uses?"

If approved, the museum would be located on a 2.5 acre city-owned parcel of land just south of the Walt Disney Concert Hall that amounts to about a quarter of the space of the Grand Avenue project.

The Grand Avenue project was slated to be a 3.6 million-square-foot development on two city-owned and two county-owned parcels near the Walt Disney Concert Hall.

A spokeswoman for the Broad Art Foundation said the collection is currently housed in a four-story building in Santa Monica that was a former telephone switching station. But the building, which provides 20,000 square feet of private gallery space, has several shortcomings in its ability to provide public viewings.

"It's in a building that is unable to be opened to the public because it lacks adequate parking," foundation spokeswoman Karen Denne said. "As the collection continues to grow, the Broads are looking to both consolidate the storage facility, as well as expanding lending activity. And because the Broads believe so strongly in making art accessible to the public, they want to include a public museum as part of The Broad Art Foundation expansion."

She said the foundation is looking at several different locations and will decide later this spring.

The city of Santa Monica is also striving to keep Broad's collection in that beachside city.

Andy Agle, director of housing and economic development for Santa Monica, said the City Council has offered to lease a 2.5-acre site a couple of blocks from the beach for Broad's museum for $1 per year for 99 years.

"Santa Monica is a major cultural city," Agle said. "A huge proportion of our population makes their living in cultural pursuits.

"We've got major art galleries, the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium and we envision this area as an important cultural focal point for Santa Monica."

Officials at the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency and in the office of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa did not return calls for comment.

However, a spokesperson for the Grand Avenue Committee confirmed Broad has talked to the Grand Avenue Authority about building his museum on one of the Grand Avenue sites.

Under the proposal, Broad would pay for the construction and operation of the museum.

"Discussions are ongoing and no terms have been decided," the spokesperson said.

Broad and his wife Edythe have built an extensive art collection over the past four decades involving more than 2,000 works by nearly 200 artists. The Broad Art Foundation also maintains a library that lends parts of the collection to hundreds of museums and universities worldwide.


L.A. is practically giving the land away.

I think we know where the museum is going. :lol:

^^If I'm not mistaken, I think the Santa Monica parcel that's in the running is also offered at $1/year for 99 years.

Obviously, cannabis dispensaries are better than xmas tree lots at serving their communities. :)

Broad’s vision for downtown (http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-rutten-20100424,0,2889227.column)

Los Angeles took quiet but significant steps forward this week when officials overseeing downtown's stalled Grand Avenue project approved the outlines of a deal likely to bring philanthropist Eli Broad's private museum of contemporary art to a site adjacent to Disney Hall.

Because the agreement was reached in closed session, details haven't been formally announced, but multiple sources confirm their essential outline:

The committee overseeing the project — a joint authority of the city, county and the Community Redevelopment Agency — is offering to lease Broad the 82,000-square-foot site for 99 years at $1 a year. The CRA also would borrow $30 million to construct a 300-space underground garage, with the money to be repaid by new taxes generated in the area. For his part, the billionaire and uber arts patron would agree to begin construction of the museum no later than Feb. 15, 2013, and would have four years to complete the facility. Broad will pay the architect's fees and construction costs — estimated at between $40 million and $60 million — and his foundation will fund the museum's projected annual budget of about $12 million out of a $200-million endowment.

The museum would house more than 2,000 works by an international who's who of leading contemporary artists, drawn from both the Broad Foundation's collection and the financier's personal holdings. Plans for the facility include not only gallery space but a study center, shop, cafe and offices for Broad's foundations. Since Broad resolved to construct a private museum, Los Angeles, Beverly Hills and Santa Monica — which already has on the table an offer comparable to the Grand Avenue committee's — have vied for the project.

From the start, though, Broad has made no secret that he's inclined toward the downtown venue, and he already has financed revisions to the Grand Avenue project's environmental impact report out of his own pocket. There are multiple reasons why city and county officials ought to push this deal to conclusion — as well as good ones for overlooking reservations a sober person might normally raise.

To take the latter first, there's the fact that Broad is co-chair of the Grand Avenue project's board of directors, which, given the closed-door negotiations on the agreement, normally should raise more than a few cautionary eyebrows. The fact of the matter is, however, that Broad has emerged in recent years as one of the few L.A. philanthropists willing to put his money where his convictions are. He's already a trustee of both the L.A. County Art Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Art, and when the latter flirted with financial disaster recently, it was Broad who bailed it out. More to the point, it was the financier, along with former Mayor Richard Riordan and a handful of others, who first envisioned an entertainment/cultural corridor for downtown, stretching along Grand and Figueroa from Dodger Stadium on the north to the Coliseum on the south. Broad did the fundraising that saw Disney Hall through to completion and gave the money that made the new landmark performing arts high school a reality.

None of this is a secret, and penalizing him for the breadth of his civic engagement is, at this point, worse than small-minded.

Moreover, the collapse of the property market has put the Frank Gehry-designed Grand Avenue project on life support. Siting the new museum alongside Disney Hall and across the street from MOCA and the Coburn School would create a downtown magnet for cultural tourism, and is at least a partial step toward keeping the Grand Avenue project alive until the recovery actually takes hold.

This week, county Supervisor Mike Antonovich's planning deputy, Paul Novak, objected to the proposed agreement because it would substitute a museum for a retail center. "The question we are asking is why is the city proposing to give away one of the most valuable pieces of property in downtown Los Angeles to one of the richest men [in the nation] rather than putting it to tax-producing revenue uses?"

Economist Jack Keyser has an answer to that one: "Construction of the Broad museum downtown would be a major event for all of L.A. County, because tourism is our No. 1 industry. Retail, on the other hand, is the most toxic part of the property market because we've overbuilt to such an extent there."

On the other hand, Keyser points out, "Cultural tourists who will be attracted in even greater numbers to Grand Avenue if this museum were built, [will] stay longer and spend more than any other tourist."

The proposed Broad museum is precisely the sort of visionary project that not only will help push the city and county further toward economic recovery, but also has an eye firmly on the future. It ought to be pushed through to completion.

Amen.

I took the subway to the opera this Sunday. There were 3 Hispanic families who got off at Civic Center with me and seemed to be going to some family oriented function. The car was empty after we got off.

What I’m saying is that Grand Ave. is not exactly on fire as a tourist destination. The opera was absolutely sold out, but presumably those people came in cars (or other transit) and left after the show. When the show ended, I strolled down to Takami for some sushi and it was basically empty along Grand, down the steps, along 5th and Flower to Wilshire.

The Broad is an opportunity to turn that area into a serious cultural destination. You can look at the outside of the Disney or Music Center, but unless you go to a show you are not going to hang around for long. With the Broad and some pleasant streetscape, there should be people hanging there all weekend. I don’t have delusions that it is going to be mobbed: modern art is not going to draw large groups of tourists and the theater/opera crowds aren’t that big. But it’s another piece of the puzzle and will add serious name recognition and a litany of things to see or do altogether (Our Lady, Music Center, Disney, Broad, MOCA, City Hall).

Antonovich’s position is unfortunate, but he actually has unconsciously made a point. There will be institutions and some hotels in the area, but housing and retail are still pretty lean. To get a real street scene on Grand seems difficult since it is institutional; but retail (some food; some arts oriented?) on the side streets toward Civic Center and in a plaza around the proposed Gehry part of the development would be a huge plus.

But the main point is that on weekends almost anything would be an improvement.

Downtown L. A. is a very very expensive fixer-upper ...

If Broad does decide to locate his museum in Downtown, it better not be Gehry designing it.

Critic’s Notebook: What L.A. might ask of Eli Broad

The billionaire is reportedly looking at a Grand Avenue site for his art museum. Here’s what city officials should have in mind for possible negotiations.

By Christopher Hawthorne, Los Angeles Times Architecture Critic

April 29, 2010

It's a familiar recipe for urban revitalization in downtown Los Angeles.

Start with a nondescript parking lot in a strategically important location. Propose replacing it with a new building by an acclaimed architect. Repeat as often as politically or financially feasible.

That was the plan for the first phase of the ambitious but now stalled Grand Avenue project, which called for a mixed-use complex by Frank Gehry to replace a parking structure across the avenue from Gehry's Walt Disney Concert Hall.

And in the last few days have come a flurry of news reports that Eli Broad wants to build an 82,000-square-foot museum for his Broad Art Foundation on another site now filled with cars, this one a surface parking lot at the southwest corner of Grand Avenue and 2nd Street. Owned by the city, the property was originally pegged as part of the Grand Avenue development's second phase.


Broad has so far declined to confirm the reports, saying only that he is considering a pair of sites for the museum, with a Santa Monica location also in the running. Beverly Hills was pushing a third location but announced it was pulling out of the Broad sweepstakes earlier this month.

For the sake of argument, though, let's assume the property on Grand Avenue is Broad's preferred spot, given his longstanding interest in Bunker Hill and his close relationship with Jeffrey Deitch, the new director of the nearby Museum of Contemporary Art.

What would the arrival of the museum mean for Bunker Hill and downtown?

Broad, naturally, can be expected to push hard for a site and a deal that best suits his foundation, his collection and his much-debated vision for Grand Avenue. Indeed, it seems likely that Broad has kept the other sites in contention largely as a way to boost his leverage on Bunker Hill.

As is so often the case in Los Angeles, the question is who on the public side will be pushing back — and how effectively.

Handing the site over to Broad will make sense for the city only if the museum project can avoid becoming an isolated, self-contained architectural attraction in the inglorious tradition of downtown development. Indeed, even as Grand Avenue has continued to collect individual buildings by leading architects, long-imagined improvements to its streetscape have largely failed to materialize.

Talks over the Bunker Hill site will be complicated by the fact that Broad has served as co-chair of the board of the Grand Avenue Committee, which includes representatives from the city, county and Community Redevelopment Agency and has been overseeing the planned project with developer Related Cos. and Gehry.

On top of that, public officials enter those negotiations facing some clear strategic disadvantages. The first is the sense, masterfully cultivated by Broad, that downtown power brokers — or those in Santa Monica or Beverly Hills, for that matter — should be courting him rather than the other way around.

The team negotiating with Broad is also shorthanded in a few key areas. The CRA remains without a permanent leader after Cecilia Estolano left last year following disputes with City Hall.

The Los Angeles Department of City Planning, meanwhile, has been ravaged by staff cutbacks in recent weeks, particularly among planners who had focused on downtown. Both Jane Blumenfeld, the city's deputy director of planning, and Emily Gabel-Luddy, who founded the planning department's Urban Design Studio and helped craft new design guidelines for downtown streets and sidewalks, have taken early retirement, eased out the door by severe budget pressures.

Nonetheless, even as Broad is reportedly poised to make a significant gift to the city — promising to pay for the design and construction of the museum while an endowment takes care of annual operating expenses — he is also asking for something significant in return: a prominent piece of property that the museum would be allowed to lease for $1 per year for 99 years.

My colleague Tim Rutten reports that Broad also wants the CRA to help raise $30 million for an underground parking garage serving the museum.

Those facts alone should give city officials some negotiating ammunition. How should they use it? What should they be angling for in discussions with Broad?

They could sensibly begin by asking how the museum's construction might be leveraged to help produce truly meaningful improvements to the blocks surrounding it — and to help draw foot traffic and avoid the hidden-in-plain-sight quality of Arata Isozaki's design for the MOCA building.

They could push Broad for an agreement, for example, to install sculptures and other artworks — from his foundation's collection, from MOCA or elsewhere — leading from the new museum to the nearby Metro subway station, or stretching through the new civic park soon to be built from the Music Center to City Hall.

They could seek funds to revive the campaign to improve the murky lighting design on the exterior of Disney Hall, or more ambitiously to rescue Gehry's original plan to project video images of live concerts on the hall's facades.


They could ask Broad to help fund an effort to commission artists and under-employed architects to design pavilions or temporary installations both in the new civic park and filling portions of the Grand Avenue development where construction is stalled.

These could be closer in cost and spirit to recent installations at the Coachella music festival — where the L.A. firm Ball-Nogues Studio produced an informal illuminated structure last year for roughly $15,000 — than, say, artist Anish Kapoor's silvery "bean" sculpture at Millennium Park in Chicago, which cost a reported $23 million. The first batch might even be designed by whatever architecture firm Broad picks for the museum project.

They could, finally, ask architects and designers for ideas that would help promote a flow of pedestrian and bike traffic between Bunker Hill and the rest of downtown. This could be as simple as a signage and wayfinding campaign by a team of artists and graphic designers or as complex, should funding ever allow, as some high-design combination of people-mover and funicular — an Angel's Flight designed by a contemporary artist or architect, and something of a downtown answer to the hanging train Jeff Koons and Michael Govan are planning for LACMA.

Downtown needs innovative thinking on the subjects of mobility and civic identity, after all, a good deal more than it needs additional — and immovable — monuments.

Nobody can reasonably blame Broad for attaching strings to his philanthropy. What we continue to lack in Los Angeles, though, is a productive discussion about precisely what happens in the spots where private money meets public realm.


Approached the right way, negotiations about the Broad museum could begin to remedy that. Otherwise, we'll find ourselves looking around for yet another parking lot with all kinds of potential.

christopher.hawthorne@latimes.com

If Broad does decide to locate his museum in Downtown, it better not be Gehry designing it.

^^

I agree, but if you were Eli Boad, who would you have in mind? Another famous Star-chitect or some lesser known, local talents designing it?

I'm somewhat pleased with Gehry's proposal for the Grand Avenue's retail/tower component, but the over-saturation of Gehry designed buildings in this tiny square block area would certainly be Gehry overkill and make the area architecturally monotonous.

Should Eli Broad indeed locate here, he needs to build a building that stands out on its own; a building that is beautiful and distinct, but also seamlessly blends in with the environment and doesn't overpower or distract from the 'jewel' of Grand Avenue --the Walt Disney Concert Hall.

I was under the impression that Grand Ave would be linked by the streetcar initiative that would connect it to LA Live.

The proposals are for the streetcar to go on Hope or Olive from 1st to 3rd with an option for right down Grand. They all go at least as far south as 11th.

Some other thoughts on Hawthorne: I think Thom Mayne is Broad’s architect of choice, or have I missed something? The lot itself is not a prime location; it is an awful location: below ground level, facing zero traffic streets on 3 sides and more like under a bridge on the Grand side. Finally, it’s not Broad’s business to provide work for starving artists and architects.

Hawthorne’s other points are mostly good but fairly obvious; putting art outside the building and making the area walkable and connected to other areas are no-brainers. Retail is a good idea but it doesn’t just happen, it requires patrons to be successful.

Increased residential will help if and when that happens. The problem is that the area is high-rise office, government and institutional. It is closer to Wall St. than Times Sq. It is not obvious where you would put in more housing except in one or two high-rises and I am not sure how much demand there would be in that area due to the emptiness on weekends.

To me, the two big hopes are tourists and arts patrons (museum, symphony, theater, opera, dance). On weekends, these people could be kept an extra hour or two with some entertainment. Grand has more or less no traffic south of Disney on the weekends. How about closing it and putting in outdoor dining or a stage area or allowing skateboard or bike parks to be put in for the day. Attracts young people and activity, and provides entertainment for those having food or drink before or after the show or visiting the gallery. And some nice landscaping and water in the "Gehry Plaza" would make it a real showpiece.

Broad says downtown art museum would draw better than one in Santa Monica (http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2010/05/broad-says-downtown-art-museum-would-draw-better-than-one-in-santa-monica-.html)

Eli Broad says he still hasn't decided between Santa Monica and downtown Los Angeles as a site for a new museum to house his contemporary art collection.

But in a conversation Wednesday with Times editorial board members and reporters, Broad made his first public comments suggesting a preference, and downtown at the southwest corner of 2nd Street and Grand Avenue, next to Walt Disney Concert Hall and across from the Museum of Contemporary Art, would seem to be it.

"Santa Monica we haven't ruled out, by the way," Broad said after outlining how a Grand Avenue museum would help fulfill his longstanding vision of building up downtown L.A. as a magnet for economic growth and cultural tourism. "But it's not like being downtown if you want to draw the biggest possible audience."

Broad, L.A.'s leading arts philanthropist, with a net worth Forbes magazine estimates at $5.7 billion, said that if the review process goes smoothly, work on a downtown museum could begin in July, with an opening as soon as the summer of 2012.

If negotiations fail, he could turn to the 2.5-acre parcel next to the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. The Santa Monica City Council in March approved an agreement in principle to lease the city-owned land to Broad for $1 a year while also contributing $1 million toward design costs. Broad would pay the rest, an estimated $50 million to $70 million. Final approval would await an environmental review and a vetting of the building plan.

The downtown Los Angeles site is under the jurisdiction of the Grand Avenue Committee, which oversees a $3-billion development project that's been stalled by the poor economy, and the city of Los Angeles' Community Redevelopment Agency, which owns the land.

For the downtown museum, Broad envisions a 120,000-square-foot building to display and store his 2,000-piece collection, which includes works by Jeff Koons, Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns and Jean-Michel Basquiat. In return for a 99-year lease on the land at $1 a year — the same terms as the Santa Monica agreement — Broad would pay the full construction cost, estimated at $100 million. At either site, he would provide a $200-million endowment that he expects would generate $11 million to $12 million annually to pay the museum's operating expenses.

The redevelopment agency has asked Broad to provide a $20-million, long-term loan to build a 300-space public parking garage.

Broad said his museum's director will be Joanne Heyler, director and chief curator of the Broad Art Foundation. The foundation now operates out of a Santa Monica building, lending works to museums and university art galleries around the world. While exhibition plans aren't yet in place, Broad said that as many as 300 works would be on display at any one time, with rotating selections from his collection in the museum's 38,000 square feet of gallery space.

The aim, he said, would be to cap admission charges at $10 for the downtown museum and admit children free. MOCA's incoming director, Jeffrey Deitch, has privately and publicly urged Broad to build his museum downtown; Broad said that, while there are no agreements in place with MOCA, he envisions cooperative arrangements, such as free admission to the Broad museum for all MOCA visitors.

Broad envisions more than 200,000 visitors a year at his museum and estimates that, together with MOCA's venues — the headquarters on Grand Avenue and the Geffen Contemporary to the east near 1st Street and Central Avenue — total visits could reach 500,000. MOCA's attendance fell to 149,000 during 2009 as the Geffen Contemporary remained closed for most of the year to save money following a 2008 budget crisis that ended with Broad pledging $30 million to help shore up MOCA's finances.

To bring in big crowds, Broad said, his museum would likely devote $1 million to $1.5 million a year to advertising and marketing, aiming to promote "the whole Grand Avenue experience." On Grand Avenue, his museum would join MOCA, the Music Center and Disney Hall, the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, the Colburn School of Music, the new arts high school across the Hollywood Freeway and the $56-million park that will slope down from Grand Avenue to City Hall. The park awaits an expected groundbreaking in June. Other major downtown cultural attractions include the Japanese American National Museum and El Pueblo de Los Angeles.

Broad was accompanied at Wednesday's meeting by Nelson Rising and Antonia Hernandez, the chair and vice chair of the Grand Avenue Committee, and Stephen Rountree, president of the Music Center. Rountree said that if Broad's museum were built on Grand Avenue it would help create "a critical mass of art and architecture downtown," and complement the efforts of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Los Angeles Opera to cultivate younger audiences.

I would like a continued discussion on the impact of a Broad museum on Grand Ave. "Pest" since you are rarely at a loss for words and like to go to the opera and shit like that why don't you say a few words?

I'm not sure I have much to add. In general, Grand Ave. will be set after the Broad is done. The Gehry is pretty much OK with me. The mall will be a mall before or after the "improvments". The county buildings have to go.

I would put more landscaping and maybe something to attract more people on weekends (a stage for groups to perform, skateboarding ramps). This could get the culture crowd to hang out longer and watch the scene. Landscaping would be nice. Retail is great but I don't see the demand yet.

I could imagine with an improved mall, and if the 101 cap park and Grand project go through, that it could stimulate redevelopment of those drab public works buildings.

A few thoughts: The mall is OK as is. It’s not going to be the center of anything. Same for the county buildings; ignore them. Grand Ave. and the Gehry Square are the physical keys. Get something beautiful around the Civic Center subway stop (part of the Gehry project). And get something along Grand itself. The artsy people will come there, they need to be kept a little longer and then moved to El Pueblo or Bway and LA Live.

The other problem is not enough people who live in the neighborhood. Unless Hill and Bway are built-up I’m not sure who supports local retail expansion. Maybe around Union Station, as klam has suggested in the past.

btw, if you can scrape the money together, try to catch one of the Ring cycle at LA Opera in late-May and June. Unbelievable quality musically and visually. Also, Bengal Tiger at the Taper is drawing great reviews.

btw, if you can scrape the money together, try to catch one of the Ring cycle at LA Opera in late-May and June. Unbelievable quality musically and visually. Also, Bengal Tiger at the Taper is drawing great reviews.

I'll get Brent to warm up the executive and head on down!

please use mass transit if possible.

Actually, tickets for Bengal Tiger can be had for about $20 through Goldstar. The opera is legitimately expensive since the cheap seats are pretty much sold out through the end of June. Placido don't come cheap.

So what you're saying is that nothing could do more wonders for Grand than the Broad?

Did you have someting in particular in mind?

Final Construction Documents for Civic Park Set for CRA Approval (http://blogdowntown.com/2010/05/5358-final-construction-documents-for-civic-park)

By Eric Richardson
Published: Wednesday, May 19, 2010, at 02:41PM

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — A $56-million renovation of the park that runs through the heart of the Civic Center is scheduled to break ground next month, but before it can do so the project's Final Construction Documents must receive approvals from two government agencies.

The first of those approvals should come Thursday, when the item goes before the board of the Community Redevelopment Agency.

Funding for the project is coming from Related Companies, developer of the stalled Grand Avenue Project. With interest and funds from Proposition 40, the developer's payment of $50 million in July of 2007 has grown to $56 million.

Related submitted the construction documents at the end of January. With approvals, the park work is expected to break ground by the end of June. Construction would be completed by June of 2012, though individual phases may open earlier.

The park space stretches down Bunker Hill from the Music Center to City Hall, passing between the County-owned buildings on Temple and 1st. Most of the land is existing park, though one parcel adjacent to City Hall is currently in use as a surface parking lot.

The design by Rios Clementi Hale Studios appears largely similar to what approved by the County Board of Supervisors last April, but has undergone some changes. Space has been provided next to the "Community Terrace" for the existing Court of Flags, and some elements feel softer than they were in earlier designs.

Reuse is a major theme, with granite torn out during reconstruction of the Grand Avenue parking ramps used to make benches for the park's "Olive Court" area. The existing Arthur J. Will fountain will be retained and upgraded, keeping the shape and scale of the piece but cutting down on water volume and implementing modern nozzles and light fixtures. Reworked footpaths and a new membrane pool will provide interactive elements.

Many existing mature trees will be retained in the new design, though some will be removed to open views between City Hall and the DWP building.

After CRA, the construction documents must next go to the County Board of Supervisors, which is scheduled to hear the item on June 1.

CRA Gives Final Approval to Civic Park
Los Angeles Downtown News
Published: Friday, May 21, 2010 5:56 PM PDT

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES - A 16-acre park in the heart of Downtown came one step closer to reality last week.

On Thursday, May 20, the Community Redevelopment Agency board of commissioners approved the final construction documents for the park that is part of developer Related Cos.’ Grand Avenue plan. Although the mammoth housing and retail components of that project, formally titled The Grand, are on hold due to financing issues, groundbreaking for the park is expected by July. The $56 million amenity, completely paid for by Related, will stretch from the Music Center four blocks down to City Hall. It includes elements such as sun and shade gardens, and will upgrade the historic Arthur J. Will Fountain outside the County Hall of Administration. A rendering depicts a large “event lawn” outside City Hall. County officials are expected to vote on the final construction documents on June 1.

http://www.ladowntownnews.com/articles/2010/05/21/news/doc4bf7092468cbd296097061.txt

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-broad-finalists-20100525,0,6968784.story

Architectural firms vie for Broad museum project

The six architects -- four are winners of the Pritzker Prize -- are based in Holland, England, Switzerland, Japan, France and the U.S.

Eli Broad is a little further along in his plans for a downtown museum than you might have guessed.

Even as he continues to negotiate with city and county officials and with representatives of developer Related Cos. about building a museum to hold his collection of postwar and contemporary art on Bunker Hill, the billionaire philanthropist and his chief of staff, Gerun Riley, have been running an invited architectural competition for the project.

They include Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas (whose prolific firm is called Office for Metropolitan Architecture); Swiss pair Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron; French architect Christian de Portzamparc; and Japanese duo Ryue Nishizawa and Kazuyo Sejima, whose Tokyo firm, SANAA, is the winner of the 2010 Pritzker.

Two architectural firms are finalists for Broad museum project
Sources say the field of six architects, four of whom are winners of the Pritzker Prize, has been narrowed to Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas and New York-based Diller, Scofidio & Renfro.
By Christopher Hawthorne, Los Angeles Times Architecture Critic
The Los Angeles Times
May 25, 2010

Eli Broad is a little further along in his plans for a downtown museum than you might have guessed.

Even as he continues to negotiate with city and county officials and with representatives of developer Related Cos. about building a museum to hold his collection of postwar and contemporary art on Bunker Hill, the billionaire philanthropist and his chief of staff, Gerun Riley, have been running an invited architectural competition for the project.

According to a list of invited firms seen by The Times — and confirmed in a statement by Broad Monday afternoon — the competition was loaded from the start with high-profile firms. Of the six architects asked to present preliminary designs last week for the site on the corner of Grand Avenue and 2nd Street, four are winners of the Pritzker Prize, the field's most prestigious award.

They include Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas and his firm Office for Metropolitan Architecture; Swiss pair Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron; French architect Christian de Portzamparc; and Japanese duo Ryue Nishizawa and Kazuyo Sejima, whose Tokyo firm, SANAA, is the winner of this year's Pritzker.

The other firms asked to take part are New York-based Diller, Scofidio & Renfro, designers of the 2006 Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, among other projects, and London's Foreign Office Architects.

According to a source with knowledge of the competition – who asked not to be named, citing the confidentiality of the process – a group of architectural advisors organized by Broad last Wednesday narrowed the six firms to two finalists. They are Koolhaas and Diller, Scofidio & Renfro.

Broad has said he wants to move quickly on the museum; assuming he can win the needed site approvals without significant delays, he hopes to open its doors by 2012 or 2013.

Aside from wide name recognition, there is little that ties together the work of the firms invited to take part in the competition. SANAA, which has museums in New York and Toledo, Ohio, to its credit, is known for spare, nearly weightless compositions, while Herzog & de Meuron, designer of the de Young Museum in San Francisco and an addition to the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, often wraps its intelligently arranged buildings in unusual, eye-catching skins.

Koolhaas, whose firm designed the Seattle Central Library and produced a master plan for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art that was never built, is known for an emphasis on aggressively unorthodox form-making that is a far cry from the gem-like designs of Portzamparc. Aside from the ICA in Boston, Diller, Scofidio & Renfro are best known for theoretical projects and a collaboration with landscape architect James Corner on the High Line elevated park in Manhattan. The firm is also working on a multi-phase renovation of New York's Lincoln Center.

Despite the severe blow dealt to California architects by the recession, the last several weeks have yielded a bumper crop of news on museum plans and architectural shortlists in the state. The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art announced last week that it is considering four firms for a new wing holding 100,000 square feet of exhibition space. Late last month, the U.C. Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive revealed that three firms are competing to design its new home in downtown Berkeley.

Notably, Diller, Scofidio & Renfro appear on all three shortlists, for Grand Ave., San Francisco and Berkeley. Just as notable, perhaps, is that the six firms asked by Broad to submit designs include none from California.

Broad envisions a three-story Grand Avenue museum with roughly 40,000 square feet of top-floor exhibition space, along with offices for the Broad Art Foundation. The proposed site is across 2nd Street from Gehry's Walt Disney Concert Hall and across Grand from Arata Isozaki's 1986 Museum of Contemporary Art.

Broad knows both of those buildings intimately, of course. He was the founding chairman of MOCA and more recently helped bail the museum out of a deep financial hole. And he was instrumental in reviving the concert hall project after it stalled in the 1990s.

Officially, Broad maintains that he is still considering a second potential museum site, in the Santa Monica civic center.

"We look forward to making a decision on both the site and the architect later this spring," his statement said.

I've always wondered how competitions work without specific sites. ???? My guess is that Broad has been aware of a final site for a while now.
Herzog and de Meron shouldn't be on that list. Where's Zaha? or Ando? or ME? :P

uh-yeeeaaahhhhh, where are they?

you can never find a good Ando when you need one.

I guess this makes sense; they will release the renderings at the same time as the decision is formally announced; makes for better press. Given the small space and its below grade location, I am preparing to be underwhelmed. But at least there shouldn't be any conflict with the Gehry proposal (if that is even still alive) since Broad was all over that part of the project as well.

I've always wondered how competitions work without specific sites. ???? My guess is that Broad has been aware of a final site for a while now.
Herzog and de Meron shouldn't be on that list. Where's Zaha? or Ando? or ME? :P

Why?

It should be pretty clear by now that Broad's chosen Downtown! :banana:

So you're saying that the City couldn't still badger him with absurd and incomprehensible requirements that will drive him out the door in a fury? I think you're underestimating the City.

Why?

I think their overtly geometric buildings would take away from WDCH.

http://www.essen-fuer-das-ruhrgebiet.ruhr2010.de/uploads/pics/Erweiterungsbau_Museum_Kueppersmuehle__Entwurf_Erweiterungsbau_Herzog___de_Meuron_02_B_artikel_01.jpg

http://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2010/02/dzn_VitraHaus-by-Herzog-and-de-Meuron-3.jpg

Give me the sinuous flow of Zaha any day!

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3526/4051571199_254893ddc6_b.jpg
flickr jmsoler

Agree. Imagine a Hadid museum. Imagine this:

http://www.yankodesign.com/images/design_news/2007/02/2/abu_dhabi.jpg
http://www.jetsetsocialite.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/zaha-hadid-and-chanel-for-chanel-mobile-art.jpg
http://garethjthomas.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/library-and-learning-centre-at-the-university-of-economics-business-by-zaha-hadid-architects-squzha_library-learning-c.jpg
http://www.instablogsimages.com/images/2008/10/22/vilnius_guggenheim_hermitage_museum_by_zaha_hadid_57oBX_19672.jpg

OMG! we agree on something!! :banana:

Given the limitations of space, I would hang one of those Hadid suckers right over Grand, maybe over the Colburn too. Get a dialogue going with the Disney and make Gehry think about you, not you about him.

But I'm afraid we might be going over budget.

OMG! we agree on something!! :banana:

Shocking I know. ;)

But I've been saying for a while that if ever a city deserved a project designed by Zaha Hadid, it's Los Angeles. Which isn't to say that I'm not excited about the other architects.

You're gonna need a little more room for a Hadid project ..

You're gonna need a little more room for a Hadid project ..

I actually think that the location of Broad's museum will issue a host of challenges that could make it a very architecturally striking building. No matter who designs it. You have the challenge of trying to make it accessible from both lower and upper Grand Ave as well as 2nd to the north and Hope to the west. I'd try to design a building that 'hangs over' Grand Ave.

A bud or egg-shaped building has been suggested for the Broad, implying the Disney the moment before it "burst open". But extending and shaping the egg to lean across Grand and face ("look at") the Gehry complex is another idea. An actual window facing that area would not only provide an actual view of the Gehry square but a metaphorical statement that modern art is primarily a subjective observation of the world around us.

It would also be a reminder that something is supposed to be built there beyond the temporary parking structure.

Colors should be understated, assuming the Gehry will be busy.

A bud or egg-shaped building has been suggested for the Broad, implying the Disney the moment before it "burst open". But extending and shaping the egg to lean across Grand and face ("look at") the Gehry complex is another idea. An actual window facing that area would not only provide an actual view of the Gehry square but a metaphorical statement that modern art is primarily a subjective observation of the world around us.

It would also be a reminder that something is supposed to be built there beyond the temporary parking structure.

Colors should be understated, assuming the Gehry will be busy.

Good idea. But I think instead of an egg (ovular) shaped building, I think that a more angular building should be thought of. I really love the idea of a building that 'looks' at the park.

I was thinking more like an egg elongated, shaped and twisted, but I am about the worst designer I have ever known. Hadid doesn't do angles much, but I suppose she can when necessary.

Eli Broad: ‘We’d Rather Be Downtown’
The plan calls for building a three-story parking garage on lower Grand Avenue, across from REDCAT. The museum would sit atop the garage, allowing it to front upper Grand Avenue. Photo by Gary Leonard.
by Ryan Vaillancourt, Staff Writer
Los Angeles Downtown News
Published: Thursday, May 27, 2010 3:22 PM PDT

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES - Eli Broad is no stranger to Grand Avenue. He helped found the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Grand Avenue Committee. With former Mayor Richard Riordan he revived the plan to build the Walt Disney Concert Hall, and he convinced the Los Angeles Unified School District to hire a big-name architect to build its $232 million arts high school on Grand Avenue. Last year, he came back to where he started, infusing a financially strapped MOCA with $30 million, essentially saving the Downtown institution.

Now, Broad wants to directly join the Grand Avenue party by building a $100 million art museum on the street, across from MOCA. If he has his way, the 120,000-square-foot facility, which would showcase some of the 2,000 works owned by his Broad Art Foundation, would open by 2012, in what he termed “an exciting, iconic piece of architecture.”

The billionaire philanthropist has spent the past several months publicly weighing two locations for the proposed museum, the other being in Santa Monica, where the foundation now has offices (a previous contender, Beverly Hills, pulled out of the running earlier this year). But in a recent meeting with Los Angeles Downtown News editors and reporters, Broad delivered his strongest public preference yet to place the museum — to be called The Broad Collections — in the Central City.

“We’d rather be Downtown,” Broad declared.

Despite the enthusiasm for Grand Avenue, Broad clearly stated that a deal is not done. He expressed skepticism about securing approvals for a project in a spot where he has to deal with four entities: the Community Redevelopment Agency, City Council, the County Board of Supervisors and the joint powers group the Grand Avenue Authority.

“Santa Monica is smart,” Broad said. “Their attitude is, look, [with us] you’re one-stop shopping. You don’t have to deal with three agencies…. Maybe in their mind they’re thinking, when you get tired of all this stuff Downtown, we’re ready.”

If Santa Monica offers a smoother path toward a groundbreaking, Broad is nevertheless motivated to build the museum on Grand Avenue because he strongly desires to help create a vital urban center in Los Angeles.

“I can’t think of any city today or in world history that’s been great without a vibrant center,” he said.

Fast Track

Broad is currently negotiating with local officials, and said he wants to secure approvals within 45 days. That is necessary, he said, to meet his 2012 opening goal.

Although talks continue, the proposed museum has already passed some high hurdles; the project would be folded in to the stalled but approved $3 billion Grand Avenue project, for which entitlements and environmental studies are complete.

The plan envisions the Broad Collections museum replacing phase two of developer Related Cos. project — a mixed-use structure with housing and about 100,000 square feet of retail. The change to the museum (and 20,000 square feet of Related retail) is currently under review to ensure it meets California Environmental Quality Act guidelines, but it is expected to gain approval because the museum would have a lower impact than the already cleared phase two structure, a Broad spokeswoman said.

Once the environmental review is complete, the museum will need approvals from the Grand Avenue Authority, the City Council, the CRA and the Board of Supervisors. No votes have been scheduled.

Under the proposed terms, the museum would lease the space from the CRA for $1 a year for 99 years, the same agreement the city has with MOCA’s two Downtown locations.

The Broad Foundation would spend about $80 million to develop the structure on a current parking lot bounded by lower Grand Avenue, Gen. Thaddeus Kosciuszko Way, Hope and Second streets, just south of Walt Disney Concert Hall. Broad would also lend about $23 million to the CRA to fund a three-level, 293-space parking garage. The loan would be paid back over 11 years with a low interest rate, Broad said.

The museum would sit atop the parking structure, fronting upper Grand Avenue. Broad would endow the museum with $200 million. Galleries, Broad said, would feature works by artists the foundation has collected, among them Jeff Koons, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Cindy Sherman.

A foundation official confirmed reports earlier this week by the New York Times and Los Angeles Times that it has engaged six architectural firms in a competition to design the museum. The firms are Foreign Office Architects/Alejandro Zaera Polo, Diller Scofidio Renfro, Rem Koolhaas/OMA, SANAA, Christian de Portzamparc and Herzog & de Meuron.

The preliminary proposal calls for about 40,000 square feet of gallery space and 45,000 square feet of archive and storage space. Small spaces, 6,000 square feet or less, would be set aside for the foundation’s administrative offices and a bookstore.

The project is anticipated to create nearly 100 full-time jobs.

Support and Dissent

Although many Downtown stakeholders applaud the plan, support is not unanimous. Supervisor Michael Antonovich, who has frequently criticized the Grand Avenue plan, maintains that the city and county should scrap the entire project as drawn up.

Related has been unable to attain an estimated $700 million in construction financing for phase one of the project, which would include a 48-story tower with 295 hotel rooms and 266 condominiums, a 19-story edifice with 126 market-rate apartments and 98 affordable residences. Even if credit were readily available, the residential portion of the plan may not be viable until the Downtown condominium market is otherwise absorbed, said Paul Novak, Antonovich’s planning deputy.

“We don’t think that phase one as proposed works now or will work any time in the near future,” Novak said.

Still, Antonovich sees any change to the scope of the plan — such as redefining phase two to feature the museum — as an opportunity to compel Related to start construction, or pay the penalties for missing previously agreed-upon deadlines to begin work, Novak said. Related has been accruing $250,000 a month in penalties for not starting the project by February 2009, though the fines have been deferred until construction commences.

Related is supposed to begin construction in February 2011, but the company is requesting an extension until February 2013, said Bill Witte, the developer’s West Coast president. The extension request includes language that would require Related to start construction before that date if other major mixed-use projects start elsewhere in the state, Witte said.

Meanwhile, the $56 million, 16-acre Civic Park included in the Grand Avenue plan — funded by Related’s $50 million up-front payment and accrued interest — is moving forward, with a groundbreaking expected in July, Witte said. A CRA release said the park could open by June 2012.

Witte is hopeful that the museum would kick-start the Grand Avenue plan.

“Let’s be clear here: Fundamentally the overall real estate market has to improve, the capital markets have to come back, irrespective of any other development there,” Witte said. “That said, there’s no question that it helps us tell a better story to lenders and to the hotel.”

One strong supporter of the Broad project is Jeffrey Deitch, who will take over as director of MOCA on June 1. He sees the proposed museum as an opportunity to build critical mass and raise attendance for the museum.

Broad’s collection, he said, is anchored by newer contemporary works, from the 1960s onward, whereas MOCA is more heavily weighted in earlier works, Deitch said.

“The Broad Foundation’s collection fits in very, very well, and does not really compete with MOCA’s collection,” Deitch said. “It’s complementary.”

Currently, MOCA’s annual attendance is less than 200,000, Deitch said. Both Deitch and Broad hope the new museum would bring up to 500,000 visitors a year to the two attractions.

Broad’s ambitious 2012 timeline relies in large part on the fact that the project does not require financing. If approvals come within 45 days, Broad said, an architect could be selected shortly thereafter. Meanwhile, he said the firm Matt Construction has already finished the documents for the parking garage, and that could be built in five months.

As for the rest of the Grand Avenue project, Broad is less certain.

“I can’t predict that,” Broad said. “If the economy were recovering — and I hope that it’ll continue to recover — it’ll sop up [the condo supply in Downtown] and then the question is, when can they get a construction loan? Pick a date. Three, four years from now? I don’t know.”

http://www.ladowntownnews.com/articles/2010/05/27/news/doc4bfe9f535b9e8765029293.txt

Eli Broad favors Diller Scofidio + Renfro to design art museum on Bunker Hill, sources say

But they warn that Broad could still change his mind. Broad has said he won't make a decision on the location or an architect until later this month.

June 08, 2010|By Christopher Hawthorne, Los Angeles Times Architecture Critic Anne Cusack, Los Angeles Times

Eli Broad wants the New York firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro to design his art museum on Bunker Hill, according to several sources.

The sources, all of whom asked to remain anonymous, citing the confidentiality of the private architectural competition Broad has been overseeing for the museum, said the billionaire philanthropist had indicated that he favored the firm after hearing pitches late last month from six of the leading architecture offices in the world. One of its founders, Elizabeth Diller, was reportedly due to arrive in Los Angeles on Monday evening for meetings with Broad.

Previously, The Times reported that he had narrowed the list for the museum, planned for a Grand Avenue site alongside Frank Gehry's Walt Disney Concert Hall, to two firms: Diller Scofidio and Office for Metropolitan Architecture, which is led by Rem Koolhaas.

The sources cautioned that Broad could still change his mind and pursue a design by one of the other architects, especially if a detailed cost analysis began to suggest that the Diller Scofidio plan would be more expensive to build than first thought. Broad also is waiting for approvals from city and county bodies to lease the Bunker Hill site for $1 per year for 99 years. The site is owned by the city's Community Redevelopment Agency.

Officially, in fact, Broad has said that a property in Santa Monica's civic center is still an option as a site for the museum and that he will not make a decision on either the location or an architect until later this month, at the earliest.

"I can tell you he is considering six designs by six architects," said Karen Denne, a spokeswoman for Broad.

Diller Scofidio designed Boston's Institute of Contemporary Art, which opened in 2006, and is making ongoing updates to Lincoln Center in New York. It collaborated with landscape architecture firm Field Operations on New York's acclaimed High Line elevated linear park. It is also on shortlists for a new UC Berkeley Art Museum and an addition to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

The firm is known for highly inventive design solutions — some cerebral, some cheeky — including a planned inflatable event space that would expand to fill the circular courtyard of the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C. But it has yet to produce a building that entirely fulfills the terrific promise of its early conceptual work.

christopher.hawthorne@latimes.com

Broad Files for Permit for Grand Avenue Museum Site


The Broad Foundation has applied for grading permits for the site of his proposed art museum. The museum has yet to gain necessary public approvals. Photo by Gary Leonard

by Jon Regardie and Ryan Vaillancourt
Published: Friday, June 25, 2010 5:40 PM PDT

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES - Philanthropist Eli Broad has filed for a permit that would pave the way for grading at the Grand Avenue site he has targeted for a new art museum. It is the strongest indication yet that Broad will choose Downtown Los Angeles as the location for the Broad Collections.

Additionally a person with intimate knowledge of the proceedings, who asked not to be named because they do not have permission to comment publicly, told Los Angeles Downtown News that the plan is to begin construction on a parking garage for the museum by August or September. Broad has said the museum, which still needs approval from the County Board of Supervisors and the joint powers authority overseeing the Grand Avenue project, would be set on top of the garage so it could face Grand Avenue. He said in May that he hopes to open the $200 million facility in 2012.

Broad has yet to decide whether he will choose Downtown or Santa Monica as the site to house his 2,000-piece art collection, though he has indicated a preference to be on Grand Avenue.

Matt Construction, the contractor Broad said would build the 292-space garage, on May 26 filed an application with the city Department of Building and Safety for preliminary soil and geological reviews of the site at 620 W. Second St. The application also requests review of a proposed import-export route for transporting soil removed in the grading process.

Broad spokeswoman Karen Denne stressed that the permit application is a preliminary measure, and that the museum still needs a series of public approvals before it can go forward.

“We are taking the necessary steps that would enable us to begin construction promptly if this project is approved and moves forward Downtown,” said Broad Foundation spokeswoman Karen Denne.

In order to proceed, the museum plan must first be officially folded into the $3 billion Grand Avenue project’s already completed Environmental Impact Report. The review process to amend the report is still pending.

In order to meet his goal of opening the museum by 2012, Broad told the Downtown News on May 27 that he would need to secure approvals within 45 days.

Contact Ryan Vaillancourt at ryan@downtownnews.com

Contact Jon Regardie at regardie@downtownnews.com.

Park Powers Forward

The $56 million Civic Park that is part of the Grand Avenue Plan is poised to break ground next week. The view looking east from the Music Center shows City Hall as the eastern book end of the 12-acre park.
*
Green Component of Grand Avenue Plan, Including a Dog Park, to Have Groundbreaking Ceremony July 15
by Ryan Vaillancourt, Staff Writer
Published: Thursday, July 1, 2010 1:43 PM PDT

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES - The Grand Avenue Authority is poised to grant final approval this week to construction plans for the Grand Avenue project’s Civic Park, setting the stage for work to begin July 12 on the $56 million project. A ceremonial groundbreaking will be held three days later.

The Community Redevelopment Agency and County Board of Supervisors have signed off on the plans, but the joint powers authority overseeing the stalled Grand Avenue project must give the final green light. The panel meets July 7, and if the documents are approved, preliminary construction work could start right away, but will likely wait until the following week.

Barring any unexpected changes or hurdles, “The date is July 12,” said Barry Widen, vide president of construction for Related of California, the developer of the $3 billion project formally titled The Grand. “That’s the day we’re going to actually start.”

Barbara Casey, a spokeswoman for the project, said that civic and business leaders will gather at the site on July 15 for a groundbreaking ceremony.

The park is expected to take about two years to complete. Backers of the plan see it as a milestone for the Civic Center and Downtown, saying it will give a facelift to a public space that has been severely underused for years.

“I think it will create major public open space that will become the epicenter of the city and the primary place for public gatherings and concerts, arts and crafts fairs and things like that,” said Ninth District Councilwoman Jan Perry, who sits on the Grand Avenue Authority.

The park will essentially connect the Music Center and City Hall. It will start on Grand Avenue and run between the County Hall of Administration and the Hall of Records on the north and the County Courthouse and Law Library on the south, culminating at Broadway. Although a park exists there now, it is unknown to many passersby, who must navigate past two tall, circular parking ramp barriers at the Grand Avenue entrance, or snake up L-shaped staircases to access it from Broadway.

The new design eliminates the ramps at the western end, opening up that entrance point across the street from the Music Center. The ramps on the western side of Broadway will be replaced with a series of landscaped stairs and terraces that invite the eye up to the park.

The most significant effort is the addition of a new plot of land immediately west of City Hall — now a parking lot servicing the Clara Foltz Criminal Justice Center. The effect will be a park bookended by two institutional and cultural icons, with City Hall to the east and the Music Center and DWP headquarters to the west, said Tony Paradowski, senior associate at Rios Clementi Hale Studios, the architecture firm that designed the park.

Park Evolution


The Civic Park will mark the first and, currently, the only real action tied to the Grand Avenue plan, which stalled amidst the global recession as Related has been unable to secure the $700 million construction loan needed for the first phase of the Frank Gehry-designed project.

The park’s $56 million budget was financed by a $50 million, non-refundable deposit Related paid to the county in return for development rights, plus accrued interest. That allowed the park to move forward even while Related waits for the economy to improve.

The park’s design has morphed over the past two years, as Rios Clementi Hale has repeatedly put its designs out for public comment and suggestions. When finished in the summer of 2012, visitors will gain access to a new “event lawn,” an array of new seating areas, a mix of terraced green space and hard-surface walkways crisscrossing the park, new native landscaping and trees from around the world that represent Los Angeles’ ethnic diversity, Paradowski said.

One aspect of the site that will be largely unaltered is the Arthur J. Will Memorial Fountain. The 1960s-era stone landmark will not be changed, though the surrounding area will be extended with a half-inch- to quarter-inch-deep “membrane pool” that people will be able to walk through.

“From our very first public meeting, the loudest voice was to preserve the historic foundation,” Paradowski said.

Others criticized the current space for having too much pavement, a problem the firm is trying to alleviate with more greenery and narrower walkways.

Rios Clementi Hale presented the most recent design in March at a Downtown meeting. That led to the addition of a 1,800-square-foot dog park, Paradowski said. The 60-feet by 30-feet facility will rise in the easternmost section of the park, in the new plot adjacent to City Hall.

“The Downtown meeting was really eye-opening,” Paradowski said. “A lot of voices were saying that, ‘Hey, this is our neighborhood park.’”

The project will add two new structures, one on the westernmost plot and one at the east end, that will include public restrooms and a cafe-type space. A Starbucks that now sits in the middle of the park will be moved to the new structure on western end, Paradowski said.

Once completed, the park will be run by an as yet undetermined nonprofit manager, Paradowski said. That entity will coordinate frequent public events including concerts, cultural celebrations and possibly a farmers market. The new, eastern plot is being called the Events Lawn, and could be used for community gatherings that would entail closing Spring Street and Broadway temporarily, he said.

“I think there’s a lot of momentum to move forward and an enormous amount of anticipation,” Perry said. “It’s going to be a legacy project.”

http://www.ladowntownnews.com/articles/2010/07/01/news/doc4c2ce0e7d25c1251589212.txt

Who's ready for FIFA Fan Fest 2014??!!

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^^ that would be cool...however, I highly doubt it will happen. Remember Nokia Plaza being marketed as L.A.'s new "get-together" place?

Well...this is what I got after asking them if they would televise the world cup games on the screens in the Plaza:

"Hello,

Due to advertising commitments and legal right to air broadcasts, we are unable to show the game on the screens, however ESPN Zone at L.A. LIVE will be open for EVERY game no matter what time - if there is a game on , ESPN Zone will be open 15 minutes prior to the game. For early morning games, they will offer a special breakfast menu.

Thank you,

L.A. LIVE"

A breakfast menu for a world cup match?!??! You've got to be kidding me!!

Anyway, venting aside...I can't wait for the park to break ground. I just hope there is good pedestrain access from all levels.

Great news and thanks for sharing SlipperyDog! :righton:

BTW, no mentioned of free public parking!

im sorry but i seen many different dates online for it breaking ground and also being completed does anyone know the exact dates??? please thanks ;)

Civic pride shaping Civic Park
Downtown's $56-million project, which has its official groundbreaking Thursday, audaciously aims to be many things to many people — and that leaves some devilish details to sort out.
By Christopher Hawthorne, Los Angeles Times Architecture Critic
The Los Angeles Times
July 14, 2010

Downtown's $56-million Civic Park is finally showing signs of life — and not just because construction crews have begun working this week on the sloping site between the Music Center and City Hall, with an official groundbreaking ceremony scheduled for Thursday morning.

Over the last several months, a late-in-the-game effort by the park's designers, Rios Clementi Hale Studios, to give it a crisper look and strengthen its overall conceptual framework has paid real dividends. The design still shows the strain of trying to answer to dozens of interested public officials and constituent groups and their differing visions of what the park might be. Yet it has also begun to assert, for the first time, a coherent aesthetic identity.

There is another reason for growing — if still measured — optimism about the park's future: The president of the Music Center, Stephen Rountree, confirmed Tuesday that the Music Center has been in preliminary talks with officials from Los Angeles County, which owns the 12-acre park site, to take over management of the park and its programming.

Under the Music Center's control, the park could become an extended front yard for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Los Angeles Opera, Center Theatre Group and other organizations. In the most optimistic scenario, the Music Center's involvement could help spur fundraising for more sophisticated performance facilities than the ones now in the works. Imagine a new band shell in the center of the park, designed by a leading contemporary architect, as a spot for Gustavo Dudamel to lead the L.A. Phil in more intimate outdoor concerts than are possible at the Hollywood Bowl.

That ambitious marriage of architecture and programming remains a long way off. For now, the main challenge at the park, which was funded by a $50-million payment from developer Related Companies as part of its now-stalled Grand Avenue mixed-use project, remains the same: how to squeeze an effective design into a tricky, sloping site pockmarked with underground garages and concrete ramps. In that sense the park is a symbol of the hurdles Los Angeles as a whole faces in trying to retrofit its civic spaces for a future in which cars no longer play such a dominant role in urban planning or daily life.

In the design's most meaningful change, Rios and his colleagues have added a series of curving north-south pathways, some as narrow as 18 inches and others as wide as 6 feet, to an existing backbone of straight east-west corridors. The design of the new paths is loosely based on a so-called Goode projection, a kind of mapping best known for providing a way to display the Earth's surface on a two-dimensional surface.

As Rios explains them, the paths, whose curving lines recall those of a Goode map of the globe, emerged from an effort to think broadly about the remarkably diverse population the park is meant to serve. (As he likes to point out, an astonishing 92 languages are spoken by students in the Los Angeles Unified School District.) As a design gesture, the new paths turn those ideas about Los Angeles and its role as a global city into an organizing principle, at least abstractly, for the park and how visitors will move through it. Rios and other designers in the firm also studied maps and diagrams showing plane trips across the globe as well as various car and sea routes.

That concept is matched by the selection of plants, which rejects a doctrinaire or limiting insistence on natives in favor of a wide (but drought-tolerant) range of trees and flowers that aims to match the cosmopolitanism of the city as a whole. A preliminary plan to bring a collection of food trucks to a paved section near Spring Street could broaden the park's food offerings in much the same way

Along with slipping in a small dog run at the northeast corner, in the shadow of the Criminal Courts building, Rios Clementi Hale has also designed a pair of new support buildings at each end of the site — the park's first pieces of architecture. These are basic, attractive modern buildings beneath oversized sloping roofs. The one at the western side, near Grand Avenue, will hold a Starbucks; the other, on the edge of a large event lawn at the foot of City Hall, will serve as an ancillary building during concerts and also will be available for rental for birthday parties and other celebrations.

The firm has also designed a series of chairs, tables and other street furniture. Executed in a curving, streamlined style and colored a bright magenta, the furniture adds precisely the jolt of contemporary style that park has been missing.

And in a significant victory for good design, the firm convinced county officials to allow it to keep many of the chairs unattached — rather than bolted down for security reasons — so that visitors can move them around from the sun to the shade, or vice versa, and in the process begin to feel that the park is in some sense theirs to shape.

Significant questions still hover over the park and its future. One is whether an additional $27 million in state funds — already approved but caught up in Sacramento's budget crisis — will ever come through.

Another is whether Eli Broad, in negotiating the right to build a museum for his own collection on a city-owned piece of land at Grand Avenue and 2nd Street, will offer to lend sculpture or other outdoor-ready artwork from that collection to the park — or if he will underwrite an effort, perhaps in conjunction with the Museum of Contemporary Art, to curate a series of rotating outdoor exhibitions.

Broad said a few weeks ago that he was looking into such a program. But he's been publicly silent on the topic since then.



http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-civic-park-20100714,0,5715540.story

Eli Broad offers $7.7 million for art museum lease, not $1
His sweetened proposal for a 99-year lease on a downtown L.A. site wins the backing of L.A. County Supervisor Mike Antonovich.
By Mike Boehm, Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times
July 14, 2010

Eli Broad told city and county officials this week he would pay $7.7 million for a 99-year lease on public land in downtown Los Angeles where he can build an art museum, winning over a public opponent of his plan and signaling in the strongest terms yet that he has decided against putting the museum in Santa Monica.

Broad persuaded Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich, the only public official on record opposing his previous request to lease it for a token dollar a year. "We are pleased he has agreed to pay the fair market value on the property," Antonovich's spokesman, Tony Bell, said Tuesday. "The supervisor is satisfied. He would support the effort at this point."

Broad, the philanthropist and art collector whose worth Forbes magazine estimates at $5.7 billion, already has promised to pay the full construction cost of up to $100 million and provide a $200-million endowment that would yield an estimated $12 million a year to cover the museum's operating expenses.

The $7.7-million offer came as the board of commissioners of the City of Los Angeles' Community Redevelopment Agency, which owns the land and would need to approve any lease, prepares to take up his museum proposal at its meeting Thursday.

"The Broads are spending $300 million on this project and they want everyone to be supportive and satisfied," said Karen Denne, spokeswoman for the Broad Art Foundation. "By offering to spend an additional 2.5% of the total project, they hope that everyone will feel good about it."

Denne said that Broad sent letters Monday and Tuesday to the Board of Supervisors, the City Council and the CRA saying he is now willing to pay for use of the land. The letter says the $7.7 million "is based on a recent valuation" done by the county.

The CRA's commissioners are expected to conduct a public hearing, then vote on whether to allow Broad to use the site at the corner of Grand Avenue and 2nd Street for the museum housing a collection of more than 2,000 works by Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Jeff Koons and others that he and his wife, Edythe, have amassed.

Denne said that the Board of Supervisors, the City Council and the Joint Powers Authority that is overseeing development along Grand Avenue all would have to subsequently OK the plan before construction of the museum could begin.

The museum would include 30,000 to 35,000 square feet of gallery space, 45,000 to 50,000 square feet to store art not on display, and 14,000 square feet for offices, a conference space and a museum store.

Among the issues on Thursday for the CRA/LA board is whether it should commit up to $30 million to build a parking garage beneath the what Broad envisions as a three-level museum building. According to information released by the Broad Art Foundation, the garage would cost about $23 million, and Broad and his wife, Edythe, would advance $15 million that CRA/LA could repay over 11 years. About 200 of the 300 spaces would be for public use, with the rest reserved for museum parking.

Dollar-a-year leases for nonprofit cultural facilities are commonplace in Los Angeles and elsewhere. The proposed new museum's across-the-street neighbor, the Museum of Contemporary Art, enjoys dollar-a-year leases for the land on which its Grand Avenue building sits and on the city-owned building in Little Tokyo that houses MOCA's Geffen Contemporary exhibition space. The Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena pays a dollar a year for its city-owned land in Pasadena, and the Pasadena Playhouse subleases its theater from the city for $1 a year.

Broad had defended his request for a comparable deal, telling The Times in April, "It just burns me that people are saying they're giving me, a billionaire, $1 a year for nothing, without looking at the public benefit that's being created.... Any city in America would like to get a museum built if they didn't have to pay for it."

Broad held a private architectural competition in the spring for a design for the museum. Sources have told The Times that he favors the work of the New York firm of Diller Scofidio + Renfro.

Antonovich's about-face on the Broad lease spells trouble for Santa Monica's bid to host Broad's museum. It already has struck an agreement in principal with Broad to provide a $1-a-year lease on acreage next to the Civic Auditorium if he'll build his museum there.

But Broad subsequently has said he expects more visitors if the museum is in downtown L.A., and sees it as an important attraction to boost the cultural tourism and downtown economic development he has championed. Denne, the Broad Foundation spokeswoman, said Tuesday that Broad still considers Santa Monica a "viable option" for the museum, but "we need to know if this can happen in Los Angeles before he makes the final decision."

The Santa Monica deal calls for the city also to provide $1 million toward the museum's design costs.


http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-broad-museum-20100714,0,1288956.story

Civic pride shaping Civic Park
Downtown's $56-million project, which has its official groundbreaking Thursday, audaciously aims to be many things to many people — and that leaves some devilish details to sort out.

http://www.latimes.com/media/alternatethumbnails/storylink/2010-07/54932867-13162457.jpg

July 14, 2010


Downtown's $56-million Civic Park is finally showing signs of life — and not just because construction crews have begun working this week on the sloping site between the Music Center and City Hall, with an official groundbreaking ceremony scheduled for Thursday morning.

Over the last several months, a late-in-the-game effort by the park's designers, Rios Clementi Hale Studios, to give it a crisper look and strengthen its overall conceptual framework has paid real dividends. The design still shows the strain of trying to answer to dozens of interested public officials and constituent groups and their differing visions of what the park might be. Yet it has also begun to assert, for the first time, a coherent aesthetic identity.

There is another reason for growing — if still measured — optimism about the park's future: The president of the Music Center, Stephen Rountree, confirmed Tuesday that the Music Center has been in preliminary talks with officials from Los Angeles County, which owns the 12-acre park site, to take over management of the park and its programming.

Under the Music Center's control, the park could become an extended front yard for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Los Angeles Opera, Center Theatre Group and other organizations. In the most optimistic scenario, the Music Center's involvement could help spur fundraising for more sophisticated performance facilities than the ones now in the works. Imagine a new band shell in the center of the park, designed by a leading contemporary architect, as a spot for Gustavo Dudamel to lead the L.A. Phil in more intimate outdoor concerts than are possible at the Hollywood Bowl.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



That ambitious marriage of architecture and programming remains a long way off. For now, the main challenge at the park, which was funded by a $50-million payment from developer Related Companies as part of its now-stalled Grand Avenue mixed-use project, remains the same: how to squeeze an effective design into a tricky, sloping site pockmarked with underground garages and concrete ramps. In that sense the park is a symbol of the hurdles Los Angeles as a whole faces in trying to retrofit its civic spaces for a future in which cars no longer play such a dominant role in urban planning or daily life.

In the design's most meaningful change, Rios and his colleagues have added a series of curving north-south pathways, some as narrow as 18 inches and others as wide as 6 feet, to an existing backbone of straight east-west corridors. The design of the new paths is loosely based on a so-called Goode projection, a kind of mapping best known for providing a way to display the Earth's surface on a two-dimensional surface.

As Rios explains them, the paths, whose curving lines recall those of a Goode map of the globe, emerged from an effort to think broadly about the remarkably diverse population the park is meant to serve. (As he likes to point out, an astonishing 92 languages are spoken by students in the Los Angeles Unified School District.) As a design gesture, the new paths turn those ideas about Los Angeles and its role as a global city into an organizing principle, at least abstractly, for the park and how visitors will move through it. Rios and other designers in the firm also studied maps and diagrams showing plane trips across the globe as well as various car and sea routes.

That concept is matched by the selection of plants, which rejects a doctrinaire or limiting insistence on natives in favor of a wide (but drought-tolerant) range of trees and flowers that aims to match the cosmopolitanism of the city as a whole. A preliminary plan to bring a collection of food trucks to a paved section near Spring Street could broaden the park's food offerings in much the same way

Along with slipping in a small dog run at the northeast corner, in the shadow of the Criminal Courts building, Rios Clementi Hale has also designed a pair of new support buildings at each end of the site — the park's first pieces of architecture. These are basic, attractive modern buildings beneath oversized sloping roofs. The one at the western side, near Grand Avenue, will hold a Starbucks; the other, on the edge of a large event lawn at the foot of City Hall, will serve as an ancillary building during concerts and also will be available for rental for birthday parties and other celebrations.

The firm has also designed a series of chairs, tables and other street furniture. Executed in a curving, streamlined style and colored a bright magenta, the furniture adds precisely the jolt of contemporary style that park has been missing.

And in a significant victory for good design, the firm convinced county officials to allow it to keep many of the chairs unattached — rather than bolted down for security reasons — so that visitors can move them around from the sun to the shade, or vice versa, and in the process begin to feel that the park is in some sense theirs to shape.

Significant questions still hover over the park and its future. One is whether an additional $27 million in state funds — already approved but caught up in Sacramento's budget crisis — will ever come through.

Another is whether Eli Broad, in negotiating the right to build a museum for his own collection on a city-owned piece of land at Grand Avenue and 2nd Street, will offer to lend sculpture or other outdoor-ready artwork from that collection to the park — or if he will underwrite an effort, perhaps in conjunction with the Museum of Contemporary Art, to curate a series of rotating outdoor exhibitions.

Broad said a few weeks ago that he was looking into such a program. But he's been publicly silent on the topic since then.

http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2010-07/54929851.jpg

http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2010-07/54929852.jpg

christopher.hawthorne@latimes.com

Copyright © 2010, The Los Angeles Times

ARTICLEhttp://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-civic-park-20100714,0,5715540.story

Lots of good news.

I could never see this as a place to bring the kids. I am glad to see that is being deemphasized. (This is not to say that there shouldn’t be parks DT for kids.) The dog run can go too, although at least it gets the dogs away from the rest of the area.

Connection to and coordination with the Music Center makes sense. There is a thriving life on the plaza for a few hours most weekends and evenings. Extending this via concerts, exhibits, skate-boarding, break-dancing and the other urban “street-busker” type stuff is another piece of the puzzle. “Shakespeare in the Park” is too ambitious, but light theater, improv, comedy on summer evenings would be nice. It shows off what we do and even if sparsely attended, they add to the overall street life for visitors. This in turn will drive some demand for living or staying in the area. Although I can’t see a lot of local residents in the area, it is another piece toward creating at least some presence on weekends and evenings.

It’s good that the technical challenges (mostly driveways and the slope) are recognized; maybe some good thought can be put into fixing them.

Glad to hear that the demand for exclusively native species is being rejected. Leaving aside the monotony this creates, the whole symbolism of this was troublingly totalitarian and with a hint of nationalism. Normal life is flow and change, not institutionalization of the present or an imagined past. Personally, I would go with jacarandas and plenty of blooming bedding.

Too bad that the plazas around the Gehry area are cut off by the Superior court building. In any event, it’s time for the County building to go and be replaced with something allowing easier circulation.

I'd keep the dog run, just because we want to draw more people to live in DT, and that includes options for pet owners.

A METRO station within the park would be absolutely killer. I can't see how that would be possible even for the DT Regional Connector. But a Regional LTR (maybe incorporate the revamp plan for Broadway that includes the old Red Cars).

^^ There already is a metro station in the park.

OK, the dogs can stay; but move them to 101 Park when that's done. You can't be all things to all people.

They may also want to think about escalators or elevators since it's a ways from the lowest part of the park to the elevated Music Center Plaza. Especially difficult if the escalator at the Civic Center Station is not working.

I'd keep the dog run, just because we want to draw more people to live in DT, and that includes options for pet owners.

A METRO station within the park would be absolutely killer. I can't see how that would be possible even for the DT Regional Connector. But a Regional LTR (maybe incorporate the revamp plan for Broadway that includes the old Red Cars).

The Civic Center Station.

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CRA Approves Broad Museum Plan
Project Takes Two Steps Forward, But Chinese Group Poses a Challenge
by Ryan Vaillancourt, Staff Writer
Los Angeles Downtown News
Published: Friday, July 16, 2010 4:05 PM PDT

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES - The Community Redevelopment Agency last week approved philanthropist Eli Broad’s proposal to build a $100 million contemporary art museum to house his collection on Grand Avenue. The decision came days after Broad announced he would pay $7.7 million for rights to the site.

Yet along with those two leaps forward, a challenge was raised, as another aspiring developer touted plans for the site and complained it has not been allowed to bid.

On Thursday, July 15, the CRA’s board of commissioners voted unanimously for the museum, giving the project its first green light on the road of public approvals. It also needs the OK of the City Council, the County Board of Supervisors and the joint powers Grand Avenue Authority.

A cast of Downtown stakeholders, including new MOCA director Jeffrey Deitch, Music Center chairman John Emerson and Ninth District Councilwoman Jan Perry urged the board to support the project, which they called a major opportunity for the city and Downtown.

“I’m extremely appreciative of the opportunity Mr. Broad has provided to the city and county of Los Angeles to be able to house his collection in Downtown,” Perry said.

The proposal would allow Broad to erect a three-story museum, dubbed The Broad Collection, above a three-level, 284-space parking facility at Second Street and Grand Avenue; the parcel is on lower Grand Avenue, south of REDCAT and Walt Disney Concert Hall. The museum entrance would be on upper Grand Avenue, across from MOCA and the Colburn School. Broad plans to enlist a world-class architect to design the building.

Related Cos., which in 2004 won the contract to develop the $3 billion Grand Avenue project, has expressed strong support for the museum. Real estate consultant Buss Shelger Associates, which analyzed the museum plan for the county CEO’s office, said in a letter to the county that Related is considering branding two proposed residential buildings in the Grand Avenue plan as the Museum Towers. (A residential building already called Museum Tower stands at 225 S. Olive St.)

In approving the project, the CRA voted to advance the museum $8 million in predevelopment costs. The agreement gives the agency the right to ultimately buy the parking facility from Broad, paying up to $30 million in Bunker Hill tax increment funds. Broad’s foundation plans to spend about $100 million on the museum and garage. Broad would also fund a $200 million endowment for the facility, which will house some of the works in his 2,000-piece art collection.

Broad has said he hopes to break ground on the project this summer and open it in 2012.

Pagoda Challenge

While earlier versions of the proposal called for Broad to lease the land for $1 a year for 99 years, two days before the CRA meeting, Broad announced that he would pay $7.7 million for rights to the space, matching a figure the county has identified as the parcel’s true value. County Supervisor Michael Antonovich, who has called for scrapping the Grand Avenue plan altogether, was an early critic of the $1-a-year lease.

At the meeting last week, a CRA project manager said that Broad’s $7.7 million offer would go toward funding an affordable housing component in one of Related’s residential towers.

While Broad’s plan has enjoyed popular support, at least one organization sees the negotiations to approve the museum as exclusive. The Los Angeles Shen Yun/Fei Tian Arts Center Planning Group has been clamoring for Related and the CRA to consider an alternative proposal for the site.

The group would like to build a venue to showcase its traditional dance and music academies; a rendering shows a high-rise with pagoda-like elements next to the Frank Gehry-designed Walt Disney Concert Hall. Spokesman Shizhong Chen said the group’s primary request is that the project be opened to public bid.

“We’re not opposed to Mr. Broad’s proposal,” said Chen, whose two-minute appeal to the CRA board went unaddressed by the panel. “We’re for examination of all proposals.”

Asked whether his organization would consider legal action, Shen said it has not been ruled out, and that he hopes the process will open up before such an option is seriously considered.

Perry dismissed the notion that the change to the Grand Avenue project triggers a need for public bidding. The JPA awarded the development rights of the overall project to Related. While changes require approvals from the four public stakeholder bodies, she said, “The site is under contract to Related, which is assigning rights of a portion of the site to the Broad Foundation.”

The proposed museum site, which is owned by the city, was originally reserved for a building in Related’s $3 billion Grand Avenue project that would have created 100,000 square feet of retail space. That shopping component was touted for its potential to generate sales tax, but hopes for that part of the development have soured amid the recession.

If the museum plan moves forward, the latest iteration of the Grand Avenue plan would still include 36,000 square feet reserved for retail, according to a CRA report.


http://www.ladowntownnews.com/articles/2010/07/16/news/doc4c3fa6052f194544836092.txt

Park of the Future Begins
The $56 Million Public Space Is Set to Open in 2012
by Jon Regardie, Executive Editor
Los Angeles Downtown News
Published: Friday, July 16, 2010 4:05 PM PDT

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES - At 9:41 a.m. on Thursday, July 15, the water stopped running at the historic Arthur J. Will fountain behind the County Hall of Administration. As it did, work on a $56 million park that will stretch from the Music Center to City Hall officially began.

The fountain shut-off was the culmination of a ceremony that attracted hundreds of civic and business leaders. They came to celebrate the beginning of construction on a 12-acre space that is set to open in the summer of 2012.

The park is the public component of the Grand Avenue plan, a $3 billion project by developer Related Cos. that is currently stalled due to the recession. However, as part of the deal negotiated by a city-county team when the development rights were awarded, Related paid $50 million up front.

“Related, thank you for supporting the effort, and thank you for your money,” joked Councilwoman Jan Perry to the crowd.

Perry, along with County Super*visor Gloria Molina, were credited with spearheading the creation of the park.

Eli Broad, a former chair of the Grand Avenue Committee, noted that the idea for the Grand Avenue plan was first broached a decade ago, during the construction of the Walt Disney Concert Hall, when officials decided to explore whether adjacent city- and county-owned land could be developed. That ultimately led to an application process which resulted in the selection of Related’s Frank Gehry-designed project.

“The civic park was a critical element in developing the Grand Avenue project,” said Broad, whose proposal for a $100 million art museum, also on Grand Avenue, was approved by the Community Redevelopment Agency last week.

The park, designed by Rios Clementi Hale Studios, will start on Grand Avenue and culminate at Spring Street. Although a park exists there now, it can be difficult to access, as users must navigate past two circular parking ramp barriers at the Grand Avenue entrance, or snake up L-shaped staircases from Broadway.

The new design will make entry points easier on both the eastern and western sides. When finished, it will feature pathways of varying widths, a new “event lawn,” trees, seating areas and terraced green space. There will also be a small dog run. The fountain will not be changed, though the surrounding area will be extended with a pool shallow enough for people to walk through.

Bill Witte, the West Coast president of Related Cos., said that progress on the park will help spur the overall Grand Avenue plan forward.

“When you add Eli’s museum to that, this becomes a hugely exciting place,” he said, “and this will actually make selling this to lenders and investors much easier, because one of the challenges on Bunker Hill has been that there is no there there. Yes there is Disney Hall and the Music Center, but they were kind of islands. Now the dots are beginning to connect, and that’s huge.”

Nelson Rising, president and CEO of Maguire Properties and the chair of the Grand Avenue Committee, predicted that progress on the park and Broad’s museum would spark improvement throughout Downtown.

“It attracts residents, which we need to have a 24-hour community and to have retail,” he said. “And obviously whatever is good for the Downtown core is helpful to the office building developers because it makes a more attractive place to work. So I think this is a very important step in the evolution of Downtown.”


http://www.ladowntownnews.com/articles/2010/07/16/news/doc4c3f53ae66769004285629.txt

^^ There already is a metro station in the park.

The Civic Center Station.

holy moly! I can't remember its location.

WOW! Watch your language, Kenni! fuck .....

http://la.curbed.com/archives/2010/07/better_look_at_chinese_palace_proposed_for_grand_ave.php#more

^^

That Shen Yun proposal has been called "kitschy" and "ugly" by some folks...which I tend agree with and if it weren't proposed for such a high profile area I would actually tolerate it. Since I am not generally opposed to developments of any kind and believe there's a time and place for all things to be considered (even this odd proposal), I just don't want to see it next to such an iconic building like the Walt Disney Concert Hall; it would be so out-of-place and stick out like a sore thumb. But it would certainly make for an interesting juxtaposition wouldn't it? Lol

This area would be better served if their proposal were more congruent with the vision and plans for that part of downtown. BTW, Chinese performance art is wonderful and a thing to be admired, but that proposal will not serve the area better than a museum would...but no matter what, I just don't see the powers that be, allowing/favoring that proposal over Eli Broad's museum (whatever it will end up looking like).

If the Shen Yun/Fei Tian Arts Center Planning Group representatives are indeed serious, they really need to reconsider building their massive, pagoda-style tower and performance center in one of the dozen or so dead-zone parking lots in Chinatown, where at least the theme would be consistent and where they might have a bigger impact, by helping expedite the process of revitalizing Chinatown. In my opinion, they have the right vision, just the wrong parcel/place where they should build it.

The last thing Broad needs is another obstacle (lawsuit from this Chinese group) to hurdle over. But whatever, it looks like Broad's museum is moving full steam ahead anyway. :banana:

^^ omg it is ugly .. i dont really think grand ave would even be a good location if it was to even be built...

Hmm,"ugly" is not the word, it's "Las Vegas". And it doesn't fit esthetically, maybe in or near LA Live.

For sure not on Grand. Chinatown or Hollywood, maybe. But preferably not anywhere, since as has been noted, this is more Disneyland or LV than anything else.

But it raises interesting questions. This particular building is over the top, but to what extent will Asian designs be permitted in areas that are completely deco or modern? On a small scale this is happening in Ktown and other Asian districts, but not in truly large buildings, which are quite Western in look, even when Asian owned, occupied or financed.

i like the look, but for chinatown (not even hollywood). it's pretty random. imagine a passerby... "ah, dorothy chandler pavillion, grand ave, towers, the walt disney concert hall, WTF!!"

but it you're stoned just enough...

I figured Hollywood since it is apparently Falun Gong affiliated. Would make a great match for Scientology and their HQ near Sunset and Vermont.

We've been so hungry for projects that thing is starting to look good, anywhere!
Someone pinch me!

Can I shoot you?

I was gonna say...

You're beyond pinching; time for Dr. Kevorkian.

I see it....thanks Archi

^^ There should be another thread for that park. Seems like the proposal has a lot of support and some steam going for it.

http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2010-08/55721994.jpg
Eli Broad says Grand Avenue will be site of new contemporary art museum
After considering locations in Santa Monica and Beverly Hills, the philanthropist chooses downtown L.A. New York architecture firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro will design the museum.
By David Ng and Jori Finkel, Los Angeles Times
August 24, 2010


In a move that adds another contemporary art museum to the city's busy art scene, Eli Broad announced formally Monday that he would build his Broad Collection museum downtown and chose a blue-chip New York architecture firm to design it.

By choosing to build downtown rather than in Santa Monica and Beverly Hills, Broad will oversee the first building in the stalled Grand Avenue project, investing in his personal vision for Los Angeles, one in which downtown is a "vibrant center," as he put it, for the city's cultural community.

And his selection of Diller Scofidio + Renfro will add another ambitious structure to a street that already displays Frank Gehry's Walt Disney Concert Hall, Arata Isozaki's Museum of Contemporary Art and the High School for the Performing Arts by Wolf Prix

The announcement also settles the larger question of where he and his wife Edythe's coveted art collection — which had been the envy of museums in the city and around the country — will ultimately reside.

But Broad was clearly thinking in term of its impact on Grand Avenue's rejuvenation. "I think we're going to create a downtown cultural alliance," said Broad, referring to the site's proximity to the Music Center and MOCA. He added that he hopes the museum will jump-start the Grand Avenue Project — a costly initiative intended to revitalize the downtown neighborhood with stores, hotels, condominiums and restaurants that has been stalled by the sour economy.

Diller Scofidio + Renfro will design the approximately 120,000-square-foot museum, which will include exhibition space, offices and a parking garage on a site that is now a parking lot. The Broad Foundation said the designs would not be released until October. The price tag for the building, which is expected to break ground in October and open in late 2012, is estimated at $80 million to $100 million, which Broad will fund.

By opening his own museum, Broad is following in the footsteps of California mega-collectors like Norton Simon and J. Paul Getty. But their museums were built decades ago. Today, three of the most prominent contemporary art museums in Southern California — the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, MOCA and the Hammer Museum — compete for donors and visitors. The new museum raises many questions, not the least of which is whether L.A. has the audience base to support so many museums.

All three have benefited from Broad's patronage at one point or another, most visibly with Broad's financing of a Renzo Piano building in his name at LACMA, the Broad Contemporary Art Museum, which opened in 2008. The philanthropist also stepped in to rescue MOCA with a $30-million pledge when that museum was on the financial brink in 2008.

The Broads are expected to contribute approximately $300 million of their own money toward the new museum. In addition to the construction costs, they will endow the Broad Art Foundation with $200 million to cover the new museum's annual operating expenses. They will also pay $7.7 million for a 99-year lease of the public land, which is located near the corner of Grand Avenue and 2nd Street.

In choosing Diller Scofidio + Renfro as the lead architect, Broad said he considered the museum's location, which is close to Disney Hall, designed by Gehry. "We didn't want it to clash, but we didn't want it to be anonymous either," said Broad.

The other finalist in the running was the Office for Metropolitan Architecture, led by Rem Koolhaas. The Santa Monica firm Gensler will serve as the executive architect on the project.

Broad is widely recognized as one of the world's most active high-end collectors. With approximately 2,000 works of art, his holdings range from Pop artists like Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein to L.A. artists working today like Ed Ruscha, Mike Kelley, Mark Bradford, Mark Grotjahn and Elliott Hundley. And he is known for collecting in depth, not just breadth.

Robin Cembalest, executive editor of ARTnews, says he's been on the magazine's "top 10" list of international collectors every year since it started in 1998. "Other people come and go from the top 10. But he has consistently been making substantial acquisitions of major artworks."

The future relationship between the new museum and MOCA also remains unclear. Asked if there will be collaboration between the two institutions, Broad, who serves as a founding chairman and life trustee of MOCA, replied the he is "sure there will be."

Broad said Monday that he decided against giving his collection to a museum because none had sufficient gallery space to display the artwork. The Broad Collection is expected to display approximately 300 works from Broad's collection at any given time in its 50,000 square feet of gallery space.

Monday's announcement came after the Grand Avenue Authority officially approved Broad's proposal for the museum. It was the last hurdle that the billionaire had to clear for the project to officially begin. The five-member panel voted unanimously to approve the museum.

L.A. County Supervisor Gloria Molina, who chairs the panel, said she hopes the new Broad museum will help transform Grand Avenue "to the full grandeur that we'd like to see."

Councilwoman Jan Perry, who also sits on the panel, joked with Broad after Monday's session, saying that "we don't always work together well, but in this case, we did."

Construction on the parking garage is scheduled to start in October. The museum construction is set to begin in the spring, with completion expected in late 2012. The Broad Art Foundation will relocate from Santa Monica to the new museum downtown.

During the lengthy approval process, Broad's museum faced opposition from Shen Yun Performing Arts, a dance group that has strong ties with the Falun Gong sect. The group wanted to build a theater space and residential tower on the Grand Avenue site and claimed that officials weren't giving them a fair hearing.

But on Monday, a representative from the group addressed the Grand Avenue Authority and effectively conceded defeat.

Joanne Heyler, the director and chief curator of Broad Art Foundation, will become the director of the new museum. The Broad Foundation said that it will continue to loan works from the collection to institutions around the world.


Read More: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/arts/la-et--broad-museum-20100823,0,2953810.story

^^ What the heck is a "blue-chip"

^^ What the heck is a "blue-chip"

http://qualteam.tripod.com/qualteam/ist2_2679140_blue_chip_company.jpg

http://media.npr.org/images/ap//AP_News_Wire:_Entertainment/6_Billionaires_Art_Museum.sff.jpg

Billionaire Unveils Design Of Downtown LA Museum
by The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES January 6, 2011, 07:55 pm ET

Billionaire Eli Broad, center, arrives to speak at the unveiling of the Broad Art Foundation contemporary art museum designs in Los Angeles, Thursday, Jan. 6, 2011. The Billionaire's planned downtown Los Angeles contemporary art museum is a three-story, $130 million honeycomb structure.

Billionaire Eli Broad unveiled plans Thursday for the porous-concrete-shelled structure that will be the future downtown home of his 2,000-piece art collection and a hoped-for catalyst for the continuation of the city center's halting renaissance.

The three-story Broad Art Foundation, designed by New York-based Diller Scofidio + Renfro, consists of a spongelike mantle that lets light into the 40,000-square feet of gallery space, which itself sits atop a vast storage vault.

Broad said the downtown location on Grand Avenue amid a row of buildings by top-shelf architects — which the developer-turned-philanthropist played a leading role in having built — was a fitting home for the paintings, sculptures and prints he and his wife Edythe have spent four decades collecting.

"We're convinced Grand Avenue is where it's at," Broad said at the unveiling held at the nearby Walt Disney Concert Hall, a Frank Gehry-designed structure that Broad was instrumental in helping fund.

The $130-million art museum's construction is scheduled to begin in late summer, with the galleries welcoming their first visitors in early 2013.

The price includes a parking lot that the city's Community Redevelopment Agency will buy from the foundation for up to $30 million and operate after its completion.

Broad said the museum's initial exhibit will include a broad selection of works from his collection, including pieces by Jeff Koons, John Baldassari and Cindy Sherman. For the following three years, it will rotate its exhibitions every four months to focus on artist that are well represented in the collection, such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Damien Hirst and Roy Lichtenstein.

Art not on view will be housed in the storage area at the museum's core, which visitors will be able to see through windows placed along a stairwell leading down from the top-floor gallery area.

"They understood the need to design a museum that would engage the public, to be an iconic piece of architecture on Grand Avenue," Broad said of Diller Scofidio + Renfro, who also designed the renovation and expansion of Lincoln Center in New York City and the new Institute of Contemporary Art on the Boston harbor.

The Broads' museum is being built on a 2.5-acre parcel of county-owned land originally set aside as part of a stalled $3 billion shopping, hotel and condo complex known as the Grand Avenue project.

Under the deal for the land, Broad's foundation agreed to pay $7.7 million over the course of a 99-year-lease. The 77-year-old Broad, whose net worth was pegged last year by Forbes magazine at $5.8 billion, also pledged to fund the museum with a $200 million endowment.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa praised the Broads for building and financing the museum, which he predicted would help rekindle the downtown redevelopment projects that have been dampened by the economic downturn.

"This is going to become an anchor tenant for an area that is revitalizing before our very eyes," Villaraigosa said.



Read More: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=132722254

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Avenue_Project

FaSFazqJIes

Nice project but im my honest opinion not TOO impressed...

@ 56 seconds I thought that I was being sucked up into somebody's booty hole.

It reminds me of something I would see out of the Shanghai Expo.

It reminds me of something I would see out of the Shanghai Expo.

It does look a bit like Poland's expo hall.

http://www.bustler.net/images/uploads/m10.jpg

As well as France's.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/France_Pavilion_of_Expo_2010.jpg

I can't help but feeling like it could have...better.
I like it, don't get me wrong, but it's just alright. I wanted stunning.

like i said before im not too impressed with it... i hope honestly it gets cancelled

^^ you mean revised, right?

like i said before im not too impressed with it... i hope honestly it gets cancelled

So because you are not impressed by it, you hope it gets cancelled?

.....

I think it's stunning! Maybe those dissatisfied with this scheme could show us what they'd rather have? :)

Eli Broad, today's Norton Simon
Los Angeles' two preeminent art collectors developed a generation apart but in surprisingly similar ways.
By Christopher Knight, Los Angeles Times Art Critic
January 16, 2011

Usually, Eli Broad's trajectory as an art collector is traced to mentoring by the late Taft Schreiber. Broad himself has talked admiringly of what he learned about art from the MCA Inc. executive (and Ronald Reagan's former Hollywood agent), whose small but extraordinary trove of works by Jackson Pollock, Piet Mondrian, Alberto Giacometti and 10 others was a magnanimous 1989 gift to the Museum of Contemporary Art from the estate of Schreiber's widow, Rita.

Still, another, even more celebrated name in the annals of Los Angeles art collecting ought not to be discounted, even if the influence was perhaps more indirect.

The recent unveiling of the Broad Art Foundation's new building design happens to coincide with the publication of an engrossing new book from Yale University Press. "Collector Without Walls: Norton Simon and His Hunt for the Best" ($65) at times reads like a primer for understanding Broad's vigorous acquisitions, contentious relationships with area museums, philosophy of creating an art-lending library and more.

The similarities between Broad and Simon — both self-made men of vast wealth, savvy business acumen, genuine art passion and an often-remarked penchant for aggressive and controlling dealings — are as vivid as the differences.

On Oct. 25, 1972, Broad bought his first important art, paying $95,000 at a Sotheby's auction for an 1888 Van Gogh drawing. Rhythmic lines and staccato flecks of brown ink show two peasant houses in Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, a seaside village in the Rhône Delta of Provence, the region where he spent his final years.

Today, the personal art collection assembled by Broad and his wife, Edythe — who first sparked her husband's art interest — looks very different from that Post-Impressionist origin. Ditto their foundation's vast collection. The roughly 2,000 works form a diverse compendium of contemporary art dating from 1960 and after, with a clear — and artistically strong — Pop art tilt.

Three weeks before the Sotheby's hammer fell, sending the drawing off to the Broads' L.A. living room while launching them on their nearly four-decade collecting adventure, Norton Simon was acting on an ambitious plan. Simon, quoted in a Museum of Fine Arts Houston press release for a large exhibition drawn from his personal and foundation collections, explained his concept of a museum without walls. Rather than construct a building to display his art, he expressed his intention to start an art-lending library.

"We hope," he said, "to fill a real gap in the cultural life of this country."

Masterpieces from his collection would be available for long-term museum loans, maximizing their educational potential. As the Houston show was being announced, another Simon show was at the Princeton University Art Museum, complete with a catalog whose cover featured Van Gogh's portrait of his mother.

Simon certainly had the wherewithal to establish an art-lending library. He bought his first paintings in late 1954 — two undistinguished works picked up at an art gallery in the old Ambassador Hotel, not far from his Hancock Park home. But soon he was off and running.

By 1962-63 he spent the equivalent in today's currency of more than $22 million on 67 works. The following year he stunned the art world by buying the entire inventory of Duveen Bros., the legendary purveyor of Old Masters to America's first generation of robber-baron art collectors. By the time he was done in 1989, he had made nearly 2,000 acquisitions.

Even many of the works he considered and didn't buy, plus ones he bought and later sold, would together rank as an outstanding collection. Many now reside in important museums, including the Getty and the Hammer in L.A., the Metropolitan Museum in New York and the national galleries in Washington, D.C., and Canberra, Australia.

Simon's holdings blossomed into the greatest art collection assembled from scratch in the post- World War II era. His closest rival for the title was Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza, the Swiss steel magnate whose collection went to Spain, adjacent to the Prado. (It includes some former Simon works.) And Thyssen, who inherited his father's art collection, had a head start.

At 494 pages, "Collector Without Walls" is a thorough, unfailingly fascinating history of Simon's collecting activity, written with great insight by his longtime associate, Sara Campbell, now senior curator at Pasadena's Norton Simon Museum. Together with 1998's biography "Odd Man In: Norton Simon and the Pursuit of Culture" by former Times art writer Suzanne Muchnic, we now have an exceptional resource for understanding events central to Los Angeles' emergence as a global cultural powerhouse.

Coincidentally, we also gain insight into Broad, a generation younger than Simon, who began to collect art when the nation's most famous and prodigious art collector lived just across town. One obvious connection is the lending library concept.

Andre Malraux, France's first minister of cultural affairs, had surmised that the world of art reproductions forms a "museum without walls." For centuries, engravings of masterpiece paintings and plaster casts of famous sculptures expanded the restricted reach of the originals. Malraux proposed in1947's "The Imaginary Museum" that the proliferation of photographic reproductions now accelerated the process.

Simon, who knew the power of advertising techniques from the Hunt Foods conglomerate that made him rich, understood. He surmised that the authenticity of direct art encounters could be restored by making the virtual "museum without walls" into an actual one. A consortium of existing museums could borrow from his great collection.

At the end of 1973 Simon had 100 works in his personal collection, plus about 500 in two foundations. By 1975, sizable loans were made to museums in Houston, Princeton, San Francisco, New Orleans, Pasadena and a dozen other cities, plus the Los Angeles County Museum of Art — where Simon had been a trustee, but from which he had noisily resigned in the belief that it was poorly managed.

Campbell oversaw the lending library concept. In addition to acknowledging its generosity, she is candid in pointing out the program's more pragmatic aspects.

Sizable costs for care and art insurance were not Simon's alone. His foundations, as charitable assets held for public benefit, had legal requirements to make their art available for public display. California tax benefits accrued to art purchases "parked" for three months at out-of-state museums, prior to arriving in L.A.

"We loan works to museums and make them available to scholars, along with an archive on the collection." That was Broad, not Simon, speaking in 1988 about the opening of his then-new Santa Monica art-storage and lending facility.

The same philanthropic and pragmatic mix applies to his lending library concept as it did to Simon's. So do Simon's flirtations with giving the collection away (at least seven institutions); distrust of traditional museum management; engineering of a bailout of an artistically adventuresome but financially faltering institution (the old Pasadena Museum for Simon, MOCA for Broad); later deciding to open his own museum, and more.

In fact, a 1970s shift in Simon's collecting activity also anticipates Broad's. Simon started with 19th and early 20th century French art. Eventually, he added European Old Masters, partially because they were far less expensive.

But after his 1972 marriage to actress Jennifer Jones, the collection's character changed: Simon became an outstanding collector of Indian, Southeast Asian and Himalayan art. In the next two years, he paid $6.6 million for 138 objects, many superlative — less than a third of what he paid during the same period for 123 fine examples of European art.

Broad, unlikely to establish a major collection of early Modern art, switched to contemporary. By the 1980s he was one of the field's most active players. The Van Gogh drawing, sold to help pay for the purchase of a rare, 1954 red abstraction by Robert Rauschenberg, is now in the collection of New York's Morgan Library.

Simon had scant interest in contemporary art. Sculptures by Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth were about as close as he got. In 1968 he did pay $65,000 for "Cubi XXVIII" by the late American sculptor David Smith.

He sold the masterpiece in 1982 for $1.1 million — a not-uncommon practice in which Simon, acting like a dealer, took a big profit to subsidize other endeavors. Twenty-three years later, Smith's sculpture went under the hammer at Sotheby's. Its staggering sale price of $23.8 million set a new benchmark as the most expensive contemporary work then sold at auction. The buyer was Eli Broad.



Read More: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-ca-broad-simon-20110116,0,3414807.story




Norton Simon's unexpected art-collecting influence
--Christopher Knight
Los Angeles Times
January 15, 2011 | 6:00 am

Hospital at Saint-Rémy (1889) Hammer Between 1955 and 1989, L.A.'s Norton Simon went from being a nonentity among private art collectors to blossoming into the world's most prodigious collector of the postwar era. He started with 19th century French paintings but quickly expanded into early Modern art, then Old Masters and finally Indian, Himalayan and Southeast Asian art. The works he amassed make his namesake Pasadena museum an unparalleled treasure.

Even works Simon carefully considered but declined to acquire, lost in a divorce settlement or bought and then later sold to buy other works are among the great objects now housed in museums around the world. The Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings alone include Edouard Manet's poignant picture of a war veteran on a Paris street, "The Rue Mosnier with Flags" at the J. Paul Getty Museum; Paul Cezanne's chiseled "Boy in a Red Waistcoat" at Washington's National Gallery of Art; Paul Gauguin's patchwork pastoral landscape "The Swineherd" at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Edgar Degas' eloquent pastel, "Dancer in Green," in Madrid's Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection; and Vincent Van Gogh's roiling "Hospital at Saint-Remy," shown here, in the UCLA Hammer Museum.

The year 1972, following the tragedy of his son's suicide and the joy of his marriage to Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Jones, was especially active. Simon made his third largest number of acquisitions (more than 150) and his biggest total expenditure (nearly $18 million, which approaches $90 million in today's currency) during those 12 months.

1972 was also the year that another novice L.A. collector first jumped into the art arena -- one who made headlines in 2005 by breaking a record buying a sculpture owned for many years by, yes, Norton Simon. On Sunday I'll have an Arts & Books story on how, when he first set out to become a major art collector, Eli Broad seems to have had Simon's extraordinary achievement in mind.



Read More: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2011/01/norton-simon-eli-broad-art-collecting-influence.html

So because you are not impressed by it, you hope it gets cancelled?

.....

did i spell cancelled wrong or something? yes In my "Personal" Opinion i hope it gets cancelled or they Use a better Project for it.

^^ you mean revised, right?

or that

The Polish one is sort of charmy in a peasant way; the French one is really clumsy, the shell is an aesthetic afterthought. The Broad (in renderings) is way beyond them in rhythm, lightness, elegance and concept. And it is site appropriate. A very impressive performance.

I wish it not to be canceled. I'm not bowled over by it but build it and let's continue making Grand grand.

I love The Broad. It stands out in it's own right while taking nothing away or adding to the Disney Hall.

Grand Ave is turning into an Acropolis of sorts. In my *personal* opinion (I've said this before a few times), I would love to see Zaha Hadid design a project in DTLA. The lot next to The Broad would be perfect. A Hadid designed mixed use tower would be epic. I would rather have her design The Grand rather than Gehry. And I love Gehry.

http://www.dubaichronicle.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/zaha-hadid-for-omniyat-1.jpg
http://www.dubaichronicle.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/zaha-hadid-for-omniyat-1.jpg
http://www.inhabitat.com/wp-content/uploads/zahahadid-the-age.jpg

Thanks for this video, it's great! While the Broad may not have the same wow-factor as the Disney Concert Hall next door, it is nonetheless a very nice piece of architecture that will contribute positively to the urban fabric of downtown.

FaSFazqJIes

I love The Broad. It stands out in it's own right while taking nothing away or adding to the Disney Hall.

Grand Ave is turning into an Acropolis of sorts. In my *personal* opinion (I've said this before a few times), I would love to see Zaha Hadid design a project in DTLA. The lot next to The Broad would be perfect. A Hadid designed mixed use tower would be epic. I would rather have her design The Grand rather than Gehry. And I love Gehry.

I agree, a Hadid complex would be great. But Gehry himself could do much better. The current design is so schizophrenic. Compare that to the beauty of the Beekman in NYC. Or my preference, his unbuilt design for the NY Times Tower (picture below) - I would love to see the Grand Complex built with a design aesthetic like this, nicely complementing the architecture of the Concert Hall:

http://kwc.org/blog/resources/2008/nyt-gehry.jpg

the reason why i didnt like this project much is because i know i have seen wayyyy better projects in general and i do agree it would look better in the design of Disney Concert Hall but as a high rise.. IMO

I agree, a Hadid complex would be great. But Gehry himself could do much better. The current design is so schizophrenic. Compare that to the beauty of the Beekman is in NYC. Or my preference, his unbuilt design for the NY Times Tower (picture below) - I would love to see the Grand Complex built with a design aesthetic like this, nicely complementing the architecture of the Concert Hall:

http://kwc.org/blog/resources/2008/nyt-gehry.jpg

This building turned me onto Gehry. I first saw renderings of it back in 2002. I cried when this wasn't chosen. I loved it's 'rolled up newspaper' inspired design. The Disney Hall is an architectural icon and he should seriously consider revamping The Grand to match that iconic status.

^^ It's a pity that no one with money or power seems to know much about architecture. If they actually knew anything about Gehry's past projects they could easily have known about the unbuilt Times tower, and how well such a design might complement the Concert Hall.

I don't criticize the Grand too much because I do believe such a complex is very necessary as a place for museum- and concert-goers to hang out. My feelings towards it are very similar to those that I have for the Hollywood / Highland complex. On one hand I really dislike the haphazard look of the place. On the other hand there is no denying the positive impact that it has had on the Hollywood Blvd area.

I could go with either Gehry or Hadid. In general I don't like silliness in architecture but Bunker Hill is so consistently staid and boring that having some excitement down the block wouldn't create a "Disneyland" look. But you can't put just anything up across the street from Broad and Disney.

btw, I'm not too sure about the "no knowledge of architecture" comment as regards Broad. His foundations and trusts have dozens of art analysts and he hires the best agents and dealers; he is good friends with several of the best architects in the world; he has several times gone through selection processes so you know the architects keep him (or his staff) on their short list of people to talk to regularly. And 40 years of collecting have left him with a 2B collection.

They got started on the park already. Yesterday I went on my habitual trek to Downtown and the whole thing is boarded up, from City Hall all the way to the Music Center. And yes, I took the Metro.



^^ that looks like phase 2 of Grand Avenue and also the courthouse.

http://www.grandavenuecommittee.org/images/district_plan_large.gif

Somebody was actually paid a lot of money for designing this thing?

http://kwc.org/blog/resources/2008/nyt-gehry.jpg

And yes, I took the Metro.

There is still hope for you, Los Angeles.

There is still hope for you, Los Angeles.

:lol: I take it when I can Klam. Plus, visiting family or friends I always show them around on Metro not my car.

They got started on the park already. Yesterday I went on my habitual trek to Downtown and the whole thing is boarded up, from City Hall all the way to the Music Center.

That's good to hear. The park will be welcome, especially if they can keep it clean and safe. But the potential of this bit of greenery will be limited, literally and figuratively, by those hideous county buildings. While I would like to see all of them disappear, at the very least it would be nice to tear down the LA County Courthouse building once the Grand Development is complete, so that there would be a continuous flow of spaces from the museums through the Grand and to the Civic Park. Not that I'm holding my breath.

That's good to hear. The park will be welcome, especially if they can keep it clean and safe. But the potential of this bit of greenery will be limited, literally and figuratively, by those hideous county buildings. While I would like to see all of them disappear, at the very least it would be nice to tear down the LA County Courthouse building once the Grand Development is complete, so that there would be a continuous flow of spaces from the museums through the Grand and to the Civic Park. Not that I'm holding my breath.

I'm a bit more optimistic. Separating the future of this new venture with those ugly buildings you point out.

A Metro in/outlet is on it, which I believe was an ingenious decision made back then. Now, a future trolley stop there would be a good addition.

these building really help "manhattanize" the look of the city.

Los Angeles Lofts (http://www.213loftcompany.com)

^^ We can hold out for a better result than that.

Grand Ave. Developer Has New 2012 Deadline
Officials Set Groundbreaking Date for 20-Story Apartment Tower
by Ryan Vaillancourt, Staff Writer
Published: Wednesday, April 13, 2011 9:21 AM PDT
DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES - Grand Avenue project developer Related Companies has been working on plans for a scaled down, 20-story apartment tower for months. Now, the firm in control of the long-stalled $3 billion Bunker Hill mega-project has a deadline for breaking ground on that building: October 2012.

The Grand Avenue Authority today set the deadline for Related to begin construction on the apartment tower, which would rise on what is now a parking lot south of Gen. Thaddeus Kosciusko Way. Preliminary plans for the edifice call for about 260 units, 20% of which would be affordable, and up to 15,000 square feet of retail space, Related California President Bill Witte said. Known as parcel M, the site is environmentally cleared for two towers of up to 35 stories.

Despite the deadline, Related does not yet have financing. While the developer is working with a team on preliminary designs, it has yet to select an architect, Witte said.

“This is very preliminary,” Witte said. “It’s not financed yet but we are going to move forward on it. I think it’s not unrealistic.”

If Related cannot meet the deadline, the firm could seek an extension from the authority, which has granted several such extensions on the larger first phase of the project.

Also today, the authority gave an OK to a plan already approved by the CRA and City Council to expand the garage beneath philanthropist Eli Broad’s coming museum so that the facility occupies the entire surface lot known as parcel L, between Grand Avenue and Hope Street. The facility will hold 370 spaces, up from the previously approved 284.

The board also became the final body to green-light a public plaza to be built south of the museum, on a platform above Gen. Kosciusko Way.

The $100 million Diller, Scofidio +Renfro-designed museum will rise on top of the three-level garage, but will occupy only a portion of the garage footprint. The remainder is set aside for a future residential development, likely to be condos, Witte said.

The apartment tower plan is now formally known as phase IIB, and the condo tower, which has a groundbreaking deadline of 2016, is considered phase IIC.

The $1 billion, Frank Gehry-designed phase one calls for two luxury residential towers with a boutique hotel and 250,000 square feet of retail. Related has missed multiple deadlines to break ground on the largest piece of the three-phase project, and instead has secured repeat extensions from the authority. Most recently, the JPA approved a two-year extension for phase one through February 2013.

http://www.ladowntownnews.com/articles/2011/04/13/news/doc4da3784947e7d785668551.txt

From SSP:


Taking a break from my forum sabattical, here is a pic of the Broad Museum site. Looks like its underway.http://a5.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/225745_220320977978063_100000004873676_942136_3285771_n.jpg

Excavation and buildings are rare events downtown these days. Gotta treat it like a new baby in the family; lots of pictures.

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5249/5687086411_6ab2c2337a_o.jpg

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5249/5687086411_6ab2c2337a_o.jpg

Thanks for the pic, Soup!

It's about time, some dirt piles start moving on that lot. So bring on the Broad! :)

Oh btw: I spotted Eli Broad sipping on a beer with two acquaintances at ESPN ZONE @ LA Live, during the Lakers vs. Mavericks playoff game yesterday ( I kid you not that was him!). You'd think a billionaire like him would have a court side seat at the game next to Jack (Nicholson) at Staples Center, right? Anyway, I thought it was pretty cool seeing a billionaire just mingling/enjoying the game (even though the Lakers lost), all nonchalantly in the bar section like he was just another person in the crowd.

Anyways, a project we can all look forward to. Let the second wave of the DT construction boom resume...

Crane

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6029/6208777930_586c007cf9_b.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/machu_picchu/6208777930/)
10032011-11 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/machu_picchu/6208777930/) by machu picchu (http://www.flickr.com/people/machu_picchu/), on Flickr

The lonely yellow crane
Dreams of lovely mates
With long golden legs.

Grand Ave. Developer Has New 2012 Deadline
Officials Set Groundbreaking Date for 20-Story Apartment Tower
by Ryan Vaillancourt, Staff Writer
Published: Wednesday, April 13, 2011 9:21 AM PDT


http://www.ladowntownnews.com/articles/2011/04/13/news/doc4da3784947e7d785668551.txt

We're still making the same mistakes and actually have become hypocrites. I remember upon my arrival to LA (pre-Measure R) when massive amounts of parking was included in a building the argument was that our transit system wasn't expansive enough and only if we had more of it then we could reduce parking. The Broad will be just steps away from the DTC and a tri-level parking facility is still being built. In fact had the parking not come through we may not even be talking about this museum. Not to mention that there is ample parking all over Dwtwn that would be just a short walk from the museum and would enliven the streetscape as well. What about that "tinker toy" garage that sits directly across the street from adjacent Disney Hall? So the infrastructure is already in existence, being built or already in study and we're still building parking like Measure R never happened. It's going to take direct intervention on the part of the city to halt this disease. People who drive cars are disingenuous about their motives. Not only do they want to drive their stupid dirty cars but also want the public to pay for their accommodation through tax breaks and continued subsidized parking for their private vehicle. Yet we're cutting bus service because of lack of funds! This insanity must be stopped!!

Is the crane going up for the taller building or the shorter building?

The crane is up for The Broad museum.

http://cdn.archdaily.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/1294336566-la-ds-528x402.jpg

yes and they are moving quick. i drive by it every evening and its booming! cant wait till its above ground and work on the museum itself starts. thats gonna be interesting to watch.

So when is the construction for the buildings gonna start?

When we know, you'll know.

;)

So the Broad is going up now and the neighboring apartment building is scheduled for not later than Oct 2012. However, I wouldn't consider that a "deadline" in the real sense of the word since it has been moved by Related and the city so often.

When we know, you'll know.

;)

Haha, thanks!:cheers:

The park is under construction. These are some great shots.

http://la.curbed.com/tags/civic-park

I think The Broad deserves its own thread...it's a sufficiently significant building to warrant that...plus I don't think it is part of the "The Grand"...just next to it. Moreover, it's under construction, while The Grand may not be for years.

Oh, yeah! This definitely deserves it's own distinction! It adds prestige to the area around Disney, which is something we can't yet say for the ultimate downsizing The Grand is going to suffer.

The crane is up for The Broad museum.

http://cdn.archdaily.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/1294336566-la-ds-528x402.jpg

Walked by it last week and this is going on all cylinders. :cheers:
And so is the park between City Hall and the Music Center.

Walked by it last week and this is going on all cylinders. :cheers:
And so is the park between City Hall and the Music Center.

Next target: the erector set parking lot across from the Phil.

Picture updates as of 11/27/11

Civic Park:
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a268/mojeda101/IMG_0755.jpg
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a268/mojeda101/IMG_0756.jpg
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a268/mojeda101/IMG_0757.jpg
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a268/mojeda101/IMG_0758.jpg
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a268/mojeda101/IMG_0759.jpg
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a268/mojeda101/IMG_0760.jpg
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a268/mojeda101/IMG_0761.jpg
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a268/mojeda101/IMG_0762.jpg
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a268/mojeda101/IMG_0763.jpg
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a268/mojeda101/IMG_0764.jpg
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a268/mojeda101/IMG_0767.jpg
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a268/mojeda101/IMG_0769.jpg

Now moving on to the Broad
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a268/mojeda101/IMG_0807.jpg
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a268/mojeda101/IMG_0809.jpg
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a268/mojeda101/IMG_0810.jpg
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a268/mojeda101/IMG_0811.jpg
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a268/mojeda101/IMG_0812.jpg
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a268/mojeda101/IMG_0813.jpg
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a268/mojeda101/IMG_0814.jpg
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a268/mojeda101/IMG_0815.jpg

While walking through downtown I notice this great big empty pit, thoughts?
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a268/mojeda101/IMG_0793.jpg

Wow, thanks for the update!

It looks like they are using the old lot on the other side of the street from the Broad parking garage as a staging area. However, I thought this was going to be a residential building. Have they changed the plan or just haven't broken ground yet?

Great update! Thanks for the pictures.

Again, I don't understand why we have individual threads for a bunch of stale or scaled down proposals, yet don't have dedicated threads for the Broad and the Civic Park (at least the Broad!)

Neither of these projects are a part of "The Grand"!...which itself is an increasingly stale proposal.

Wow, thanks for the update!

It looks like they are using the old lot on the other side of the street from the Broad parking garage as a staging area. However, I thought this was going to be a residential building. Have they changed the plan or just haven't broken ground yet?

that project starts next year.

Great job on the update. i like that the bike lane is so prominent in such an important location. i think the city should put a bike corral and a bike rental at that location.

I'm sure the bike lane has to do with the park, it's be interesting to see how they mix. Although I have to admit the park is not going to be as big as I thought it was. I was imagining a Central Park kind of thing, although this is going to be more of a plaza of sorts.

no, the bike lane was a separate project, but that doesnt mean they shouldnt tie in together.

Yes this park is not the largest in the world, but its a good start for Downtown. It will be key when the two court buildings get torn down on either end on Grand. They need to go and it will open up the park tremendously and will tie in greatly to the eventual 101 cap park

What will happen to the large empty lot I showed in the last picture? Possible skyscraper location? Haven't heard any talk of it.

its where the federal courthouse is supposed to go, but congress is trying to kill it. the city is thinking of swapping the parker center land for it.

What will happen to the large empty lot I showed in the last picture? Possible skyscraper location? Haven't heard any talk of it.

Someone on here knows, they tore the buildings down on that lot for some reason. But I can't remember what for, I just know that that the new project got canceled.

Unrelated, but around the same area, anyone know what the update on this building is? I thought a read somewhere they were going to re-open it, but maybe I was wrong. Been vacant for awhile.

http://jpg1.lapl.org/pics49/00044054.jpg

i answered the question in the post above yours! lol

That building, the hall of justice, is going to be rehabbed for the LA Sheriffs department. i think they will start shortly if they havent already.

This is off topic, although you seem to know everything about the city right now, what is the status of FF?

lol, farmers field is currently in the EIR stage, which should take until May 2012. if a team is found by June and the EIR is certified, they will break ground in June, 2012

And what of the tower that was going to be parallel to LA Live's Marriot?

While we're jumping around here, what's the status of the Santa Monica Pier renovation? :lol:

Please tell us LASF...

Although I have to admit the park is not going to be as big as I thought it was. I was imagining a Central Park kind of thing, although this is going to be more of a plaza of sorts.

Central Park runs at its length for roughly 50 blocks...if our park was that length we'd be demolishing the freeway and Mac Arthur Park/Westlake would have to be cleared away and a good portion of Koreatown.

Yeah. Central Park in LA would stretch from downtown to Wilshire and at least Western.

While we're jumping around here, what's the status of the Santa Monica Pier renovation? :lol:

Please tell us LASF...

lol my magic 8 ball is currently broken

Yeah. Central Park in LA would stretch from downtown to Wilshire and at least Western.

Yeah! And almost 1/4th the size of Griffith Park! We have a central park, it's just undeveloped.

Next target: the erector set parking lot across from the Phil.

Absolutely! good point. That thing is ooogly!

Someone on here knows, they tore the buildings down on that lot for some reason. But I can't remember what for, I just know that that the new project got canceled.

Unrelated, but around the same area, anyone know what the update on this building is? I thought a read somewhere they were going to re-open it, but maybe I was wrong. Been vacant for awhile.

http://jpg1.lapl.org/pics49/00044054.jpg

The old Hall of justice; I went by there a couple of weeks ago and it looks like they're working on it, slowly.

^^ Judging by that picture, I guess they had Occupy LA back then as well ;)

No, actually they were running tests in the 40's in case Japan invaded I believe.

No, actually they were running tests in the 40's in case Japan invaded I believe.

January 4, 1944 - Commando troops, their faces blackened with war paint, are shown advancing over the Spring Street steps of City Hall as they "captured" the heart of the city during a realistic "attack" staged as a prelude to the "Los Angeles Attacks" Army-Navy Show to be held Saturday and Sunday at the Coliseum. They arrived at the Civic Center in trucks and jeeps and waited in hiding until the attack signal came.

The civic park doesn't look as big as I thought either. I guess what I had in mind before was that they would close Hill St. and Broadway, making it one park instead of three small parks divided by two roads.

The civic park doesn't look as big as I thought either. I guess what I had in mind before was that they would close Hill St. and Broadway, making it one park instead of three small parks divided by two roads.

That always gets talked about but never happens. And too expensive to take the roads undeground. That was one of the main reasons for my viewing this project as marginal. Maybe someday.

Yeah! And almost 1/4th the size of Griffith Park! We have a central park, it's just undeveloped.

IMO, Griffith isn't really a Central Park equivalent...while I think it's a wonderful and unique asset for LA, it's too rugged in many places for a casual stroll, could not easily be accessed by very large numbers of people at the same time (think about parking), and isn't a place one would want to be at all hours of the day.

However, I do think LA has a central park...its beaches. The stretch from Santa Monica to Venice might be considered the heart of this park...but Palos Verdes aside, this is long discontinuous park that extends into the OC. While in NYC, the beaches are somewhat peripheral to the urban core, here in LA they are the place a plurality of people go to hang out on nice days.

Oh, I'd develop it!
Plus, I wouldn't want to hang in the other park
at all hours of the day either -
PLUS .... think about how difficult it can be
to get to the beaches - and park!

status?

It starts construction tomorrow.

Are you kidding me? I'm going to stop by, might take a few pictures. Do you know the exact address?

Right across the street from the Disney Hall. Take loads of pics. Knock yourself. Have a blast.

Right across the street from the Disney Hall. Take loads of pics. Knock yourself. Have a blast.

Let me translate for Soup: he is tired of your asking for updates, probably assuming that you should know that people would post them if they had any.

Gold star for pesto.

http://img.geocaching.com/cache/057fb32f-8bbd-4b36-bdf5-4f9651dc4344.jpg

Dude...for heaven's sake. If there is ANY news for ANY project, it WILL be posted. No matter how big or how small. Don't bump threads just to say 'any updates' or 'status' or anything like that. When there is news, it will be posted so EVERYONE can see it.

Lord have mercy...

Plus, if you really want updates on a project, you can Google for them yourself, or check LA Downtown News, Curbed LA, etc.

Wait, question. Construction of the towers? 48 floor tower?

^ It's NOT under construction. Soup or man was fucking with you.

Jeez...

Well how was I supposed to know?

Well how was I supposed to know?

By reading the above posts...

Well excuse me! >.<

"May I please be excused?" .. is the proper usage for this forum.

Please feel free to link to me to where it says that in the rules. Otherwise I'll stick to my freedom of speech.

It's common sense. When something breaks, news will be posted. Please grow some brains.

Actually, the status update should be that the whole project is in further doubt. Aside from the developer not being able to line up financing and missing start deadlines repeatedly the project is now faced with the demise of the CRA, which was to provide a large amount of funding for the residential component. The Grand Avenue Project appears on CRA's list of "at risk" projects.

THANK YOU!

That's the answer I wanted to hear. Not morons being sarcastic.
I guess it was too much to ask for for these other people.

"I guess it was too much to ask for from these other people."

I'm the only one who got a gold star.

Your guys are mean....(AKA assholes). ^^^^ lol

Your guys are mean....(AKA assholes). ^^^^ lol

Yeah, but I'm a Gold Star asshole.

Yeah, but I'm a Gold Star asshole.

lol:lol:

if all goes as planned construction for phase one (iconic tower) will begin in february 2013, that is if the developer doesnt ask for another two year extension