These are the major projects around the Los Angeles Metro outside of Downtown Los Angeles. Please add new projects, news and renderings. Lets keep discussions for the individual threads and this one just for renders and news, as well as pics.

Blue Title = Under Construction

HOLLYWOOD

W Hotel / Condos - Breaking Ground in Mid - Feb 2007

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a278/Imyurdada/W.jpg

Legacy Apartments

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a278/Imyurdada/HollywoodandVine.jpg

BLVD6200 - Next to Pantages

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a278/Imyurdada/ned4.jpg
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a278/Imyurdada/ned6.jpg

Camden Apartments - Includes a Whole Foods

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a278/Imyurdada/WholeFoods.jpg
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a278/Imyurdada/Vine.jpg

Argyle and Yucca

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a278/Imyurdada/hollywood2.jpg

The Hollywood

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a278/Imyurdada/thehollywood.jpg

Sunset & Vine - Rehab, Almost Done

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a278/Imyurdada/Sunset__Vine_Tower_lg3.jpg

Old KFWB Site

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a278/Imyurdada/KFWB.jpg

Yucca and Argyle area

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a278/Imyurdada/hollywood2-1.jpg

Equitable Building Conversion

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a278/Imyurdada/Equitable.jpg

Broadway Building Conversion

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a278/Imyurdada/Broadway.jpg

Madrone Hollywood

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a278/Imyurdada/madrone1.jpg

Madame Tussauds

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a278/Imyurdada/mth.jpg

Hollywood and Vine area Areal pic

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a278/Imyurdada/HollyVineAerial.jpg

NORTH HOLLYWOOD

CENTURY CITY


St. Regis Condo Replacement - 40 stories

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a278/Imyurdada/stregisco.jpg

KOREATOWN

3670 Wilshire - 40 Stories Plus

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a278/Imyurdada/3670wilshire40.gif


WILSHIRE BLVD

Carlyle Development

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a278/Imyurdada/carlyle.jpg

Wilshire and Vermont - Almost Complete

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a278/Imyurdada/Wilshirevermont.jpg

Wilshire and Catalina - 24 Stories

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a278/Imyurdada/WilshireandCatalina.jpg
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a278/Imyurdada/wilshirecat2.jpg

Wilshire Skyline

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a278/Imyurdada/wilshireskyline.jpg
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a278/Imyurdada/wilshirewky2.jpg

Wilshire and Western - 25 stories

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a278/Imyurdada/wilshirewestern25.jpg

Wilshire and Barrington

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a278/Imyurdada/wilshirebarrington.jpg

Wilshire Center

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a278/Imyurdada/WIlshire-Center-Picture.gif

Avalon Wlshire

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a278/Imyurdada/avalonwilshire.jpg

Cal Coast - 2 20 Story Towers

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a278/Imyurdada/06-CalCoast.jpg

Circa - 18 Stories

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a278/Imyurdada/circa.jpg

BEVERLY HILLS

9900 Wilshire (Former Robinsons May)

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a278/Imyurdada/richardmeierbeverlyhillsqh6.jpg

Beverly Hilton (including Waldorf Astoria)

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a278/Imyurdada/beverlyhilton_m11.jpg
SOUTH BAY

Steel Lofts - Marina Del Rey

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a278/Imyurdada/steelloftsmarina.jpg

Indigo - Marina Del Rey

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a278/Imyurdada/indigomarina.jpg

Bundy / Ohio Project - Marina Del Rey

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a278/Imyurdada/bundyohiomarina.jpg
LONG BEACH


Broadway & Maine Tower 1 (55 stories, 700 condominiums) & Tower 2 (45 stories, 600 condominiums)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v600/rpulido/BroadwayandMain/broadwayandmaine.jpg

Edgewater on Ocean (22 Stories, 155 condominiums)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v600/rpulido/edgewater.jpg

Lennar Condominiums (21 Stories, 216 condominiums)
http://www.tca-arch.com/ontheboardsf/longbeach/perspective.jpg

Symphony Tower (113 Condo Units, Building Height: 24 stories, 250 ft.
http://www.ensemblehealthcare.com/uploads/project/Symphony%20Tower_1_thumb.jpg

West Ocean LB (Tower 1 – 29 stories with 132 condos & Tower 2 - 20 stories with 114 condos)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v600/rpulido/West%20Ocean%20Project/DSC01196Medium.jpg

432 Condo Tower (24 story tower at 281 feet with 107 Condo Units)
http://www.ensemblehealthcare.com/uploads/project/432%20Condo_1_thumb.jpg

Shoreline Gateway (3 Towers – 24, 21, 12 stories totaling 310 condominiums)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v600/rpulido/shorelinegateway2.jpg

Press Telegram Lofts (Two 22 story high-rise towers, 542 residential units)
http://www.o5d.com/gallery/large/elevation_night.jpg

Williams & Dame 22-story tower with 279 condominium units, a 22-story tower with 365 loft condominium units, and a six-story building with 88 affordable residential units, and 9 live/work units - for a total of 741 residential units.

Urban Growth/The Related Companies (22 and 14 story towers)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v600/rpulido/MTA%20Block/untitled.jpg

Art Exchange (19 Residential Story tower with Mid Rise Hotel/Artists Workshops)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v600/rpulido/ArtExchangeWD.jpg

Broadway Tower (176 Condo Units, Building Height: 15 Floors, 180 Ft.
http://www.ensemblehealthcare.com/uploads/project/Broadway%20Tower_1_thumb.jpg http://www.ensemblehealthcare.com/uploads/project/Broadway%20Tower_2_thumb.jpg http://www.ensemblehealthcare.com/uploads/project/Broadway%20Tower_3_thumb.jpg

Cedar Court - 15 story, 8 story, and 5 story residential building
http://www.humphreys.com/Images/website/projects/Cedar_Court_01.jpg

Marriott's Residence Inn (115 foot 11 story hotel)
http://extras.mnginteractive.com/live/media/site204/2006/1213/20061213_014846_12.jpg

City Hall East Site (10 Story Adaptive Reuse of Edison Building)
http://www.griffinholdings.net/files/images/gpp%20elevation-for%20WEB.jpg

Sierra Suites Inn at the Pike (7 stories, 140 suites)
http://www.lodgeworks.com/lwcs/images/hotels/longbeach/01Exterior.jpg
Hotel Esterel at The Promenade (7 stories, 155 suites)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v600/rpulido/Untitled1Large.jpg

GLENDALE

VALLEY

ORANGE COUNTY

Anaheim Stadium Development

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a278/Imyurdada/atown.jpg

A Town - 6 Condo Towers near Anaheim Stadium

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a278/Imyurdada/atwon.jpg

Park Place Towers Irvine

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a278/Imyurdada/pptowersirvine.jpg

Isn't that Wilshire and Vermont rendering an earlier version. The new one looks nothing like that.

youre right ill change it

Shouldn't we have a seperate thread for Long Beach, Hollywood, and Wilshire? I don't think we need one for the Valley or Glendale.

Just a minor spelling error. It's spelled Madame Tussauds.

The project after the W Hotel is called Legacy Apartments and the Whole Foods project is called Camden Apartments.

thanks for the corrections. VicecityGuy, i copied your list from the development list for Long Beach. thanks.

Legacy Apartments is the project in the second photo. The project you currently have labeled as Legacy Apartments is BLVD6200.

thanks, where is that Legacy development exactly? next to Hollywood and Vine (the W Project) or is it that one? im a little confused on these.

You've got it right now.

ok, cool Got it!

What is this? I took the pic going down Wilshire

http://i56.photobucket.com/albums/g189/FROMLOSANGELES/wilshirepics132.jpg

Avalon Wilshire

http://i56.photobucket.com/albums/g189/FROMLOSANGELES/wilshirepics054.jpg

^That's Avalon Wilshire, NOT Wilshire Vermont.

FROM LOS ANGELES, that first pic you took is Renzo Piano's LACMA expansion, which is not very impressive BTW.

Update..

All photos taken 2/3/2007. Sorry the lighting is aweful.

Western/Vermont Station

http://www.tndwest.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/Wilshirevermont.jpg

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/177/380303221_eba6b08429_b.jpg

Southeast corner of the retail space.
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/153/380298790_9bdd60c8f0_b.jpg

Here is the retail space along Wilshire Blvd, just around the corner from the last photo. You can see the concrete poured for the new sidewalk.
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/123/380298791_fe7d597c69_b.jpg

Looking through the construction fence into the center of the complex. Look at all that retail space!!
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/131/380298800_bee24707a5_b.jpg

Wilshire Solair

Most of the site is up to ground level and the rebar is visible high above the construction fence.
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/158/380301959_ec648d2321_b.jpg

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/171/380298805_1063676a31_b.jpg

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/137/380298797_e5c9c263e2_b.jpg

Thanx for the update... 300*

I like all this, but none of these projects are affordable for people like me who already live in LA and aren't coming from out of state and becoming actors, writers, etc.

http://tndwest.com/hollywoodwestern.html

I'm surprised the development around Hollywood and Western hasn't been mentioned more on this site. There seems to be more going on around this intersection than maybe any other intersection in the city. I know this is a low income neighborhood and the projects here are not very flashy, and I'm wondering if that is why we haven't been talking about it. Anyways, hopefully these developments will spur others around the other Vermont Red Line stops.

thats actually one of my favorite corners because it shows what good a metro can do. i eagerly await the hot dog stand being torn down for a TOD as well as all the vacant lots in the area. plenty of potential and i hope its fulfilled. any idea when these projects are suppose to break ground?

A new Hollywood revival
CIM Group has big plans for the Seven Seas building it is buying from Eddie Nash.
By Roger Vincent, Times Staff Writer
February 6, 2007

Efforts to upgrade a key section of the Hollywood shopping and entertainment district, part of a revival that is making the area more attractive to locals and tourists, have taken a major step forward.

CIM Group, the district's largest commercial landlord, said it had agreed to acquire the Seven Seas building, a dilapidated structure that once housed a famous Hollywood Boulevard nightclub. At the request of the city's redevelopment agency, CIM plans to restore the edifice to its 1920s style.

It's the latest example of a wave of investment seeking to improve the formerly blighted neighborhood.

The Seven Seas building "has been a missing piece" in the real estate recovery along Hollywood Boulevard, said Helmi Hisserich, the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency's regional administrator for Hollywood. "It's a beautiful historic building, but nobody can see its beauty."

The three-story building, across the street from Grauman's Chinese theater, stands out like a broken tooth in the blocks around Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue that have benefited from hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of property improvements in recent years. Further transformation is underway, including new housing, stores and entertainment attractions.

The building's seller, infamous impresario Eddie Nash, agreed to part with the retail and office structure for an undisclosed price.

Nash, who owned the building for almost 50 years, said he finally agreed to sell after a CIM executive "wore me out."

Much of the time Nash owned it, and as far back as the 1930s, the building was the home of Seven Seas, a popular island-themed nightclub that once boasted live floor shows with music and dancers three times a night.

"It was a great hangout during [World War II] for soldiers and sailors on leave from the Pacific, or on the verge of going out," the late Times columnist Jack Smith once wrote. "There was a tin canopy over the bar, and every few minutes an artificial rainstorm would come, drumming on the tin like the rain on the roof of the Pago Pago rooming house in Somerset Maugham's 'Rain.' "

Like many other buildings in Hollywood, this one fell far and hard in the 1980s and 1990s when scores of businesses departed and the neighborhood earned a reputation for being disreputable and even dangerous.

The $650-million Hollywood and Highland retail, hotel and entertainment complex across the street was a financial debacle for its original owners after it opened in 2001. But the project helped spur other improvements nearby, including the creation of a studio next door to the Seven Seas building where ABC television's "Jimmy Kimmel Live" is taped.

Madame Tussauds, the legendary London wax museum, announced last October that it plans to build a flashy $55-million branch next to Grauman's.

With ownership of Nash's building, Hollywood-based CIM hopes to advance its strategy of trying to make the neighborhood appeal to locals and not just tourists, said Shaul Kuba, a principal at CIM who conducted a long campaign to acquire the property.

The company controls 12 office, retail and residential properties in Hollywood, including the Hollywood and Highland complex, the TV Guide building and the Sunset and Vine Tower.

One of the reasons the Hollywood and Highland complex struggled after it opened was that it had too many tourist-oriented businesses, such as fancy boutiques and a duty-free outlet, said Jeff Kreshek, CIM's head of leasing.

CIM is attempting to bring in businesses that would serve the daily needs of people who live and work in Hollywood, such as drugstores and fitness centers, as well as restaurants and boutiques.

CIM's heavy investment in the Seven Seas building may not be profitable in itself, but it could help create the kind of neighborhood that lifts the value of other company assets.

"They have a different way of calculating a return on their investment," the redevelopment agency's Hisserich said. "It's going to have a heavy impact on leasing and who comes into Hollywood as a whole."

Because of its location in a city-designated historic zone, developers who sought to improve the property were required to bring it up to historic standards, and others balked at that prospect, Hisserich said.

CIM agreed to meet federal standards for historic renovation, which are considered especially stringent, she said.

"It will be an example to owners down the boulevard about how to bring new life to these historic buildings," she said.

The property, currently in escrow, is worth about $35 million or more, according to a real estate broker who asked not to be named because he wasn't involved in the deal.

The building is mostly empty, its top two floors of offices boarded up. Ground floor retailers aim for the low end of the tourist market, selling maps to stars' homes, cheap T-shirts and Zippo lighters.

Nash said he wanted to fix up the property, but gave up after vibrations from subway construction damaged the building in the mid-1990s and directions from the redevelopment agency on what could be done with it were unclear.

Nash once operated more than 20 bars and restaurants, including the Starwood, Odyssey, Ali Baba's and the Kit Kat Club. Prosecutors accused him of trafficking drugs out of his clubs and he was suspected of ordering the bludgeoning deaths of four people at a Laurel Canyon drug den in 1981 in a case known as the "Wonderland murders."

In 2001 he pleaded guilty to federal racketeering charges and was sentenced to 37 months in prison, ending his long contest with authorities. At age 77, he now lives in the San Fernando Valley.

The complete historic renovation, valued at as much as $10 million by CIM, could help lure some sought-after retailers who are waiting to see whether Hollywood's turnaround is real, CIM's Kreshek said.

So far, Spanish clothier Zara has agreed to move into the renovated building next year and Swedish clothier H&M is set to open a store next door this September in space formerly occupied by Hamburger Hamlet.

I'm so excited to hear such news! The Seven Seas Building is the only thing that's preventing that stretch of Hollywood Blvd. from reaching its full potential! This coupled with the addition of a Madame Tussauds will complete that portion of Hollywood Blvd. and will add even more life to the area!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v202/plinko923/Hollywood/061021LA142.jpg?t=1163710264

Finally !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!that buildings looks like crap especialy in a place right smack in the middle of the hollywood nightlife

:cheers1:

I'm so excited to hear such news! The Seven Seas Building is the only thing that's preventing that stretch of Hollywood Blvd. from reaching its full potential! This coupled with the addition of a Madame Tussauds will complete that portion of Hollywood Blvd. and will add even more life to the area!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v202/plinko923/Hollywood/061021LA142.jpg?t=1163710264


Thanks for the excellent news WS....

Does anyone know if the TV Guide will be receiving a fresh new facelift. Possibly even adding huge electric billboards to give the area a bigger Wow?

wait....which building is it in the picture?......

The one in the middle with the "MEET THE WORLD ONE PERSON AT A TIME" billboard.

oh wow...that is ugly...this has got to be one of the most prime locations in Hollywood...cant wait til the plans for this building materialize:banana:

i think this should have its own thread/sticky. A booty of information including what's going up behind that spired building on Hollywood Blvd.


http://www.tndwest.com/index.html

No more stickys...please. We will soon have 11 sticky threads.

Westchester Development:

1/29/07: Sonnenblick-Eichner Company has arranged $120 mil of construction financing for Playa Del Oro, a mixed-use development at 8601 Lincoln Blvd, at the corner with Manchester Ave in West Los Angeles. The project will be comprised of 410 luxury apartments, 27k sf of retail space, and subterranean parking for 1,170 cars. Previously the site of the recently demolished Furama Hotel, the site is located in the community of Westchester in West Los Angeles, just north of LAX and east of the massive Playa Vista mixed-use community.

Accented with an architecturally distinct copper-clad dome, Playa Del Oro will be the new “Town Center” of Westchester. The development will offer 12 live/work units, together with upscale amenities such as a large resort-style pool and sundeck, two outdoor spas, a fully equipped state-of-the-art fitness center, a business center and a coffee bar/lounge. Individual units will offer oversized terraces, fireplaces, and state-of-the-art communication capabilities. The property is adjacent to an existing Ralphs supermarket.

Elliot Eichner, a Principal of Sonnenblick-Eichner Company, commented, “We were successful in securing financing for this transaction from a European money center commercial bank who was able to provide non-recourse construction financing with no syndication contingency. ”

Matt Adamczyk and Ed Sachse of Sachse Real Estate are handling the marketing of the retail space. We’re told they currently have leases out with Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf and Daphne’s Greek Café. And, from what we hear, they’re asking $4.25/sf/mo NNN for the smaller shop spaces and $3.25/sf/mo for a 16k sf anchor space.

Patrick Brown, also a Principal of Sonnenblick-Eichner Company, added, “This is the second major construction loan that we have recently structured in which we arranged non-recourse construction financing and negotiated a cap on the completion guarantee, thereby limiting our client’s completion risk exposure. ”

I will repost a few pics from the LA Photography thread of the current construction.

Old Aerial
http://la.curbed.com/2006-11-furama.jpg

Current Construction
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b9/axb8000/fu3.jpg

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b9/axb8000/fu1.jpg

Finnished Rendering
http://www.rentv.com/news_images/7157.gif

Article Link (http://www.rentv.com/index.cgi?p=scread_news&num=7157&location=News_Headlines)

that is the gayest feaux tuscan design i have ever seen. i used to live just a short distance from there, and that development will look nothing like the surrounding area. thats the kind of shit that should be on the las vegas strip, or somewhere else where excessive tackiness fits in.

I can't believe the Lincoln side of Westchester is a total joke. Your right SOLONGF, that shit is not happening. Thank God I live on the LA Tijera side. We would never allow something like to be developed in our hood...:ohno:

that is the gayest feaux tuscan design i have ever seen. i used to live just a short distance from there, and that development will look nothing like the surrounding area. thats the kind of shit that should be on the las vegas strip, or somewhere else where excessive tackiness fits in.
^^ha ha ha. wonderful!

but wow... a pink facade? what is this miami?

Solong what is "gay" about the design? Perhaps it is time to pull out the thesaurus for new descriptive adjectives. :doh:

It looks very Miami (or Playa Vista-esque) but I doubt that is the "final" design but who knows. I do like the retouches to the Furama building though. It doesn't match the rest of the street but that entire stretch needs redone. Right now aside from the new Bristol Farms everything looks like a mess.

Thank God I live on the LA Tijera side.
Oh please, give me a flippin' break. Lincoln might have proposed pink condos but we all know the La Tijera side is where the rampant muggings, car jackings, and rapes occur.

...wow, you alright over there?

Oh please, give me a flippin' break. Lincoln might have proposed pink condos but we all know the La Tijera side is where the rampant muggings, car jackings, and rapes occur.


^^ WHAT!!!!!!!!

Your crazy dude where are you getting your figures from? When you drive into my hood you have our safety crew jotin down your license plate. As far as walking in it will take you a while because of the hills. I'm right behind Howard Hughes Center and trust me..... we don't play that shit in my hood!!!!

The biggest drama is when someone wants to put up a fence around their property. Or when someone doesn't keep their front yard neat. Then we have the kidz in the hood selling lemonade and fresh cookies in front of their yard... and their really chocolatly.... Mmmmm!

...wow, you alright over there?


:lol: Baz is having an emotional break down this evening. I should hook him up with my shrink?

:nuts:

^^ While I don't deny that, my comments were sarcastic taking a cue from that poster who talked about the LA "muggings." La Tijera's very nice but I'm sure there are a few pink houses to be found. ;)

chla's got a crane!

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/203/446764973_5c77d5c3c4_b.jpg


he he, i actually worked on a vis for this building
interior hallway:
http://www.jeremyjozwik.com/images/chla_all_03.gif

some room:
http://www.jeremyjozwik.com/images/chla_all_06.gif

from sunset:
http://www.jeremyjozwik.com/images/chla_all_02.gif

little movie i made:
http://www.jeremyjozwik.com/chlaALL2CD001.mov

Cool video expect for the family gazing through the window at DTLA. A bit over the top huh' :)

yah... its pritty shitty. but you get the idea

so yeah i was reading some newspaper "Downey Business" and came across something pretty interesting...

"....Downey Studios
The studios are not doing well. Thier property owner has done everything asked, including investing over $17 million, and bringing old buildings up to code. Other states have made very enticing offers and many movies are now being filmed out of state. Re-use is being looked at for the property. One idea being discussed is a vertical mixed use development that would include two hotels, 900,000 square feet of retail, 480,000 square feet for offices, 1,500 residential properties and towers, and a 65,000 square foot cinema--potentially a half-billion dollar project."

....OMG.....this is like a couple blocks away from where i live:banana: .....also its only about 4 blocks away from the Lakewood Blvd Greenline Staion......is that too far to be considered a TOD?........but yeah i'll update you guys as i get more info.......I'll probably ask the mayor when i see him at church on Sunday

....heres where the property is exactly...(for some reason Google has not updated it so it still says Boeing Defense Group)

http://maps.google.com/maps?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGIH,GGIH:2007-02,GGIH:en&q=downey%20studios&oe=UTF-8&um=1&sa=N&tab=wl

^^ So where's Downey again?

It sounds like a suburban hood....

Downey is like a middle-class Latino neighborhood, que no? Also, they have the largest Coca-Cola distributor in the U.S.!! (or 2nd largest)

Downey is thirteen miles down the 5 from downtown, I live in the street that separates Pico and Downey.
It is home to one of the three oldest McDonalds in the world.

http://i56.photobucket.com/albums/g189/FROMLOSANGELES/mcdonaldsindowney.jpg

^^yeah but its actually the oldest running McDonalds.....yeah Downey is pretty suburban but the city leaders are friendly towards developers so we'll see what happens. Today i'm going to the ground-breaking ceremony for the Columbia Space Science Museum [ http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070411/ap_on_sc/columbia_memorial ].....and all the council members will be there (some astronauts too :banana: ).....so yeah i'll let you guys know what i find out


I was really hoping that the Downey Studios would be a viable business in Downey and so was everyone else in the city but i think i like the new plan even better. Maybe while i'm at the ceremony i'll take some pictures :)

^^ Yeah pix are always good LA Dude!

:bash: Damn!....I found out as I was about to leave that my older brother took the ONLY camera in the house with him to Mexico!!!.....so yeah whatever I'll just give you guys a written description...........basically the $12 million dollar Columbia Space Science Learning museum thingy is gonna be done in Spring of '08. The adjacent Downey studios that could possibly turn into a giant 72-acre mixed-use project due to low performing studios is actually doing better according to people at the groundbreaking(yeah i know....it sucks). I mean i like the fact that movies are being filmed in Downey etc... but i was really excited by the alternative so now i hope they do bad lol. It's still up in the air though because the developer has been losing a lot of money lately. I'll update you guys as I get more info. :)

There's nothing like seeing a picture to get a visual...

Count on me for photo updates (if needed).

I once knew a girl from Downey.......Are Downey and Norwalk similar?

Karen, lead sing for the 70's group "The carpenters" was born, raised, and died in an upscale part of Downey. There are some pretty dang big ass mansions up in there. BTY Whats up with that mall there ,Stonewood mall? It has so much potential to have them build apartments homes on top and expand that shit.

klamedia: I once knew a girl from Downey.......Are Downey and Norwalk similar?

Well Downey is more upscale(two golf courses, the mall, Downey Landing etc...) and yeah its like halfway between Downtown LA and the OC where the 605 and 5 meet. Since I'm still in High School and don't have my license yet I'll probably only be able to update you on projects in Downey and its immediate surroundings. But yeah until recently nothing really exciting was happening here besides the usual suburban stuff(new strip malls, new houses, shopping centers etc..) but with the announcement of the possible 72-acre mixed use development close to the Green Line then things started changing. We'll see what happens.

Buildingfrenzy: Karen, lead sing for the 70's group "The carpenters" was born, raised, and died in an upscale part of Downey. There are some pretty dang big ass mansions up in there. BTY Whats up with that mall there ,Stonewood mall? It has so much potential to have them build apartments homes on top and expand that shit.

You know i've always thought the same thing. That mall is surrounded by a sea of parking that is almost never filled up. It'd be awesome if they planned some mixed-use development there too :). Well you never know, the company that owns Stonewood is the same company that owns that mall in Santa Monica that is gonna have condos on top etc. *Crosses fingers*

Oh and Downey is not just known for the Carpenters. We also have the longest running McDonalds in the world. The first Taco Bell ever. The first Downey Savings ever(duh...lol). And a lot of other things my teacher was telling me that i'm too lazy to look up.:lol:

Do "Downeynites" take advantage of the Green Line? Or is it too suburban and they just drive instead?

Actually I always see the Green Line park and ride lot full by 10:00 every day....and a lot of people ride thier bikes to the station. I think they should make the Park and Ride lot 2 stories to satisfy the demand. Even the stop down in Norwalk has something like 1500 parking spaces and they fill up quickly as well.



Edit: So hey Klamedia do you think that 4 or 5 blocks away from the Green Line Station is too far away for it to be considered a TOD?

... Downey has a middle class???? How far is Downey from Compton/Lynwood/Paramount???

lets get on topic guys.

Well I started out talking about a proposed mixed-use development in Downey which is both in the LA Metro and I think is worthy of posting. I will try and only talk about potential developments etc.. from now on, but I think I need to clear Ferney up on something really quick.


Originally posted by Ferneyism:
... Downey has a middle class???? How far is Downey from Compton/Lynwood/Paramount???

lol...I've never had anyone ask that before:lol: ....havent you ever driven through the city?...just exit off Paramount Blvd. or Lakewood Blvd. off the 5 freeway and drive south and go through the neighborhoods. There are nice upscale homes consistently throughout the city...especially in North Downey. Well I guess Downey is pretty close to Paramount/Lynwood etc.. but then thats the same as saying Marina Del Rey/Westchester is close to Inglewood/Lennox. Does that make those cities automatically ghetto? Just traveling a few miles in Southern California could make a huge difference. That is the case in Downey.

But yeah, I hope that cleared it up for you. :)

I really did not try to offend your hood in noway shape or form. Although Inglewood/Lennox are not really part w/ Westchester/Marina Del Rey. Since there divided by the 405. Once again Ihope this clears it up!

No back to the topic, you were saying?

Why are there so many sticky's in the L.A. fourm? wouldn't it be more easy if you had them all in one thread? Sorry to post a reply about a pointless topic but its the first time I've been in the L.A fourm and it looks so confusing, especially if you dont know anything about the L.A developments (i.e. me). :nuts:

It's a big place.

ARCADIA CITY COUNCIL UNANIMOUSLY APPROVES
THE SHOPS AT SANTA ANITA
Caruso Affiliated proposal wins approval with 5-0 vote
Arcadia The Arcadia City Council today unanimously voted to approve The Shops at Santa Anita, the outdoor, upscale shopping and dining center proposed by Caruso Affiliated and the owners of Santa Anita Park. The Shops at Santa Anita would be constructed on the parking lot south of the grandstand.
"After more than two years of working with Arcadia leaders and residents to develop a proposal that will help meet the community's needs, we are very excited to have the City Council's approval. We look forward to breaking ground on the project soon so that Arcadia can begin to benefit from the project's sales tax revenue and features such as the community performing arts center and school district office space," said Rick Caruso, Founder and CEO of Caruso Affiliated. "The Shops at Santa Anita has been a collaborative effort between Caruso Affiliated, Santa Anita Park, and Arcadia residents. We look forward to continuing t his partnership for many years."
"Santa Anita Park appreciates the City Council's support. We are thrilled to be involved in this partnership with Caruso Affiliated and the community in creating a place that families can enjoy together. And, this project will ensure that Santa Anita Park remains a vital part of the Arcadia community for years to come," said George Haines, Vice President and General Manager of Santa Anita Park.
On Tuesday, April 11, the Arcadia City Council heard public testimony from Arcadia residents. Hundreds of Arcadia residents attended the meeting with the overwhelming majority favoring The Shops at Santa Anita, as demonstrated by a show of hands and the public comments. The Arcadia City Council continued consideration of the proposal to Tuesday morning, April 17, when it took its vote to approve The Shops at Santa Anita. In March, the Arcadia Planning Commission voted to recommend approval of the proposal to the City Council.
Now that the Arcadia City Council has approved the project, Caruso Affiliated can proceed with the development of The Shops at Santa Anita and construction could begin as soon as construction permits are issued, with the project scheduled to open in 2009.
The Shops at Santa Anita will provide new upscale shops, unique outdoor restaurants, lushly landscaped park-like settings and promenades where Arcadians can come to walk around, relax, and enjoy each other's company. At the request of Arcadia residents, the project will include a community performing arts theater where school and community organizations can hold performances. The center would be built and maintained at no cost to taxpayers. Also, at the request of Arcadians, The Shops at Santa Anita would not include housing of any kind.
The Shops at Santa Anita is supported by Arcadia organizations, including the Arcadia Firefighters Association, Acadia Police Officers Association, Arcadia Chamber of Commerce, Thoroughbred Owners of California, California Thoroughbred Breeders Association, California Thoroughbred Trainers, Rancho Santa Anita Residents' Association, Santa Anita Oaks Home Owner's Association, Santa Anita Village Community Homeowners' Association, and the Arcadia Unified School District.

...

Good news for Arcadia

http://www.shopsatsantaanita.com/Project/proposed.aspx

i was watching that Last night

Why are there so many sticky's in the L.A. fourm? wouldn't it be more easy if you had them all in one thread? Sorry to post a reply about a pointless topic but its the first time I've been in the L.A fourm and it looks so confusing, especially if you dont know anything about the L.A developments (i.e. me). :nuts:

There are so many different areas here, its easier to separate them into individual threads. Downtown LA is completely separate and different from Long Beach, as is Century City and the Wilshire district. Please ask questions and we will help you out.

From the Los Angeles Times
January 30, 2006
A Vision for Keeping Flower Fields Forever


As housing plans move ahead in northern L.A. County, students push to create a preserve for the wild blossoms that cover Gorman Hills in spring.

By Gary Polakovic, Times Staff Writer

The hills on Los Angeles County's northern frontier are barren now, but spring will soon coax a brilliant display of orange, purple and yellow wildflowers across miles of the Grapevine region of Interstate 5.

The annual floral show is one that few sites in Southern California can match.


But some worry that development pressures threaten the flower fields in the Gorman Hills, the same landscape that inspired environmental artist Christo to mimic the spring bloom in his famous "Umbrellas" project in October 1991.

Developers hope to construct one of the largest planned communities in Los Angeles County history, with 23,000 homes on a portion of the vast expanse of neighboring Tejon Ranch. A Tustin-based builder is also seeking permits for 191 homes on the northern edge of the wildflower site.

Eager to stay ahead of the building boom, a Los Angeles city planning official and a group of his UCLA Extension students advocate establishing a vast, new Gorman wildflower preserve that would stretch several miles east of Interstate 5 and north of California 138.

Planner Mike O'Brien said he has always admired the spring bloom on travels to Northern California. He sees the preserve as an antidote to urban sprawl creeping up the Tehachapi Mountains, connecting the Los Angeles Basin to the San Joaquin Valley.

"Whole new communities are being built in the middle of nowhere," he said. "That's urban sprawl. Do we really want everything built from San Clemente to Bakersfield?"

Among the proposed development projects is Centennial, a "new town" of 70,000 people that would be built on Tejon Ranch, which straddles Los Angeles and Kern counties. Other plans call for building hundreds of more homes near the top of Tejon Summit near Lebec.

"This entire area is really about to be changed forever because of development," said Patric Hedlund, managing editor of the Mountain Enterprise newspaper in Frazier Park. "It represents economic opportunity, but people came here to enjoy places like the wildflower lands."

Potential advocates for a preserve include the California Native Plant Society and the state parks department, and more are expected, O'Brien said. Residents in the mountain communities are just learning about the proposal from local newspaper articles and town hall meetings.

But there are many obstacles to creating a wildflower preserve. Cost is chief among them.

No one knows just how much money would be needed to establish a preserve, but the price tag would probably be millions of dollars. Most of the money would go toward purchasing developable properties.

The UCLA students are counting on organizations such as the Nature Conservancy, the Trust for Public Land and the Sierra Club to step forward and work with local officials to raise money for the project. The Gorman Hills are a checkerboard of parcels owned by 22 parties, not all of whom may want to relinquish their parcels.

Matthew Shaffer, spokesman for the Trust for Public Land, a nonprofit group that promotes open space, said the trust has championed student projects before, most notably in Atlanta, where a term paper by a Georgia Tech student became the blueprint for a network of parks, trails and commuter rail lines.

"It's a familiar proposition to take a vision worked on by students and make it happen," Shaffer said of the UCLA proposal. "It sounds like something we might want to consider."

The UCLA students spent the fall quarter preparing their report, which is a roadmap for carving out 2,800 acres of flower-dappled hills at the junction of I-5 and California 138 southeast of Gorman. They advocate building trails, interpretive signs and a visitor center.

"For generations, this spring display has drawn lovers of wildflowers, particularly devotees of the state flower — the California poppy," the students' report states. "Conventional wisdom holds that man's hand has weighed so heavily on the land that little remains of California's original state. Yet … Gorman Post Road is considered one of the best wildflower sites in Southern California."

In winter, the Gorman Hills are tawny heaps of nothingness, dotted with power poles, barbed-wire fences and juniper bushes. But the hills looming over Gorman Post Road, a country lane astride a slit in the San Andreas fault, explode in color when spring conditions are right.

Motorists park their cars and step into a dreamscape of poppies, lupine, owl's clover, goldfields and desert suncups that spill over slopes and into canyons.

June Furman, 72, has lived on Gorman Post Road for decades. She said she has to shoo away tourists who cross her 13-acre ranch to see the wildflowers in springtime. She worries that more houses in the area would spoil the land.

"I'd rather see wildflowers than houses," she said.

Builders are carefully studying the Gorman wildflower preserve proposal. Jeff Haspell, project manager for Rox Consulting, said the Tustin company wants to build homes on 10% to 15% of the land identified for the preserve. But he said the two projects would not conflict.

"This is going to be easy to work out," Haspell said. "There's lots of room to work and be flexible. I don't see a problem that won't allow both to work together."

Barry Zoeller, spokesman for Tejon Ranch, which seeks to develop 5% of its substantial land holdings in the Tehachapis, said he also doesn't see a problem with establishing a preserve. "We see the value in it," he said. "It's consistent with what Tejon Ranch is."

Plans to develop houses or the wildflower preserve in the Grapevine have lately engrossed the mountain communities' residents, who realize, after 50 years of sitting on the sidelines as growth swept over Southern California, that change is coming to their hills.

Said local newspaper editor Hedlund of the proposed flower preserve: "People are beginning to talk for the first time about what ecotourism opportunities there might be. The preserve could be a real jewel in the center of that.

"It's like we're at this trembling moment, to invent new understandings of what is economically viable, and yet there's this race against time."

http://www.feralflowers.com/gorman.htm

http://www.feralflowers.com/framed/Frame7-4.jpg
http://www.feralflowers.com/framed/Frame7-11.jpg

I thought I would give you guys an update of the project in the works here in Downey. :) I'm so excited, can't wait to see what the rendering will look like.

Downey seeks to redevelop studio site
By ARNOLD ADLER, Staff Writer 31.MAY.07
Hoping to develop a ?city within a city,? council hires firm to conduct environmental impact report.DOWNEY ? The City Council here has taken the first step to redevelop the 80-acre Downey Movie Studios site into a type of ?city within a city? mixed-use project.

Council members May 22 hired the firm of Christopher A. Joseph and Associates of Los Angeles to prepare the state-mandated environmental impact report on how the project would affect the surrounding area.

Joseph was the lowest of three bidders at $381,695, said Linda Haines, director of development services for Downey.

The Industrial Realty Group, which owns 60 acres and leases another 20 from the city, will pay for the report, Haines said.

City Manager Gerald Caton said the study is expected to be completed by the end of the year.

That would coincide with the announcement by Industrial Realty Group officials in January that they would have to shut down the movie studio next March because of a lack of business.

Because the studio occupies the mid-section of the former NASA site, between Bellflower and Lakewood boulevards, north of Imperial Highway, the environmental impact report will consider historical preservation issues of the site, home of the nation?s space program in the 1960s and ?70s.

Other aspects of the plan to be considered are air quality, cultural resources, geological and soil problems, water quality, the impact on area residents of noise, population growth, housing and employment and public services such as traffic utilities, Haines said.

In addition, there will be meetings to obtain public comment on the plan, she said.

The City Council in January tentatively accepted the plan proposed by Industrial Realty Group President Stuart Lichter and Tom Messmer, vice president for special projects. The firm, with developments throughout the country, is based on the Downey site.

It has proposed a mixture of residential and commercial/office development including restaurants, retail shops, a movie theater and hotel, totaling about 33.5 million square feet of building space and 9,445 parking spaces.

Jim Beck, senior principal with Industrial Realty Group, predicted that the proposed project would create 8,000 to 9,000 new jobs and bring in millions of dollars in sales tax revenue.

The proposal includes 551,000 square feet of retail use, 85,000 square feet for restaurants, 65,000 square feet for a movie theater, 480,000 square feet of office space, 250,000 square feet for a hotel and 1.7 million square feet for residential use, containing some 1,200 to 1,500 dwelling units.

The studio is in the middle of a 160-acre site generally bounded by Imperial Highway on the south, Clark Avenue and Lakewood Boulevard on the west, Stewart and Gray Road on the north and Bellflower Boulevard on the east.

It has been the location of aeronautical manufacturing since 1929 with the old Vultee Aircraft plant to 1998 when Boeing Corporation, last in a list of aerospace manufacturers, moved out.

Downey acquired the site from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and redeveloped 34 acres north of the studio into the successful Downey Landing Shopping Center.

South of the studio site, at Imperial and Bellflower Boulevard, is the 30-acre Kaiser Hospital and medical center. The medical offices are completed. The hospital continues under construction.

West of the Kaiser site off Clark and Lakewood, is the 13-acre park, now under construction. Two acres of the park will contain the two-story, 180,000-square-foot Columbia Space Center and Learning Academy, where work is to begin later this year.

The Industrial Realty Group began its studio operation in 2003, after parts or all of such films as ?Spiderman,? in 2001; ?Starsky and Hutch,? in 2002 and ?Catch Me If You Can? were shot under city ownership.

The run continued in 2003 with such top films as ?Lemony Snicket,? with Jim Carey; ?The Island? and ?Christmas With the Kranks? with Tim Allen in 2004.

But the last major film shot there was ?Santa Claus III? with Tim Allen in 2005 and early 2006.

Messmer said part of the problem was the trend for computer generated cartoons which do not require large, open spaces or soundstages as offered by movie studios.


http://www.wavenewspapers.com/default.asp?sourceid=&smenu=99&twindow=Default&mad=No&sdetail=5715&wpage=&skeyword=&sidate=&ccat=&ccatm=&restate=&restatus=&reoption=&retype=&repmin=&repmax=&rebed=&rebath=&subname=&pform=&sc=1019&hn=wavenewspapers&he=.com


mmmm....80 acres of mixed use goodness :)......also too this development is 4 blocks up the street from the Lakewood station of the Green Line. I can't wait until the public comment process.

Spider-man was filmed over there.

Playa Del Oro in Westchester is still under construction and today as I drove past there was a big protest in front of it. Many protesters were carrying banners saying "SHAME ON PLAYA DEL ORO" something about a labor dispute? I do not know the details and by the time I was able to get my camera they had all been disbursed.

Well since I had my camera I wanted to point out this crazy looking condo development in Playa Vista. I had previosly taken a photo of it under construction (and posted it under LA photography) but it now resembles a famous modern art piece, can anyone guess it?

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b9/axb8000/playa3.jpg

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b9/axb8000/pvinte.jpg

I'm sure you all know it got incredibly hazy out today.

Dense.....

Dense.....


^ You do know that's Westchester, right? I thought I would never hear that word coming out of you, I'm soooooooooooo proud and honor. All we need is the Green Line Extension down here and were ready to compete with korea Town, Silverlake, and East L.A...... Woohoo!

I thought he said it was Playa Vista? What part of Westchester is it?

Yes it is Playa Vista. The Westchester region perhaps... Westchester is our Manhattan? :lol:

it is playa vista. i used to live there. it's the area west of the 405, north of lax, and south of marina del rey.

Folks Playa Vista is not Westchester......http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q138/tmaxx6/losangcommunities.gif

Playa Vista and/or Westchester is our Manhattan. Is everyone satisfied now.

Playa Vista is a joke. It's cookie cutter development mascarading as "smart growth". However, theres nothing smart about it. There's no real transit available for residents (except the #3 Big Blue Bus) and its not really located very close to any job centers. Its atleast half of an hour to get to any major job center except LAX and thats not even really considering traffic. The HOAs there are also ridiculous, like $500-$1000/month.

What do you expect one huge gated community. I completely agree with you on this one FullRton...

I agree totally! Playa Vista is too cookie-cutterish, even if its alot more dense than what you'd find in most of suburbia. There's no real smart-growth and you have to scratch your head wondering with all that density, why's there no transit center being built near it to accomodate residents and get them out of their cars and help relieve the congestion that will follow when this master planned community, pretending to be smart density gets completed?

That is the mystery now isn't it.......W/o any type of Green Line extension connecting to a Purple Line or Expo Line in 10 years it will quite unbearable over there, as it is already.

No one willing to take the bait on what art piece that Playa Vista condo is modeled after? I didn't know SSC was overrun with uncultured tramps! ;)

Composition with Yellow, Blue, and Red by Piet Mondrian circa 1940
http://www.moma.org/collection/provenance/items/images/638.67.jpg

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b9/axb8000/pvinte.jpg


I agree that Playa Vista is headed towards disaster considering the traffic issues. With all that density there should be better access to mass transit. Right now it's just more BMWs clogging Lincoln and Jefferson.

PVII will supposedly bring the "jobs" to the community but we'll see about that. Currently PV1's downtown is an embarrassment for the nearly 5,000 people currently living there. An overpriced restaurant and a Bank of America... that's it... :ohno: .

PVII is currently being held up by litigation and all that jazz. PV also needs more parks, they built a huge park center but it is still filled to the brim every time I drive by or try to use a court. I hope PVII is delayed until the rail extension is a reality.

^^ Well there's a huge Home Depot across the street and a post office. Also some nice medium landscaping...

Baz, it really could have been modeled after any Mondrian from that period, just do a Google Image search for "mondrian" and you'll find tons of different paintings he did that look very similar.

^ Sort of true. But the popular Composition Red, Blue and Yellow includes all previously mentioned colors with black lines (as opposed to grey) and is not a singular piece but a collection.

ie. This is also Composition of Red, Blue and Yellow by Piet Mondrian

http://faculty.evansville.edu/rl29/art105/img/mondrian_composition.jpg

this is also Composition of Red, Blue and Yellow by Piet Mondrian

http://fixedreference.org/2006-Wikipedia-CD-Selection/images/52/5267.jpg

There are several other painting in the same style with blue, white and red, blue and white or red, yellow, blue with grey lines, etc. Since the PV building includes Red, Blue and Yellow with prominent black lines, I would say this is the best answer.

I've never had a reason to go to Playa Vista, but I've heard it hailed as one of Southern California's most successful infill projects... yet, I can imagine that there is a great deal of truth to what solongfullerton had to say about the neighborhood.

I do have one question, though, and I guess this is mostly directed at Klamedia, being that he lived in New York City, but anyone who knows would be helpful.

When very dense neighborhoods like Queens or Brooklyn were built, assuming that they were built in small contiguous portions at a time that have evolved over their many decades, was the makeup of those neighborhoods, be that ethnic, economic, or what have you, significantly different from what they are today? I ask, really, because my logic tells me that, even though Playa Vista is sterile and economically homogenous today, could, over, say the next half-century or so, it become more diverse, more affordable, more truly urban, maybe becoming, as Bricky said in another thread, a "more modern, sub-tropical Queens" kind of neighborhood?

Granted, they would still be extremely, extremely different. I just wonder if, with the density and urban infrastructural framework already in place, could that type of development (as suburb-in-city's-clothing as it is) be what LA's future dense, vibrant, maybe a little gritty, yet very real and very viable districts come from?

Please unmentioned, you are telling me you haven't been drawn to "The Shops of Playa Vista." We've got a Bank of America branch for heavens sake!

Until Playa Vista II is finished (started?) the community is still very much incomplete. I'm sure the developers of PV want to keep it in the high-margin luxury space forever I do not know if that is possible.

... and a Home Depot that not too long ago was opened 24 Hours*

I am thinking you are in love with that HDC! :lol: Is it not longer 24/7?

I am thinking you are in love with that HDC! :lol: Is it not longer 24/7?


^ i can't believe it's not opened 24/7 anymore. I used to love shopping there around 1am~3am, that place was not as busy as the day time. Oh well i guess I have to purchase hand tools during the day time..

Please unmentioned, you are telling me you haven't been drawn to "The Shops of Playa Vista." We've got a Bank of America branch for heavens sake!

Until Playa Vista II is finished (started?) the community is still very much incomplete. I'm sure the developers of PV want to keep it in the high-margin luxury space forever I do not know if that is possible.

Hey now... Palos Verders has first claim to the PV nickname... we'll need to think up something new for Playa Vista. Otherwise, full on chaos will erupt!

I've never had a reason to go to Playa Vista, but I've heard it hailed as one of Southern California's most successful infill projects... yet, I can imagine that there is a great deal of truth to what solongfullerton had to say about the neighborhood.

I do have one question, though, and I guess this is mostly directed at Klamedia, being that he lived in New York City, but anyone who knows would be helpful.

When very dense neighborhoods like Queens or Brooklyn were built, assuming that they were built in small contiguous portions at a time that have evolved over their many decades, was the makeup of those neighborhoods, be that ethnic, economic, or what have you, significantly different from what they are today? I ask, really, because my logic tells me that, even though Playa Vista is sterile and economically homogenous today, could, over, say the next half-century or so, it become more diverse, more affordable, more truly urban, maybe becoming, as Bricky said in another thread, a "more modern, sub-tropical Queens" kind of neighborhood?

Granted, they would still be extremely, extremely different. I just wonder if, with the density and urban infrastructural framework already in place, could that type of development (as suburb-in-city's-clothing as it is) be what LA's future dense, vibrant, maybe a little gritty, yet very real and very viable districts come from?

How could anyone really know what will happen by mid-century. My guess, is that for sure places around the Noho subway station where they are building densely will be "ghetto" in 20 years......they already look like they have that potential anyway. Funny, eastern Queens when being built out by Shea was thought to be NYC's answer to at the time 'the rise of the glorious suburb' and I've heard older folk speak of it as being someplace not too far from the city to raise a family. In fact I had an ex who was raised in St. Albins (a middle class black area) and at the time it was considered a suburb although it was clearly within the City of New York complete w/ single family homes front and backyards. So the fate of Playa Vista? It's so hard to predict because although all of the stats are saying this and that about Latino's being the majority in 30 years, LA changes its ethnic mix like it changes mayors. We might have a huge influx of Indians and west Africans that swamp LA who will do jobs even cheaper than the ones who are here now are doing them for. Perhaps someone else can try but for me, LA is just too hard to spot.

^ Sort of true. But the popular Composition Red, Blue and Yellow includes all previously mentioned colors with black lines (as opposed to grey) and is not a singular piece but a collection.

ie. This is also Composition of Red, Blue and Yellow by Piet Mondrian

http://faculty.evansville.edu/rl29/art105/img/mondrian_composition.jpg

this is also Composition of Red, Blue and Yellow by Piet Mondrian

http://fixedreference.org/2006-Wikipedia-CD-Selection/images/52/5267.jpg

There are several other painting in the same style with blue, white and red, blue and white or red, yellow, blue with grey lines, etc. Since the PV building includes Red, Blue and Yellow with prominent black lines, I would say this is the best answer.

hehe, oops, you're right.
i'm obviously not as familiar with Mondrian as you are.

I had to take "Art Appreciation" in undergrad :( and this will probably be the last time I will use it :)!!

that is the gayest feaux tuscan design i have ever seen. i used to live just a short distance from there, and that development will look nothing like the surrounding area. thats the kind of shit that should be on the las vegas strip, or somewhere else where excessive tackiness fits in.

Man, you can only dream, I can only dream, of Los Angeles attaining the kind of construction projects going up now on the strip ( I can't believe you've actually got me sticking up for Vegas as opposed to my hometown.) Projects like Wynn's second tower, the Venetian's Pallazo, the Echelon and the City Center to name a few ( those last two costing 4 and 7 billion respectively!) Can you imagine that caliber of shit in Los Angeles, fullerton? :)

Hey now... Palos Verders has first claim to the PV nickname... we'll need to think up something new for Playa Vista. Otherwise, full on chaos will erupt!


Nope! your wrong there.......

It's actually always been known as RPV, not PV.!!!!

How about we have a good ol' fashion Palos Verdes versus Playa Vista street fight to settle who gets what acronym.

How about we have a good ol' fashion Palos Verdes versus Playa Vista street fight to settle who gets what acronym.

That's a terrific idea! :guns1:

How about we have a good ol' fashion Palos Verdes versus Playa Vista street fight to settle who gets what acronym.


^^ RPV has the Donald in their corner..... game over!

I had done a search within the forum and I had found no other threads/posts, so if there is an existing one please delete/merge this thread with the main one.

Here's some pics, info, and a website on the project:

http://www.imperialpartners.net/tour/tour-1.htm

At the centerstone of the development is Angeles Fields offering open space, water, outdoor amphitheater and outdoor vendors in a European style setting.

Located at the intersection of the 105 and 710 freeways, minutes from downtown and the LAX Airport, the development is served by both rail and bus transit.

The development has three distinct "Districts", each with their own individual design theme and mix of uses.


The Marketplace @ Angeles Fields
Big Box Power Center of 1,200,000sf combining big box retailers, grocery store and lifestyle retail with restuarants facing the Angeles Fields open space and water.


Las Ramblas Center
Integration of 1,000,000 sq ft of lifestyle retail, 3,500-seat community perfoming arts center / church, 30,000 sq ft civic / library, 1000 urban residential units including live / work townhomes and condos overlooking the open park space. Structured parking.


Sportstown
Anchored by a 70,000 seat major sports and soccer Stadium, this District integrates a 200,000 sq ft regional convention center combined with 1000 room hotel, 1,300,000 sq ft entertainment center with cinemas, clubs and eating establishments, 300 residential lofts, 1,000,000 sq ft office tower complex, large parking structure with community / youth playfields on the roof. This District is planned around the concept of transit oriented development serviced by a Green Line Transit station.

http://www.imperialpartners.net/tour/tour_folder-1/tour-2a.jpg

http://www.imperialpartners.net/tour/tour_folder-1/tour-4.jpg

http://www.imperialpartners.net/tour/tour_folder-1/tour-6.jpg

http://www.imperialpartners.net/tour/tour_folder-1/tour-11.jpg

http://www.imperialpartners.net/tour/tour_folder-1/tour-8.jpg

The city of Lynwood is basically halting development due to 1000 families being displaced if development were to commence... your thoughts?

^ Pretty cool and massive development in which that South East area is in dyer need of. As far as some residents been "displaced", well their not leaving empty handed so let's move forward with this project....

I had done a search within the forum and I had found no other threads/posts, so if there is an existing one please delete/merge this thread with the main one.

Here's some pics, info, and a website on the project:

http://www.imperialpartners.net/tour/tour-1.htm

At the centerstone of the development is Angeles Fields offering open space, water, outdoor amphitheater and outdoor vendors in a European style setting.

Located at the intersection of the 105 and 710 freeways, minutes from downtown and the LAX Airport, the development is served by both rail and bus transit.

The development has three distinct "Districts", each with their own individual design theme and mix of uses.


The Marketplace @ Angeles Fields
Big Box Power Center of 1,200,000sf combining big box retailers, grocery store and lifestyle retail with restuarants facing the Angeles Fields open space and water.


Las Ramblas Center
Integration of 1,000,000 sq ft of lifestyle retail, 3,500-seat community perfoming arts center / church, 30,000 sq ft civic / library, 1000 urban residential units including live / work townhomes and condos overlooking the open park space. Structured parking.


Sportstown
Anchored by a 70,000 seat major sports and soccer Stadium, this District integrates a 200,000 sq ft regional convention center combined with 1000 room hotel, 1,300,000 sq ft entertainment center with cinemas, clubs and eating establishments, 300 residential lofts, 1,000,000 sq ft office tower complex, large parking structure with community / youth playfields on the roof. This District is planned around the concept of transit oriented development serviced by a Green Line Transit station.

http://www.imperialpartners.net/tour/tour_folder-1/tour-2a.jpg

http://www.imperialpartners.net/tour/tour_folder-1/tour-4.jpg

http://www.imperialpartners.net/tour/tour_folder-1/tour-6.jpg

http://www.imperialpartners.net/tour/tour_folder-1/tour-11.jpg

http://www.imperialpartners.net/tour/tour_folder-1/tour-8.jpg

The city of Lynwood is basically halting development due to 1000 families being displaced if development were to commence... your thoughts?



what the fuck is in the Lynwood, other than the hoozgow that Paris Hilton stayed?

^ Pretty cool and massive development in which that South East area is in dyer need of. As far as some residents been "displaced", well their not leaving empty handed so let's move forward with this project....

That's what I'm saying. There ain't shit in Lynwood, it basically mirrors Compton... it's basically a "hood" city. They're fortunate to get ANY kind of development! This ain't gonna be Chavez Ravine pt. 2, so I feel that greenlighting this project would open up doors and opportunities for those in this city as well as those in the proximity of South Central, including diversifying the area a bit too.

Don't we already have stadiums for sports, soccer and the like? Who's going to play there? The development seems outdated. Not enough trees or something, I don't know. :cheers:

Don't we already have stadiums for sports, soccer and the like? Who's going to play there? The development seems outdated. Not enough trees or something, I don't know. :cheers:

It's probably one of those "if you build it, they will come" kinda scenarios...

That's what I'm saying. There ain't shit in Lynwood, it basically mirrors Compton... it's basically a "hood" city. They're fortunate to get ANY kind of development! This ain't gonna be Chavez Ravine pt. 2, so I feel that greenlighting this project would open up doors and opportunities for those in this city as well as those in the proximity of South Central, including diversifying the area a bit too.


^ Exactly! Ever since LBC set is priorities high and stated with a major make over for it's city. It seems everyone adjacent to LBC remained the same (stuck in time). Ex; Lynwood, Compton, Paramount, South Gate, Bell, Wilmington, Harbor City and many other hoods. So this type of development is a welcoming and refreshing to those hoods who were forgotten. So build the bitch!!!!

I would be shocked if there's nimby's in Lynwood?

^ Exactly! Ever since LBC set is priorities high and stated with a major make over for it's city. It seems everyone adjacent to LBC remained the same (stuck in time). Ex; Lynwood, Compton, Paramount, South Gate, Bell, Wilmington, Harbor City and many other hoods. So this type of development is a welcoming and refreshing to those hoods who were forgotten. So build the bitch!!!!

I would be shocked if there's nimby's in Lynwood?

You'd be suprised at the number of NIMBY's in the hood... y'know what's crazy? A lot of people in the hood, gangbangers and citizens alike, say that they need more opportunities and jobs in the hood. But when somebody finally presents something that everyone in the hood can benefit from, things go on hold. :-/

You'd be suprised at the number of NIMBY's in the hood... y'know what's crazy? A lot of people in the hood, gangbangers and citizens alike, say that they need more opportunities and jobs in the hood. But when somebody finally presents something that everyone in the hood can benefit from, things go on hold. :-/


You've got to be shitting me! Opposed something that going to actually help out the community and like you say bring job opportunities to their front door. That's real sad, I guess some just staying in misery so they can bitch about and get petty help !:ohno: :ohno:

But where will those families be moved to? Why doesn't the city build some nice, dense, mixed use homes to put the families in?

But where will those families be moved to? Why doesn't the city build some nice, dense, mixed use homes to put the families in?


^ They can move where ever you want, remember that there's relocation fees to be paid to those affected. They can use the money to buy a home in SB or the IE or simple move cross town. Their choice!

But isn't the point of this thing to create a better environment for the people currently living there? Why should they move to a more boring, far away place like SB or IE. Lets not spread out.

But isn't the point of this thing to create a better environment for the people currently living there? Why should they move to a more boring, far away place like SB or IE. Lets not spread out.


^ Well it's obvious that it's nearly impossible to create a better living situation while the entire place is a shithole. Have you ever been to Lynwood, you problaly want to leave the city limits before the sun sets down. Not the best place to be, so when a huge mega project as this one comes on board. You welcome it with open arms for the best of the community and City. Even though a few would be effected, some will sacrifice w/ compensation to better the community...

^ Well it's obvious that it's nearly impossible to create a better living situation while the entire place is a shithole. Have you ever been to Lynwood, you problaly want to leave the city limits before the sun sets down. Not the best place to be, so when a huge mega project as this one comes on board. You welcome it with open arms for the best of the community and City. Even though a few would be effected, some will sacrifice w/ compensation to better the community...

To add on to that... (not to stray off the topic however) that's why you see a lot of former Angelinos leaving the "hood" areas that are in and around Los Angeles (Watts, South Central, Compton, Inglewood... etc.) because those districts/cities for the most part have been straight up forgotten. Dilapidated housing and neighborhoods, gangbangers and the shit that comes with them, and lack of financial opportunities more often than not create an environment where anybody with any kind of sanity would want to get the hell out of.

That's why I'm excited for the L.A. Live/L.A. River Revitalization projects as well as the Angeles Fields project. All of the projects will have to go through most parts of Los Angeles that have been considered "Sunset Towns", and once all of these projects have been completed they will create an environment where former Angelinos from the South Central area/cities wouldn't mind moving back in and continue to add on to the population.

^^ Hopefully all that will change in a near future. Some hoods will eventually move forward to better the community than others. Which will problaly bring in much needed jobs.

Hey VZN why haven't you gone to Roll Call and Picture Thread to introduced yourself??????

^^ Hopefully all that will change in a near future. Some hoods will eventually move forward to better the community than others. Which will problaly bring in much needed jobs.

Hey VZN why haven't you gone to Roll Call and Picture Thread to introduced yourself??????

:dunno: Procrastination. It's on the agenda though.

well LA wants or wanted to get ready for the olympics here.. and for the olympics to happen this city needs to be clean and less crime townish

Furama turned Futurama er' Custom Hotel set to open 11/1
The white turned flat black design has caused some controversy.

http://www.hotelchatter.com/files/admin/customhotel.jpg

Hotels near Los Angeles International Airport aren't usually stylish ones. Hello? Have you seen the Sheraton there lately? But fortunately for travel-goers to the LA area, the 12-story Custom Hotel will open November 1, featuring hip boutique offerings like a stadium sundeck, outdoor heated pool and poolside tapas bar, fire pit and DJ lounge.

Even better, the Custom Hotel has some actual history to it. It used to be the Furama Hotel under a different ownership and was designed by famed architect Welton Beckett who also did the Capitol Records building and the Cinerama Dome, two of LA's big landmarks.

The Custom Hotel, now owned by the Palisades Development Group and located on Lincoln Boulevard and Manchester Avenue, is close to the airport--about a mile--but it's definitely not in the middle of all the park and fly parking lots. It's also close to Loyola Marymount University and Marina Del Rey.

Guest rooms will include classic and custom-designed furnishings, including a signature bed, large flat screen LCD TV's, stereos with iPod docking and stocked mini bars. Other creature comforts will include complimentary wireless, high-speed Internet access and organic bath amenities.

Reservations can currently be made online at the hotel's websites and rates start at $129 a night.

But isn't the point of this thing to create a better environment for the people currently living there? Why should they move to a more boring, far away place like SB or IE. Lets not spread out.

they can move right back into the housing being built for them too

:banana: Wow this would be so awesome for Lynwood if it actually happened! This city has definately seen better days, and it would be nice to see it begin to revitalize. The only thing is, is that it seems they are underutilizing the land. They could easily fit 3000-4000 housing units there and make it an awesome TOD for the Green Line and also put in much more interesting shops as opposed to typical suburban stuff(Ross, Best Buy, etc..). I hope the Olson Company gets involved in this. That company has a lot of experience building near transit stops so I'm sure they'd do a good job. I've never even heard of Imperial Partners. Also, i'm not too sure about the stadium. That seems a little overly ambitious to think they will get a pro team in their city. :lol: I just hope this project doesn't fall apart because a few families will be displaced. :( I'm sure they will be compensated and they could use the money to buy wherever they wanted. They could just buy in another part of Lynwood as well.

Yeah, 70,000 seats in that location doesn't make sense.:cheers:

:banana: Wow this would be so awesome for Lynwood if it actually happened! This city has definately seen better days, and it would be nice to see it begin to revitalize. The only thing is, is that it seems they are underutilizing the land. They could easily fit 3000-4000 housing units there and make it an awesome TOD for the Green Line and also put in much more interesting shops as opposed to typical suburban stuff(Ross, Best Buy, etc..). I hope the Olson Company gets involved in this. That company has a lot of experience building near transit stops so I'm sure they'd do a good job. I've never even heard of Imperial Partners. Also, i'm not too sure about the stadium. That seems a little overly ambitious to think they will get a pro team in their city. :lol: I just hope this project doesn't fall apart because a few families will be displaced. :( I'm sure they will be compensated and they could use the money to buy wherever they wanted. They could just buy in another part of Lynwood as well.

They're more than likely gonna capitalize off an L.A. based football team playing there, akin to the Lakers playing in the GWF in Inglewood and the Rams playing in Anaheim Stadium... as far as I'm concerned, Lynwood needs the money from them playing in that city, so more power to 'em...

why don't these guys just take this plan and overlay it in and around the coliseum where hi density belongs.

^^ umm because that is not the city of Lynwood. This city is trying really hard to revitalize and I think it would be awesome if this project went through. Besides it is also next to transit(Green Line) so you could just hop on a train and head over to this place.

I'm all for this project just not the stadium part. An NFL Satdium belongs in the Downtown area not out in Lynwood. They can have the housing, shops, and what ever nick nacks else there is, just not the Stadium.

Same thing for the Home Depot Center, Carson was not the best choice!

All Stadiums and professional teams claiming Los Angeles, need to be in L.A. City proper. As far as Los Angeles Angels of whatever! they can remain in the OC for now. Hopefully the owner wakes up and decides to bring the team to this side County!!!

I disagree. HDC has done much for Carson and in reality it was much cheaper to build it there and maintain then if it were in DTLA. Most MLS stadiums are in "suburban" locations outside the actual city the team represents I think.

An NFL stadium on the other hand could easily afford a plush DT location though.

I would never ever -never ever? -never ever have the L. A. ANYTHING playing in Carson or Lynwood. This stadium just allows the N.Y. based ass-hat NFL to have an argument against the Coliseum. Any of you guys in L. A. who want football will now have to wait even longer. It's obvious a stadium, even in a project this size, is still the anchor of said project. What was the intention really of the developers? :)

Well the shiteous looking Custom Hotel in Westchester just got a whole lot cooler. Recently they put up large neon red letters "Custom Hotel" on the top of the black building and at night it all looks oddly X-rated/Las Vegasesque. Cool imo. Will try to get a pick one of these nights.

Now I just hope someone demolishes that Ralphs and bowling alley and Lincoln will start coming together.

Metro Purple Line obstacle closer to being removed
Daily News Wire Services
Article Last Updated: 09/13/2007 06:40:51 AM PDT


A major obstacle to extending the Metro Purple Line subway moved a step closer to being removed when the U.S. Senate voted today to repeal a ban on federal funding for construction under Wilshire Boulevard west of Western Avenue.

A provision of the Department of Transportation appropriations bill approved by an 88-7 vote would repeal the funding ban, enacted in 1985 when Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles, argued that the threat of methane explosions made tunneling in the area too dangerous.

In 2005, an independent peer review panel determined the area was safe for tunneling.

The ban had the practical effort of making extending the subway impossible.

"This is a great victory for Los Angeles that moves us closer to building a subway to the sea to help get the city moving again," said Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who supports extending the line to Santa Monica.

The funding bill now goes to a Senate-House conference committee to reconcile differences between the House and Senate versions. Both bills contain identical versions of the repeal of the subway funding ban.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority board agreed in June to spend $3.6 million to study the feasibility of extending the Purple Line -- previously called the Red Line between Union Station and Wilshire Boulevard and Western Avenue -- to Santa Monica.
The proposed subway extension is opposed by :mad: :mad: :mad2: :devil: Supervisor Michael Antonovich :stupid: :tongue: , who believes the funds which would be spent for it could be put to better use to benefit more of Los Angeles County. :old:

"Instead of spending nearly $10 billion of scarce county resources on a subway that serves just three cities, we need cost-effective, environmentally- sensitive light rail projects that relieve congestion countywide and expand the transit network for the rest of the county's 88 cities and unincorporated areas," Antonovich said earlier this year.

"Instead of spending nearly $10 billion of scarce county resources on a subway that serves just three cities, we need cost-effective, environmentally- sensitive light rail projects that relieve congestion countywide and expand the transit network for the rest of the county's 88 cities and unincorporated areas," Antonovich said earlier this year.

DOes he not understand that half of the population live in the area the Purple will potentially serve!!!

He's in the minority.

Well the shiteous looking Custom Hotel in Westchester just got a whole lot cooler. Recently they put up large neon red letters "Custom Hotel" on the top of the black building and at night it all looks oddly X-rated/Las Vegasesque. Cool imo. Will try to get a pick one of these nights.

Now I just hope someone demolishes that Ralphs and bowling alley and Lincoln will start coming together.

Hey, I bowl at that bowling alley. They had better not tear it down anytime soon. But something behind there would be nice instead of that old parking structure.

"Instead of spending nearly $10 billion of scarce county resources on a subway that serves just three cities, we need cost-effective, environmentally- sensitive light rail projects that relieve congestion countywide and expand the transit network for the rest of the county's 88 cities and unincorporated areas," Antonovich said earlier this year.


I totally agree with this statement. COUNTYWIDE LIGHT RAIL is the way to go......

Light rail? LA is not a small city that can handle that type of transit. IT needs both heavy and light. Crisscrossing everywhere, going underground, above ground, down the middle of streets. EVERYWEHREEEEEE

He's in the minority.


!!! RECALL!!!!:bash:

Hey, I bowl at that bowling alley. They had better not tear it down anytime soon. But something behind there would be nice instead of that old parking structure.

True, I think the alley is quaint and the Ralphs neccessary so I would at least like there to be a new facade placed on those buildings. They look awful. :ohno: Playa Del Oro is coming up nicely, took a pick of some protestors the other day in front of it.

!!! RECALL!!!!:bash:



hey, he's the only fiscally responsible member of our local government. however there is a recall of Jack Weiss.

In my opinion, the Purple line must be extended to Santa Monica (as a subway, heavy rail.) as well as the Expo line, from Culver city to east Santa Monica. Auto and delivery truck traffic on the westside is at this point in the game, at a standstill, and north/south connectors with both light and heavy rail must be considered from the Santa Monica area to at least connecting the Green line to the westside using the Lincoln blvd. or Sepulveda blvd. corridors, or even Centinela blvd, a majority of the service workers on the Westside live in the Central city area, as do many of the Media personel that work on the Westside, and use of these lines could reduce traffic by at least 25%. The current widening of the I 405 corridor is a joke as far as a relief of any congestion on the Westside due to the fact that most of the traffic is thru traffic. Anyone who believes that the Westside does not need to be served by light or heavy rail immediately, weather elected official, or citizen of this city, is, simply put.....an idiot !!!

If this city were a physical, human body, it would have extremely high blood pressure. It would have suffered multiple heart attacks already and, may be on the way toward experiencing a fatal one. The traffic here is killing the progression of the city area itself. It doesn't need stents, it doesn't need bloodthinners, it doesn't even need a heart transplant. But it does need multiple heart bypasses, and, like yesterday. This is a mammoth city area and transportation is important. Why do you thnk they didn't waste their time fixing the 10 after Northridge? Those dudes downtown should just bite the bullet. The people, too. :cheers: Yeah, makes me wanna drink.

''Recently, Antonovich faced criticism for using taxpayer money to distribute press clippings filled with political columns from Ann Coulter and Bill O'Reilly and articles from the right-wing website NewsMax. ''

''With the recent adoption of term limits, Antonovich could be the second longest serving supervisor ever in Los Angeles County, after Kenneth Hahn. He is up for reelection in 2008 and can serve until 2016, when he is termed out of office.'':eek2:

"Instead of spending nearly $10 billion of scarce county resources on a subway that serves just three cities, we need cost-effective, environmentally- sensitive light rail projects that relieve congestion countywide and expand the transit network for the rest of the county's 88 cities and unincorporated areas," Antonovich said earlier this year.


I totally agree with this statement. COUNTYWIDE LIGHT RAIL is the way to go......

i totally disagree. the Wilshire line will serve the spine of LA and have ridership in the 100,000 of thousands, while 5 lines in the suburbs might have 80,000 combined. We need both, but the Wilshire line should be priority number one. Doi you realize how many spots that one line would hit? it would probably be a top 2 or 3 line in North America in terms of Ridership.

hey, he's the only fiscally responsible member of our local government. however there is a recall of Jack Weiss.

Mike Antonivich is the worst fucking politician in America. i HATE that Motha fucker. i really do. sorry to cuss but he pisses me off more than anyone. seeing his name makes my blood boil. Fiscally responsible my ass.

maybe he is a scum bag, but compare him to all the socialist.

i totally disagree. the Wilshire line will serve the spine of LA and have ridership in the 100,000 of thousands, while 5 lines in the suburbs might have 80,000 combined. We need both, but the Wilshire line should be priority number one. Doi you realize how many spots that one line would hit? it would probably be a top 2 or 3 line in North America in terms of Ridership.

you still leave the rest of the county in a traffic chokehold. you need to think more broadly about this. There are other parts of LA that would have just as strong ridership

you still leave the rest of the county in a traffic chokehold. you need to think more broadly about this. There are other parts of LA that would have just as strong ridership


sorry, simply put, no. Wilshire is the hub of activity in LA. other lines should feed into it, but Wilshire is priority 1.

sorry, simply put, no. Wilshire is the hub of activity in LA. other lines should feed into it, but Wilshire is priority 1.

I would agree with this totally, and add that once the Purple line, and the Expo line are complete, (to Santa Monica) that north/south connections on the Westside should be the next priority.!!

maybe he is a scum bag, but compare him to all the socialist.Anything "public" if flirting with socialism including public mass transit. If he were so "free market" fiscally responsible he would be encouraging corporations to build our mass transit lines for profit. He doesn't even deserve the title of scumbag libertarian, he's just anti-urban and mostly likely deeply classist.

well he represents a suburban constituency that would not benefit from these projects.

Anything "public" if flirting with socialism including public mass transit. If he were so "free market" fiscally responsible he would be encouraging corporations to build our mass transit lines for profit. He doesn't even deserve the title of scumbag libertarian, he's just anti-urban and mostly likely deeply classist.



My biggest problem with the local government is all the wasteful spending. every year they demand more and more bond money for LAUSD and keep raising propert taxes.

Question: What do you consider to be wasteful spending?

Huntington Beach is going upscale

http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee192/trolltoast/35823889.jpg

Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times
Huntington Beach is undergoing a wave of construction downtown that in the next few years will bring three luxury hotels, dozens of shops, restaurants and offices, and hundreds of upper-end homes. At Huntington Street and Pacific Coast Highway, a bronze sculpture of a surfer on a wave by artist Edmond Schumpert sits across the street from the 31-acre Pacific City resort development under construction.
Surf City hopes to become an overnight destination with the addition of three oceanfront luxury hotels. But not everyone is happy.
By Tony Barboza, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
February 20, 2008
When investors laid claim to a wide stretch of Orange County beach property more than 100 years ago, they named it Pacific City in an idealistic pitch for what they thought could be one of the West Coast's premier resorts.

Instead, Huntington Beach became an oil boomtown and, later, a surf mecca.

The city has come full circle, and now is banking on tourism as its next big industry.

The downtown is undergoing a wave of construction that in the next few years will bring three beachfront luxury hotels, dozens of shops, restaurants and offices, and hundreds of upper-end homes to the area near the city's historic pier.

Pacific City is now the name for 31 acres of shops, offices, restaurants and a W Hotel under construction along Pacific Coast Highway, just south of Main Street. The Strand, another downtown development with restaurants, shops, office space and a 157-room Shorebreak Hotel, is scheduled to open this fall. A third hotel, as yet unnamed, is slated for construction between the nearby Hilton and Hyatt resorts.

The idea is to court overnight tourists, according to city officials, putting in place a cornerstone of the City Council's 2006 strategic plan to "promote tourism" and "transform the city's economy into a destination economy."

"We're going back to our roots," said Doug Traub, president and chief executive of the city's Conference and Visitors Bureau. "It was always supposed to be a fun beach town."

Although the city draws more than 16 million visitors a year, most are on summer day trips to the city's 8 1/2 miles of wide, undeveloped beach. Business waxes and wanes with the seasons.

Success will depend on how well the new hotels and stores will be able to convince people to stay overnight even when the weather is cold and windy. They also must garner the support of residents, who they hope will make up many of the diners and shoppers keeping the new businesses afloat.

But many locals aren't wild about the mini-Riviera going up along Pacific Coast Highway.

Billie Kennedy, a retired secretary who lives in a mobile home park across from the Pacific City development, which will include million-dollar condos and an eight-story hotel, fears being "surrounded by big resorts."

"It was always a beach town, and people would come for the day," she said. "But now it's more for the well-to-do, and it's lost its small-town feeling."

Although Huntington Beach is among California's 20 most populous cities at 200,000 residents, it still has not grown comfortable with the intense redevelopment that city planners envision for downtown and other main thoroughfares such as Beach Boulevard.

The city is known for its sometimes quirky events, such as the monthly Dachshund races, along with the annual U.S. Open of Surfing. But locals also treasure small-town festivities such as the Fourth of July parade and frequent long-standing hangouts like the Sugar Shack Cafe, a Main Street family restaurant in business since 1967. Owner Michele Turner says her business doesn't rely on tourism, and, although she supports the new downtown businesses, she hopes they won't push out local entrepreneurs.

"All these big corporations just scare me a little bit," she said. "I don't want them to overdo it. I want regular, middle-class people to be able to afford to eat in town."

Traub said the construction wasn't development gone wild. When the hotels are built, the number of rooms in the city will increase 27%, but even then Huntington Beach's 2,100 hotel rooms will total fewer than one Las Vegas hotel.

Some longtime residents have lamented the gradual loss of the modest cottages and locally owned restaurants, bars and drugstores that once lined the city's downtown. The new hotels and shops, they say, are the latest in a long series of face-lifts that critics say have chipped away at the city's middle-class identity, which for decades set Huntington Beach apart from places like Newport Beach or Laguna Beach.

"We're in transition from a middle-class community to something else," said Joe Shaw, a planning commissioner who writes the blog Greetings from Huntington Beach. Although he welcomes the new hotels, he does so with a tinge of nostalgia: "It's an old way of life that's being gentrified," he said.

In the 1980s, many of downtown's one- and two-story wood and brick buildings dating to the 1920s were demolished and replaced with stucco, Mediterranean-inspired storefronts that city historian Jerry Person disdainfully calls fine examples of the "Taco Bell school of architecture."

"When they first did the redevelopment, they wanted the surf image gone, and then they wanted the bars gone. And the way they're going now, it's going to be like little Miami one day," he said. "But the longer you keep it at bay, the more people who live here can enjoy the coast."

City officials also are eager to boost revenue in a mostly residential city sometimes strapped for tax dollars. The city earns $6.5 million a year from a 10% tax tacked onto every hotel room bill -- a small percentage of its $330-million budget.

Huntington Beach has tried to safeguard its identity as a place for surfers. Last month, the city's tourist bureau settled a legal battle with a Santa Cruz T-shirt shop over which community could call itself "Surf City USA." The title -- trademarked by Huntington Beach -- graces newly printed welcome signs with surfboard imagery.

Proposals to change downtown have met fierce resistance from store owners and restaurateurs. After several years of prodding by city officials to turn Main Street into a pedestrian mall, they reached a compromise with business owners last year to close off two blocks one night a week.

Some downtown business operators, such as Susan Caine, who runs the Mailbox Station on Main Street, say the influx of tourists the city is anticipating may never happen.

"People think it's going to be a gold mine, but I don't see them doing well at all," Caine said of the new developments. "I think they could turn into ghost towns."

But Councilman Keith Bohr sees great potential in the city's crowded beaches. "Whether they're from the 909 [area code] or from Japan, people already come here," he said.

"Let's give them other amenities so they stay overnight and don't just leave town." tony.barboza@latimes.com

L.A. has $129 million to spend for parks

The money comes from fees paid over the last decade by condo developers.
By David Zahniser, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
February 22, 2008
Los Angeles has yet to spend $129 million paid by real estate developers over the last decade to create new parks in the city's fastest-growing neighborhoods, according to an audit released Thursday by City Controller Laura Chick.

Chick said the Department of Recreation and Parks should move faster in spending the so-called Quimby fees, which are collected from condominium builders, to take advantage of the real estate downturn.

The audit suggests that the city eliminate rules that require new parks to be built within two miles of the condominium that generated the fees. Chick also said fees should be collected from new apartment buildings, not just condos.

"They're having the same impact" on neighborhoods, she said.

The audit was welcomed by Councilwoman Jan Perry, whose downtown L.A. district has seen a surge in condominium construction in recent years. In her district, $3.3 million in park fees has been spent and $12.5 million more is either still available or earmarked for specific projects, according to Chick's office.

The push for more parkland comes two weeks after the head of the parks department issued dire warnings about the fiscal consequences of creating new recreational facilities. Jon Kirk Mukri, the department's general manager, told the City Council's Budget and Finance Committee that his department lacked the money and employees to maintain and operate more facilities.

A booming condo market caused Quimby fee revenue to increase by 14.8% last year. Yet none of that money can be used to pay for park maintenance or ongoing recreation programs, Mukri said Thursday.

The audit also found that the parks department must refund $4.5 million to developers who were overcharged from 2004 to 2007.

Last year, a report by the department found that three council districts -- in Hollywood, on the Westside and in the west San Fernando Valley -- had more than $10 million apiece in unspent park fees.

david.zahniser@latimes.com

Development plans upset neighbors

Seven projects slated for the southeast Valley have residents worried about the character of their area.
By Jennifer Oldham, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
February 28, 2008
A four-mile stretch of the southeast San Fernando Valley has emerged as one of the premier battlegrounds in the fight over urbanization that has roiled neighborhoods across Los Angeles in a manner reminiscent of the growth wars of the mid-1980s.

Developers' plans for the area, which stretches from Universal City to the upper reaches of North Hollywood, include roughly 5,500 new residences and millions of square feet of commercial and office space.

As in similar fights from Century City to San Pedro, developers and residents are at odds over how large projects can grow without severely affecting nearby neighborhoods. Neighborhood activists charge that the development plans are so large, they threaten to destroy their areas' character.

"The question is what's urban and what is suburban," said Terry Davis, president of the Greater Toluca Lake Neighborhood Council.

Compounding the debate is a move by city officials to allow denser development in an effort to encourage construction of affordable housing.

"I've been warning people to wake up, there's a new philosophy and a new direction being advocated by the leadership of the city at all levels," said Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, who worked to curb development as a Los Angeles councilman during the 1980s.

"If you care about this in San Pedro, or Encino, or Lincoln Heights, you have to be heard, because all the city cares about right now is negotiating with developers and their agents."

Five neighborhood councils plan to stage a town hall meeting at the Beverly Garland's Holiday Inn in North Hollywood tonight for residents to talk to developers, politicians and representatives from the city, the county and other agencies involved in the proposed projects.

Residents say their goal is to "step between the city and the developer" and to "force both sides to listen."

Davis and other neighborhood leaders say the city is wrongly considering the proposed projects -- seven in all -- one by one and not with an eye to their effect as a whole.

Developers, however, say they do not believe it is proper to hold their projects hostage to an effort at forming a comprehensive vision for development.

"It's almost unfair to include Valley Plaza in the area around Universal that's seen billions of development in the last decade," said Clifford Goldstein, a partner with J.h. Snyder Co., which has several projects pending in North Hollywood. "This area hasn't seen development in 50 years."

Snyder hopes to redevelop Valley Plaza, an open-air mall at Victory and Laurel Canyon boulevards that was damaged in the 1994 Northridge earthquake, into the eastern valley's "town center" with adjacent condos and apartments.

On the opposite end of the corridor are two projects near Lankershim and Ventura boulevards that would total 2.6 million square feet. And that square footage does not include a 500-room hotel and the residential units, which would be built in towers ranging from two to 19 stories.

Sandwiched between Valley Plaza and Universal City are proposed developments in North Hollywood: one with three 27-story residential towers, a second with a seven-screen theater and a third with three office towers.

The seven projects total about 5.4 million square feet of commercial and retail uses. The 5,500 residential units and a planned hotel would bring the total of development to about 13 million square feet, neighborhood activists estimate. Planners consider residential and hotel projects primarily by the amount of traffic they would generate.

All the projects are in various stages of planning, with many having multiple steps to go, including lengthy environmental reviews required by state law, before they can be built.

The debate also reflects increasing frustration in some neighborhood councils about their extremely limited role in land-use decisions. The councils were created in 1999 as part of a charter reform to give residents more say in local government.

For residents, figuring out who's in charge of a particular development can be a frustrating exercise. NBC Universal, for example, wants to build 2,937 residential units on its back lot. The property is largely in the county and is zoned industrial. But NBC Universal filed its application with the city, in hopes it will annex the 124 acres and rezone it residential.

The entertainment conglomerate's plan led Yaroslavsky to draft a measure that would require city and county planners to agree on how big a development on the NBC Universal site can be and on mitigation measures to address increased traffic on nearby streets that already face gridlock for much of the day.
"I think it's the first time we've ever done this, I'm not sure it's going to work, but we're going to give it a try," said the supervisor, who represents unincorporated areas in parts of the Valley.

A project proposed across the street from Universal City on a parking lot owned by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority also involves several entities. There, the MTA is hammering out an agreement with Thomas Properties, which would build production facilities for NBC Universal, as well as additional office and retail space. Then the MTA and the developer must apply to the city of Los Angeles, which would decide how to zone the land.

City planners say they will weigh combined effects of the proposed projects in part by comparing them against community plans for various regions that anticipate how much growth an area can handle. There are different community plans for the Universal City and North Hollywood areas.

The city is researching whether the community plan that includes Universal City allows for the density proposed for projects there and on the MTA lot, said Jon Foreman, a city planner.

Environmental studies required by state law to determine how projects would affect traffic, noise, pollution and other issues also take into account effects of developments proposed nearby, he added, although what's included often depends on how far along another project is at the time the study is undertaken.

Planning experts say these processes fail to consider how dense development might affect the quality of life for residents in the long run, especially if the market cannot handle a huge influx of office or residential space.

"Why does it have to be our public policy that density is good under any circumstances?" asked Joel Kotkin, an urban affairs expert. "What person is going to spend $700,000 to live in North Hollywood in a condo, particularly if home prices drop to $500,000?"

City agencies acknowledge they're at a crossroads in North Hollywood, where they've spent millions subsidizing new development, arts districts and street improvements in a largely successful effort to free the area of blight.

"It's a major challenge now in North Hollywood to keep the balance between tremendous growth and the character of single-family neighborhoods," said Gazala Pirzada, a project manager for the city's Community Redevelopment Agency.

Developers say they've made it a point to listen to residents. Goldstein said his company lost valuable time when it reduced the number of proposed housing units at Laurel Plaza from 1,050 to 742 and made most condos, rather than rentals, in response to neighbors' concerns.

"There are a lot of competing interest groups, representing a lot of different constituencies," Goldstein said. "It's like juggling bowling balls a lot of the time.

"We've been at this six years, and I've invested tens of millions of dollars into this property."

jennifer.oldham@latimes.com

Steve Lopez:
Finally, the masses are roused by rampant development
March 2, 2008


Roy P. Disney, who has lived all his 50 years in Toluca Lake, didn't mince words about what he believes will be the fate of thousands of poor souls living in the southeast San Fernando Valley.

"Our neighborhood will be obliterated," he said as we pulled into the Holiday Inn parking lot in North Hollywood, where a crowd was gathering to speak up against several proposed mega-developments in Universal City and the area just to the north.

Disney, a private investor and a great-nephew of Walt Disney, tossed another dagger as he parked his car.

"Developers' money," he declared with an icy glare, "is like heroin to politicians."

When we walked into the hall, a greeter asked Disney, who was wearing a suit and tie, if he was a developer.

"No, I'm not," Disney answered glibly. "Why, because I'm dressed so well?"

In the rear of the room, developers had set up models of their projects, which include residential units, offices and retail. In all, seven developments are planned for a four-mile stretch on or near Lankershim Boulevard. Everything is still subject to review by local officials, but if approved as is, it adds up to 5,500 new homes, millions of square feet of commerce and tens of thousands of parking spaces.

To Disney, it sounds like a disaster in an area that's already a traffic mess.

I reminded him that California is expected to grow by 6 million people over the next 20 years, and they've got to live somewhere.

Of course they do, Disney said, insisting he's not against development. What annoys him, he said, is the historic lack of planning vision and the absence of a coherent transportation plan in Los Angeles.

He is not alone. In the latest sign that Angelenos have had it with traffic and the leadership vacuum, several hundred people turned out at the meeting. And most of them seemed to believe that their city officials are on course to alter the very look and feel of Los Angeles, that they've all bought into the idea of more density and taller buildings, even if nearby residential neighborhoods are transformed for the worse.

As Roy Disney asked:

"Who voted for this?"

The restless crowd at Thursday night's meeting was rallied by the neighborhood councils of Greater Toluca, Greater Valley Glen, Valley Village, Studio City and North Hollywood, and some of them couldn't resist sharing their thoughts on a large blank notepad that asked a simple question:

"What Is Your Vision?"

Gary Mogil of Studio City grabbed a Sharpie and gave it a workout.

"We don't need any 37-story buildings to block our sun and views," he wrote. "If you want this, move to New York."

Karen Beatton, also of Studio City, was next to grab a pen.

"Keep the personality of our neighborhood," she wrote. "Do not overflow our streets, parking lots, lines in stores. We're already gridlocked."

When the panel discussion began, Terry Davis of the Toluca Lake Neighborhood Assn. noted the absence at the meeting of anyone representing developers for two of the largest projects in the Universal City area.
I think I heard some hissing, and there should have been boos for the L.A. city Planning Department as well. Top officials invited by Davis blew off the meeting.

Two developers who did show, Allen Freeman of JSM Cos. and Cliff Goldstein of J.H. Snyder, looked a bit like captured soldiers brought before an inquisition. Each took pains to emphasize how thrilled they've been to work with the community in designing mutually beneficial projects

"We believe our community needs new housing, and we believe the best place to put it is near transit," Freeman said.

Few could argue with the concept, and I certainly don't. Some of these projects offer elements of exactly what's desperately needed in Los Angeles: jobs, homes, shopping and entertainment in walkable proximity, and built along major transit lines.

But this was a sophisticated audience, and people were quick to note that even "transit-oriented" development was certain to increase traffic. Why else would more than 30,000 parking spaces be built into the seven projects, and why aren't local officials demanding that developers do more to alleviate traffic?

Revved-up residents peppered developers -- and, later, public officials -- with questions about variances and "entitlements" that might be granted, allowing builders to exceed limits on height, square footage, etc.

"What is the cumulative effect on traffic?" demanded Diann Corral, who pointedly reminded developer Freeman that he has proposed three 27-story buildings and several other smaller buildings in one corner of North Hollywood.

"This is, in my opinion, 10 times what's allowed there," said Lisa Sarkin.

When MTA official Alexander Kalamaros described the agency as "master developer" of one of the projects, Deuk Perrin said maybe the MTA should just stick to transit. Did the agency really need to be a party to over-developing the neighborhood, someone else asked.

"Well, I don't know what you mean by over-development," Kalamaros said.

Howls and groans.

"That's cause for ridicule?" Kalamaros asked.

Maybe it is and maybe it isn't, but members of the audience insisted it's ridiculous to consider a cluster of humongous developments when there's virtually no money available for more transit or to update the poorly designed 134-101 freeway interchange.

What that means, of course, is that you don't have to live in the Universal City area to have a stake in this. If the projects all go through, what's now merely a traffic headache will become a full-fledged migraine.

Late in the evening, L.A. City Councilman Tom LaBonge and county Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky rode in on white horses and played the audience like pros, telling people just what they wanted to hear.

The projects are too big, and with scant public money for transit and road improvements, they said. Developers are going to have to scale back on size.

Yaroslavsky accused City Hall of rolling over for developers, something he himself was often accused of in the days of mega-development on the Westside.

"Do you trust them?" I asked Roy Disney as he leaned against a wall near the back of the room, taking it all in.

Yes, he said. But not entirely.

It was all very refreshing, if you ask me.

For far too long, the masses napped while Los Angeles was plundered. They're awake now, grouchy and suspicious, and ready for a fight.

steve.lopez@latimes.com

yuchh...

Yeah, NIMBYism at its worst.

Gary Mogil of Studio City grabbed a Sharpie and gave it a workout.
"We don't need any 37-story buildings to block our sun and views," he wrote. "If you want this, move to New York."
This is L. A., idiot! If you want 'Mayberry', move there! http://easyfreesmileys.com/smileys/free-fighting-smileys-113.gif (http://easyfreesmileys.com/)

That was the worst quote of all, I couldn't believe that. They can't listen to logic.

People are coming to LA.
They need to go somewhere.
If we don't build more housing, then housing prices will skyrocket.
Better to build density in places where it can be supported.
If not, it will only lead to more traffic congestion.

Then they argue that there's not enough money for transit.
But then they will argue when a tax increase comes to pay for it.

Stupid people are stupid?

That would have been great if you guys went down to counter them. You all might have ended up on the news. Even better, you would have made international news if a fight broke out and someone 'accidentaly' socked 'Zev' and his butt buddy in the schnoz! :)

Haha, but I didn't even know about the meeting until after it happened. I guarantee that there will be supporters the next time that there is a meeting.

Dress sharp, then :)

Federal agency includes funding for Perris Valley Metrolink line

08:19 AM PST on Wednesday, February 6, 2008

By DUANE W. GANG, The Press-Enterprise

A proposed Metrolink extension to Moreno Valley and Perris received a major boost Tuesday when federal officials included $50 million for the project in a budget proposal now before Congress.

The $168 million Perris Valley Line would run 22.7 miles from Riverside to Perris and include as many as seven stations. Advocates of the project say the new line will ease congestion and boost economic development efforts in the region.

"We have been waiting years for this to come down," Perris Mayor Daryl Busch said Tuesday.

Busch, a member of the Riverside County Transportation Commission and the Metrolink board, said the proposed line will benefit Perris and the surrounding community.

Others have raised concerns.

Riverside County Supervisor Bob Buster, whose district includes much of the proposed line, instead has favored a special bus lane.

An express bus service would be cheaper and build public-transportation ridership before money is spent on a rail line, Buster said.

He said he also is concerned about the effects the rail line would have on nearby residential areas, particularly around UC Riverside.

The commuter rail line is one of 13 so-called Small Start projects included for possible funding in the Federal Transit Administration's 2009 budget recommendations.

The projects must be less than $250 million and can receive up to $75 million in federal money.

The money still must work its way through Congress. If approved, the Perris Valley Line would receive $50 million in 2009 and another $25 million in 2010.

The rest of the money for the project would come from state aid, local taxes and federal grants.

Sherry E. Little, the transit administration's deputy administrator, said the 13 projects, including the Perris line, are cost-effective ways to reduce congestion.

Construction costs for all 13 projects average $2.8 million per mile, Little said.

"It is a great bargain in terms of ridership and community improvement," she said in a conference call with reporters.

Construction on the Perris Valley Line could begin in 2010. Trains could begin running by 2011, with an estimated 3,400 average weekday boardings and 800 new daily riders, according to the transit administration.

The line would take about$6.5 million a year to operate.

The transit administration in January raised concerns about the cost of the Metrolink extension and urged local officials to control costs.

John Standiford, deputy director of the Riverside County Transportation Commission, said the county might not be able to build all the proposed stations at once and might have to phase them in.

Meanwhile, money for a$164 million, 16.5-mile express bus line connecting the cities of San Bernardino and Loma Linda was not included for funding in the federal budget proposal.

A spokesman for the transit administration said Omnitrans needs to resolve budget and environmental issues before the project could be a candidate for funding.

The bus service, called sbX, was included in the transit administration's small starts project list but was not among those receiving funding in the 2009 fiscal year budget.

Rohan Kuruppu, Omnitrans director of planning, said Tuesday the bus service has been approved by the federal government. He said he expects the project will be listed for funding in next year's budget.

Staff writer Imran Ghori contributed to this report.

http://www.pe.com/imagesdaily/2008/02-06/r_mp_020608_metrolink06_400.jpg

E-mail reignites debate over L.A. zoning

The Planning Commission president's missive to neighborhood activists says a new ordinance that allows denser development is 'ripe for immediate litigation.'
By David Zahniser, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
March 11, 2008
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's top appointee on the city Planning Commission sent an e-mail to neighborhood activists asserting that a new city ordinance that allows housing developers to roll back zoning rules may violate state law.

Planning Commission President Jane Ellison Usher, who once served as Mayor Tom Bradley's in-house attorney, criticized a recently passed ordinance that makes it easier for developers who propose even a few affordable units to build projects that are larger and have fewer parking spaces than zoning normally allows.

The e-mail, sent Sunday, instantly reignited the debate over the city's campaign to add taller, denser buildings across the city. One neighborhood group has forwarded Usher's e-mail to its attorney.

"If it looks like there is a legal opportunity to have the city revisit this [law], we will look to join with others who have similar feelings," said Barbara Broide, president of the Westwood South of Santa Monica Boulevard Homeowners Assn.

The Los Angeles City Council approved the housing law last month, giving developers the ability to exceed height limits and provide smaller amounts of open space than the rules allow when as little as 5% of their residential projects are deemed affordable.

Councilwoman Jan Perry, who voted for the housing law, said recipients of the e-mail could conclude that Usher is inviting them to sue -- and representing the mayor while doing so.

"When you sign off with the words, 'President, Los Angeles City Planning Commission,' it implies that you might be acting on behalf of the city," she said.

Usher said Monday that she wrote the e-mail on behalf of herself, not the commission. The mayoral appointee said she sent it after learning about changes to the law at a Feb. 28 commission meeting -- a session held on the same day Villaraigosa signed the ordinance into law.

Villaraigosa's office shrugged off questions about the e-mail, saying the new law will lead to more affordable housing.

"With nine people sitting on the planning commission, you're bound to get a variety of viewpoints," said mayoral spokeswoman Janelle Erickson in a written statement.

Usher has repeatedly criticized the new housing ordinance, saying it violates the state's environmental laws and breaks faith with neighborhood groups that try to craft zoning rules for their communities.

She contended Monday that the public was not properly informed that the law will strip the planning department of its power to review requests for certain "density bonuses" -- incentives that allow developers to build up to 35% more residential units than the zoning allows.

From now on, the city will give over-the-counter permits for projects that receive both a density bonus and a decrease in the number of required parking spaces -- a provision that is "ripe for immediate litigation," Usher wrote in the e-mail.

"There is no public notice. There is no environmental analysis. There is no right of appeal," she said Monday.

In her e-mail, Usher said there was a short period of time in which activists could challenge the law in court. She also asked e-mail recipients to share her views with others. "However, I would ask that you block out my e-mail address and instead ask your colleagues to respond through you," she wrote.

Parking, like traffic, is an incendiary topic in many Los Angeles neighborhoods. Urban planners frequently suggest that more Angelenos would take public transit if fewer parking spaces were available, but homeowner groups frequently disagree.

"Those models exist in cities where there are vibrant public transit options, which is not the case in our community," said Broide, the Westwood activist. "We don't have the Expo Line yet. And we may get the Subway to the Sea, but it won't be in my lifetime."

Usher said Monday that she still supports Villaraigosa's efforts to build affordable housing and implement "smart growth" -- lacing high-density housing along transit corridors. And she said she is not surprised at how quickly her e-mail was forwarded.

"One of the lovely and unpredictable things about e-mail is that I have no control over the wider audience for my thoughts," she said.

"I was very aware of that when I sent it."

david.zahniser@latimes.com

Why don't we just change zoning laws so that developers don't have to pull tricks to do this? Just allow density where it would work. What would be the problem with that?

We need to allow for denser development along our rail lines.
We need to get rid of all parking requirements at least in the heart of the city.
We need to ignore the cries of "blocking our views."

Blocking our views! That's always been rich :)

Steve Lopez:
Touring L.A.'s growth in a fury
March 19, 2008


Ordinarily I don't get carsick, but Zev Yaroslavsky was behind the wheel, and the L.A. County supervisor was in a lather as he zoomed from one neighborhood to another.

Hollywood, Encino, Sherman Oaks, Studio City and Mid-City all went by in a flash.

"Look at this," he said, turning off Wilshire Boulevard and shooting up La Brea. The one-story buildings are likely to become four- or five-story buildings if City Hall planners keep giving developers everything they want, Yaroslavsky griped.

"What is the reason?" he asked incredulously, pointing out a view of the Hollywood Hills that would be obliterated. "What is the reason?"

He'd already told me the reason earlier, when he gave me a quick primer in his living room.

"The planners in this city are bamboozling people, including some of the members of City Council," he said, tossing one cluster bomb after another on an otherwise quiet Sunday morning.

He drew diagrams on my note pad, explained how protections against overdevelopment are being plundered, charged that claims of new affordable housing are bogus and predicted that quiet neighborhoods of single-family homes will be thrown into permanent shadows by towering behemoths.

It's an apocalyptic view, but is he right that city officials have handed over control to developers?

Zev is an ambitious guy, after all. Might this criticism be the start of a run for mayor as the crowd-pleasing populist who speaks up for beleaguered citizens?

City Councilwoman Wendy Greuel, who represents a part of the San Fernando Valley that Zev pointed to as ripe for abuse by developers, thinks some of Yaroslavsky's concerns are valid, but she disagreed with the notion that city officials are not listening to residents and trying to protect their interests.

Don't worry, she said, trying to reassure me that Zev and the rest of us don't have to worry about developers pulling the strings at City Hall.

Don't worry? With all their talk of "infill" and creating a denser core, city officials have done little to allay the fears of those who believe, as Yaroslavsky does, that developers are enjoying one heck of an orgy these days and that it's now easier than ever to get approval for larger buildings and fewer parking spaces.

Hundreds of residents showed up three weeks ago at a meeting to register complaints about seven proposed mega-projects in the North Hollywood/Universal City area. And even city Planning Commission President Jane Ellison Usher has warned that the density-promoting housing rules approved by the city in February are "ripe for litigation."

Yaroslavsky said planners are using a "one size fits all" philosophy that ignores the uniqueness of each neighborhood. He wasn't even aware this was happening until an 86-year-old neighbor named Sam Frank called two years ago to say the height limit was about to be doubled on a two-story section of La Brea just a block to the east of him, robbing homeowners of sunlight and privacy.

Yaroslavsky told Frank he must be wrong, because a 45-foot height limit was in force. But he later learned that the property owner had applied to switch from commercial zoning to what's called RAS, or Residential and Accessory Services.

That would mean ground-floor businesses with residences upstairs, lots more traffic and the height limit could shoot up to 75 feet. The owner has since agreed to a 50-foot height limit, and the project is still being reviewed.

Frank is determined to keep fighting. "We were here first," Frank told me, saying that he's lived in his duplex for 48 years. "You can't run roughshod over the citizenry."

But the city is sure trying to, Yaroslavsky says. At La Brea and Willoughby, he pointed to the old Channel 13 building and said: "There's a proposal to double or even triple the height, with neighbors up in arms."

He cruised through the area near 6th Street and Detroit, home to some gorgeous two- and three-story apartment buildings that he feared could get bulldozed. Under the so-called density bonus in a recently approved city ordinance, new buildings can be 35% larger than currently allowed if as little as 11% of the new units are "affordable."

But this isn't really about affordable housing, Yaroslavsky said, it's about throwing bones to developers. He used a project on Sepulveda in Westwood to make his point. There, he said, 31 rent-controlled apartments were approved for demolition to make way for 59 condos, five of which will be "affordable." That's "a net loss of affordable housing," Yaroslavsky snarled.
As a councilman many years ago, Yaroslavsky created more than a few enemies of his own for not stopping rampant development in his Westside district. Some still hold him responsible for the traffic-generating Westside Pavilion, the Fox studios expansion on Pico and his supporting role in derailing a Westside subway plan.

There were no protections in place at the time, Yaroslavsky argues, and there was only so much he could do. But he takes credit for following up with some of the zoning restrictions that are now being lifted.

In Encino, the supervisor showed me a six-story building on Ventura that was built in the 1980s and ruined the ambience of the residential homes behind it, homes that were later bulldozed. That kind of outrage led to a density-limiting measure, Proposition U, pushed by Yaroslavsky and approved by voters in 1987.

Now, the supervisor said, Proposition U is being eviscerated.

Yaroslavsky agreed that if population growth projections are to be believed, a lot more housing will be needed in years to come. But what's being planned is way too expensive for most of that new population, he said, and there won't be nearly enough new transportation services to prevent even worse traffic.

"There are places in the city where density is more appropriate, and places in the city where density is less appropriate," said Yaroslavsky, showing me an example of the former along Riverside Drive just north of the Ventura Freeway in the Valley.

We drove along a commercial stretch of smallish buildings that could go much higher and include businesses and apartments or condos without affecting single-family neighborhoods, he said.

There are spots like that throughout the city, he said, and that's where to grow.

Pay attention, he warned. The look and feel of the city could become drastically transformed for the worse if people don't wake up, keep an eye on their neighborhood and shake a fist at City Hall.

And by the way, if anyone at City Hall has an issue with how Zev and his colleagues at the county handle development matters, you know where to reach me.

steve.lopez@latimes.com

The word "douchebaggery" doesn't get used often enough...and I won't use it now, but COME ON. Cities by definition are in a constant state of flux, and euclidian zoning issues aside, people in some parts of LA should start getting used to the idea that their single family homes may not survive the next 20 years. This might not sound great, but why should we really care about an 86 year old man's desire to maintain the status quo? To some degree I suppose it might be natural, I'm sure farmers weren't thrilled when the first tracts were being planned deeper into the basin at the turn of the century; however, isn't it time people start accepting that LA will grow vertically?

Also, I'm sorry to say it, but these single family homes and their owners who spend their lives trying to suffocate vertical growth, are one of the driving forces behind renter's being priced out of LA in the first place. There do exist cities where zoning laws don't change, where commercial strips will remain a story tall - perhaps people are confusing Los Angeles with San Marino?

I just read The Big Sleep, a LA fan must-read. It ends with a quote that reminds me of the old coots in this LA Times article and all the people out there that shit bricks about the traffic, but revel in their NIMBYgasms when their precious property rights are compromised:

You just slept the big sleep, not caring about the nastiness of how you died or where you fell. Me, I was part of the nastiness now.

I think there's a generational selfishness in the whole debate over the future of LA. I hope I'm on the right side.

"Frank is determined to keep fighting. "We were here first," Frank told me, saying that he's lived in his duplex for 48 years. "You can't run roughshod over the citizenry.""

If you're living near a freeway or in the real core of the city, expect this to happening. But surprisingly, I do agree with Zev on the affordable housing issue. Should we allow more density because it will build some affordable housing units? This city can't handle more density except along mass transit corridors (that's why I agree with basically any TOD's; the North Hollywood people are just outright NIMBYs). Some of these other people have real issues. If density is being built somewhere where there is no alternative to a car, then they should take issue. However, this should come at a price. If they're not going to allow that density, then they had better be ready to pony up the dough to build more transit in this city to fix our traffic mess.

I think there's a generational selfishness in the whole debate over the future of LA. I hope I'm on the right side.

I completely agree with you. I feel like most of the NIMBYism in this town comes from old coots whose mindsets are rooted in that post-WWII "California Dream" mindset - a green lawn, car in every driveway hoo-haw that brought so many people here in the first place. Think about if you were in this 86-year-old guys' shoes... the article said he moved into his place 46 years ago? That's like the early 60s? The reason he (and countless others like him at the time) probably moved where he lives now was because of this promise of open space, sunny skies, and California-dreaming living. He's obviously not into destroying the very reason for which chose to live where he lives.

I feel like the younger generations that grew up in and transplanted to a more mature L.A. never really knew the ideology that older dudes like this guy are so ingrained in.

As these older generations start kickin' the bucket, I feel like the resistance to development will subside. The question is, at what age is there the cut off between favoring a suburbanistic, tranquil, California-dreamy single family home mindset and one that's more focused on an urban existence?

The "California Dream" is over. Done with. If people still want that suburban utopia ideal from the 50's, they need to move to Arizona, Texas, or the Carolinas. LA cannot afford to promote that lifestyle any longer. There's no more freaking land to build that dream on! Can't these people see that? Don't these people realize that LA can't build out anymore and the only way to accommodate the inevitable population increases is to build up? For the love of god, you're living in the second largest CITY in the United States, not some small town in Nebraska. And please, spare me the "This isn't New York" or "LA's a horizontal city" garbage.

And I agree that the young people moving here bring a completely different mindset. Many moved here to escape that sterile suburban environment they were raised in. They came here to live a big city life, not to mow the lawn.

^ cosign on everything.

http://www.aegworldwide.com/img/04_future/ontario_image_long.jpg

Ontario's coming events center a notable addition
OUR VIEW: Professional hockey team and concerts will be a notable addition to Inland Valley leisure and lifestyles
Article Created: 03/18/2008 07:49:12 PM PDT

Local professional hockey moved another step closer when Ontario Reign executives unveiled their new team's logos on Monday.

Reign players will wear the logos on their jerseys when they play at Ontario's coming event center, the Citizens Business Bank Arena, starting Oct. 25.

By then, construction of the new arena will be finished, bringing the Inland Empire its only such sports and entertainment center, not to mention its first pro hockey team.

This is a big deal for Ontario in particular and Inland Valley residents in general.

Hockey fans will have an alternative to driving to Los Angeles or Anaheim, as baseball fans already have in the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes. With gas prices on the rise, that alternative will be particularly welcome; and lower ticket prices compared to Kings or Ducks games offer a more affordable family outing.

The same goes for concerts at the new arena, which will present acts that can attract 10,000 or 11,000 fans.

In Ontario, the arena is already driving high-end development in its vicinity that will improve the city's job picture and tax base.

And fiscally, the city has kept its eye on the ball (or should we say puck?) in the arena deal. The city is paying for the $150 million arena from the proceeds of land parcels around the arena site that it bought years ago and sold off after the price of the real estate skyrocketed.

AEG, which runs the Staples Center in Los Angeles and the Home Depot Center in Carson, will operate Ontario's arena under a deal that guarantees the city $1 million a year plus a cut of profits from events staged there.

That's a pretty good deal, secured by City Manager Greg Devereaux and his staff.

Team owner Barry Kemp, who is also a TV and film producer, joked Monday that it takes a couple of years to get a TV show on the air, maybe four for a film and, it turns out, about 10 for an arena.

It was actually more than a decade ago when Councilman Alan Wapner started pushing the arena idea, and it's been through quite a few twists and turns - different plans, different sites, different team owners, different City Council members.

But the city has stuck with it, secured good partners in Kemp and AEG, and now is on the verge of opening the kind of facility that will have a big, positive impact on the Inland Valley's leisure time and quality of life.

http://www.cbbankarena.com/images/main_img1.jpg

Museum of Tolerance to do environmental study of expansion plan
The Simon Wiesenthal Center has issued an initial report in the museum's controversial expansion project. A full report will come in several months.
By Martha Groves, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
March 22, 2008
In the face of hefty neighborhood opposition, the Museum of Tolerance has begun an environmental review of a proposal to enclose its open-air memorial plaza and build a two-story cultural center with a cafe and rooftop garden.

The West Pico Boulevard museum, which sees 350,000 visitors annually, plans to rent out the complex for weddings, bar and bat mitzvahs and other private functions to defray the costs of programs intended to fulfill its mission of educating people about intolerance and hate. The museum also seeks to extend its operating hours to as late as midnight, add a side-street entrance and lift restrictions on construction.

Residents of the adjacent single-family neighborhood contend that the 13,500-square-foot expansion and plans to rent out banquet space for as many as 500 people per event would cause an explosion in traffic, noise and parking problems.

Renting the facility for social events would move "completely outside the scope and permissions of the original conditional-use permit," said Susan Gans, an entertainment lawyer who lives near the museum and opposes the expansion.

Under the restricted permit that allowed the museum to open in 1993, private parties are prohibited. The permit also requires a 100-foot buffer to separate the museum from houses. That area, now occupied by the memorial plaza, would be reduced to 20 feet under the museum's expansion plan.

Susan Burden, chief financial officer for the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the museum's owner, said center officials have been meeting with opponents for several months. "We told them we had heard them loud and clear and would go forward" with an environmental impact report, said Burden, who notified neighbors about the EIR in a letter dated Thursday. She added that many museums rent space to private parties.

The center has prepared an initial 75-page study but said the full report will take several months to complete. Once a draft report has been published, the city will hold hearings so that the public can express its opinions. Among issues typically studied are traffic, pollution and noise. The center now has 209 parking spaces, a number that opponents say would be inadequate to handle all of the vehicles at large events. Burden said the museum would also have access to spaces at nearby Wiesenthal headquarters on Roxbury Drive.

Neighbors first heard of the expansion plan on Sept. 29 through a mailing from the city Planning Department, which announced an Oct. 24 public hearing at City Hall. At that meeting, residents learned that the proposal had the strong backing of Councilman Jack Weiss, who represents the area.

By that time, city planners had already agreed to the expansion. Gans, who said neighbors felt blindsided, wrote a 14-page letter to the city, complaining that planners had rubber-stamped the proposal without fully evaluating the potential effects.

Gans and Daniel Fink, another resident of the heavily Jewish Roxbury-Beverwil Homeowners Assn., mobilized opposition to the project.

A spokeswoman for Weiss said the council office appreciated the museum's willingness to conduct an EIR and looked forward to addressing neighbors' concerns.

martha.groves@latimes.com

Nimbys should practice a little more 'tolerance'! :)

California regions battle over housing money
Southern California officials complain Prop. 1C funds should be allocated by population, which would mean less for Northern California.
By Patrick McGreevy, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
March 24, 2008

SACRAMENTO -- More than a year after state voters approved a $2.85-billion bond issue for affordable housing, a geographical tug of war has developed over the money, with Southern California's elected officials complaining that their area is getting short shrift.

They say the money from 2006's Proposition 1C should be apportioned based on population. If it were, Southern California would get 61% of the bond measure proceeds, instead of the 48% it received in the first round of funding.

Northern California officials, including Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata (D-Oakland), who wrote the legislation that put the measure on the ballot, see things differently. With their support, the rules for divvying the money not only reflect a "reasonable geographic distribution of funds" but also require state housing agency officials to consider such factors as the readiness and proximity to commuter rail lines of the projects proposed by developers, cities and counties that are competing for the funds.

So when the first round of money -- about $286 million -- was awarded last year, Southern California ended up receiving less than half of it. Some of the region's proposed projects simply were not as good as those elsewhere, state housing agency officials said.

And things are not likely to change much in the next two rounds, expected in June. For "infill" housing improvements in older neighborhoods, state officials plan to give 45% each to Northern and Southern California after setting aside 10% for the Central Valley. Money from this $240-million pool is to go for street and property improvements.

Southern California is slated to get at least 45% of another pot of money, $95 million to be allocated for housing projects near mass-transit stations and rail lines.

None of this sits well with Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who has promised to increase the city's scant supply of affordable housing.

"Southern California is being deprived of its fair share of funding under Prop. 1C despite the fact that this region is home to a majority of the state's population," Villaraigosa said in a recent interview. "The city of Los Angeles expressed serious concern at the state's funding guidelines because they seem to favor Northern California projects."

Protests have poured in from Los Angeles city officials to the state Department of Housing and Community Development, which helped devise the funding formulas and is overseeing distribution of funds.

"We remain steadfast in our assertion that the current allocation . . . is not equitable," Mercedes Marquez, general manager of the Los Angeles Housing Department, wrote in a Feb. 4 letter. She believes Southern California should get at least 55% of the infill housing money.

Most of the complaints have been rejected by state housing officials, who also are under political pressure from legislative leaders in other parts of the state not to give one region too much of the limited pie.

"Los Angeles needs even more than it got," said Assembly Speaker-elect Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles). "But it is a challenge to convince colleagues in the Assembly of that."

When Perata and other legislators drafted the housing bond measure, they did not address how the money would be divided, probably because of concerns that to do so would hamper the measure's chances with voters.

They left it to state housing agency officials to devise a system for distributing the money. The funding formulas were drawn up after talking with housing advocates and politicians throughout California and are based loosely, but not entirely, on population, said Russ Schmunk, assistant deputy director of the agency. One consideration was to ensure that no single part of the state received significantly less than other areas, he said.

Southern California housing experts side with their elected officials. Los Angeles County is the homeless capital of the country, with 80,000 people lacking permanent housing on any given night, and has the largest gap in the state between wages and housing prices, according to Peter Dreier, professor of politics at Occidental College.

"The need is greater here," Dreier said.

But advocates for affordable housing in Northern California said their area has its own housing crisis.

"There needs to be more funding in all parts of the state," said Paul Peninger, policy director of the Non-Profit Housing Assn. of Northern California. He said the state should evaluate the funding formulas after the first rounds of funding to see if any portion of the state was shorted.

There clearly is not enough money to go around. For the $95 million in transit-oriented projects, for example, applications totaled $544 million , including $247 million from Southern California and $297 million from Northern California.

Perata and state housing officials say their guidelines for future awards are flexible enough to meet the needs in Southern California.

And he cautioned that constant battles over the funds could delay the badly needed projects they are meant to build.

"If these bond dollars are going to get caught in formula fights in Sacramento, then they will never be put to work," Perata said. "We owe it to the voters to get this money out the door and projects completed."

"Dollars," he said, "should follow the demand, and priority should be given to projects that are ready to go."

Perata demonstrated the many ways to determine funding by noting that 41% of the applications for the transit-oriented development came from Southern California but that the state still is planning to allocate it 45% of the funding.

"That appears fair," he said. "Let's move on to actually building the necessary affordable housing."

Yaroslavsky indicates he won't run for L.A. mayor
:dance::dance::dance:
Supervisor speaks at a luncheon attended by lobbyists, reporters
March 25, 2008


Political junkies yearning for a Villaraigosa/Yaroslavsky mayoral slugfest in 2009 will have to look elsewhere, The Times' David Zahniser reports.

Zev Yaroslavsky spoke at a lunch Monday (chicken kabobs, tortilla soup) sponsored by the Los Angeles Current Affairs Forum. Zahniser asked whether county supervisor is the last political job Yaroslavsky plans to hold.

"As long as people will have me, and as long as I feel I can make a difference. . . . I'll keep doing it," Yaroslavsky said.

Which means he hopes to remain a county supervisor until 2014, when term limits will force him out.
:dance::dance::dance:
Yaroslavsky's been complaining lately about traffic and development in the city, sure triggers for the chattering classes to see him on a mayoral ballot against Antonio Villaraigosa. With a few dozen lobbyists, lawyers and reporters in the audience, he's pretty much on the record as not planning a mayoral bid in the near future.
:dance::dance::dance:
-- Veronique de Turenne LATimes

Caruso Shapes The Americana at Brand as a One-of-a-Kind for Los Angeles - Elevating the Retail Experience with Contemporary Global Icons

Caruso Affiliated is setting a new standard at The Americana at Brand, delivering a selection of distinctive and highly-coveted fashion retailers alongside an eclectic collection of sophisticated and casual dining options. Set to open in May, The Americana at Brand is Caruso´s most ambitious project to date with almost one million square feet of shopping, dining and luxury residences in the heart of downtown Glendale. The latest announcement of prominent retailers includes an array of "firsts." Unveiling its first new concept store, Tiffany & Co. will offer its contemporary Tiffany collections. The first United States location for popular Australian designer Peter Alexander and his contemporary collection of sleepwear, lingerie and gifts; the first California and only the second U.S. location for Paperchase, the U.K. purveyor known for its unusual stationery and arts collections; the first Gilly Hicks in California, casual yet unique lingerie and apparel; Stuart Weitzman offering designer evening, dress and casual women´s shoes as well as luxurious handbags; the first Southern California Vera Bradley boutique with its colorful collection of quilted handbags and home furnishing; and the previously announced first in Los Angeles Kate Spade boutique.

"The Americana at Brand brings together a bold collection of retailers to the region and creates a singular shopping, dining and entertainment destination that will draw visitors from throughout the region," :ohno: (everyone will be driving there) said Todd M. Russell, executive vice president for Caruso Affiliated. "The number of international retailers and fashion brands that have chosen to open their first locations in California, and in some cases in the U.S., at The Americana at Brand validates our original assessment of the extraordinary potential of the market. We also appreciate the confidence of these retailers in our ability to deliver an exceptional environment that appeals to their discerning consumers."

The Americana at Brand is almost 100 percent leased with the latest additions to its spectacular tenant line up:

Bare Escentuals - as the leader of the mineral make-up revolution with bare minerals, Bare Escentuals offers the complete line of cosmetics, treatments and body products.

Beard Papa - the bakery of the world´s best cream puffs. Known for its crunchy pastries which are made fresh daily and filled with a variety of whipped custard creams.

Caffe Primo - creating a true European ambiance, Caffe Primo offers fresh salads, pizzettas, paninis, premium gelato and sorbettos as well as coffees and espresso.

Calvin Klein - recognized around the world as a leading American designer, Calvin Klein offers its contemporary yet sophisticated consumers the latest designs for men and women all of which will be showcased in its dramatic two-level flagship store.

The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf - set in a hand-crafted oak paneled environment, The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf creates a social gathering place offering the finest coffees and teas from around the world.

Cole Haan - blending craftsmanship, luxury, style and innovation, Cole Haan, known as the premier American lifestyle brand offers men´s and women´s footwear, handbags, outerwear and gifts.

CrepeMaker - a fresh dining concept offering hand-made crepes prepared with the highest quality ingredients.

Custo Barcelona - originating in Spain, this European retail concept offers unique apparel for men and women in vibrant colors and quality fabrics.

Frida - expanding from its Beverly Hills location, Frida offers authentic Mexican cuisine prepared gourmet style. All of which is set in a refined environment true to its heritage atmosphere.

Gilly Hicks -the cheeky Australian cousin of Abercrombie & Fitch offers women´s sleepwear, casual yet sexy apparel and bath and body products. A California exclusive.

Granville Cafe - an inviting cafe which offers gourmet sandwiches, salads, soups, pastas, coffees and desserts, all made with premium and natural ingredients, in a casual yet upscale environment for professionals and families to enjoy.

Guess Footwear - a new contemporary American women´s footwear concept featuring the Guess signature style. A California exclusive.

Jamba Juice - popular smoothie concept featuring drinks made with fresh fruit, sorbets and fruit juices, snacks and fresh-squeezed juices.

Jody Maroni´s - more than 24 varieties of gourmet sausage made the old-fashioned way with only the finest and freshest ingredients.

Jewel City Diner - a charming old-fashioned downtown diner with original American fare serving breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Nestle Toll House Cafe - cookies, cookie cakes, brownies, ice-cream, milk shakes and smoothies before or after the theater.

Paperchase - innovative stationery boutique based in the UK which features a vast array of unusual papers and art materials as well as stationary, greeting cards and gifts. A West coast exclusive.

Peek, Aren´t You Curious - opening its second location in Southern California, Peek, Aren´t You Curious stocks a mix of children´s apparel, footwear, accessories and toys in an environment friendly to both children and parents.

Peter Alexander - designer Peter Alexander based in Melbourne, Australia expands to the United States with the opening of his namesake boutique at The Americana at Brand. Most known throughout the world for sleepwear and lingerie, this store will also offer his new line of children´s apparel and gift items.

Richie´s Neighborhood Pizzeria - a New York style pizzeria featuring 1950´s and 60´s decor that offers hand tossed pizzas using the highest-quality ingredients.

Ruehl - an upscale American lifestyle concept offering an individual style for the young urban professional with its lines of apparel, leather goods and accessories.

Stuart Weitzman - unveiling its new store design here in the United States, Stuart Weitzman offers designer dress, evening, bridal and casual women´s shoes and luxurious must have handbags.

Tiffany & Co. - the first of its kind, a contemporary collection of Tiffany & Co. offered in a modern environment.

Vera Bradley - known for its signature quilted handbags, accessories and travel items, Vera Bradley will also offer its complete line of home furnishings.

XXI - a new fashion concept from the creators of Forever 21, offering style conscious and trend-savvy shoppers the current fashions at the greatest value.

With this announcement, The Americana at Brand cements its position as the location of choice in Los Angeles for taste and style makers. Previously announced retailers include: Anthropologie, A/X Armani Exchange, Art of Shaving, Aveda Lifestyle Salon, Barnes & Noble, Barneys New York CO-OP, BCBG Max Azria, Calidora Skin Clinic, Chico´s, crewcuts, Divine Boutique, Free People, H&M, J. Crew, Juicy Couture, Kate Spade, Katsuya, Kiehl´s, Lacoste, Lucky Kid, lululemon athletica, Marciano, Martin + Osa, Michael Stars, pinkberry, Puma, Sur La Table, The Cheesecake Factory, True Religion, Urban Outfitters and the 18-screen Pacific Theatres cinema.

Encompassing 15.5 acres in the heart of Glendale, The American at Brand is a $400 million urban mixed-use development community, which broke ground in June 2006. Located within minutes of Los Feliz, Silverlake, Pasadena and downtown Los Angeles, it is bound by Brand Boulevard, Central Avenue and Colorado Street. The 900,000-square-foot lifestyle center features 475,000 square feet of retail comprised of 75 shops and boutiques, an 18-plex cinema and a variety of casual and fine dining options, and will offer The Residences at Americana at Brand Residences at, a 238 luxury apartment complex and The Excelsior, 100 luxury condominium homes - residences created with classic Caruso flair, quality and attention to detail.

Caruso Affiliated is known for creating open-air community and regional retail environments that serve as fashionable local gathering places. Caruso´s style has become a recognized brand within the retail industry and with California residents and visitors. The success of the company´s stylish and elegant outdoor environments has challenged the traditional "mall" concept and set a new standard in the industry. A recognized leader in this trend, Caruso Affiliated´s growth is approximately two times that of the largest publicly traded REITs and sales per square foot at Caruso properties are 75 percent higher than the industry average.

In addition to The Americana at Brand, other projects in development include The Shops at Santa Anita in Arcadia, CA and the company´s first luxury destination resort in Montecito, CA with the recent acquisition of the historic Miramar Hotel. Caruso Affiliated´s portfolio of top performing retail centers includes The Grove in Los Angeles, the Waterside, Marina del Rey, The Promenade at Westlake, The Lakes at Thousand Oaks and The Commons at Calabasas.

L.A. unveils plan to speed approvals for building projects
http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee192/trolltoast/30941113bx1.jpg flapsblog.com

Mayor's '12 to 2' approach will slash the number of city departments involved in approval process.
By Duke Helfand, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
March 26, 2008
Only days after business leaders publicly complained that Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa wasn't making good on a pledge to slash bureaucratic red tape, city leaders unveiled a plan to cut the number of agencies -- from 12 to two -- that must approve real estate projects.

The plan announced Tuesday responds to years of complaints by developers and property owners who say they face a confusing maze of city departments that slows their projects and drives up costs.

Under the streamlined "12 to 2" approach, the departments of Planning and Building and Safety will coordinate all development approvals and permits. Details of the plan will be worked out over the next six months, officials said.

"Navigating the city's planning, building and permitting departments has long been a grueling rite of passage for homeowners and businesses alike," Villaraigosa said at a news conference, at which he was joined by business leaders and the general managers of departments involved with permits. "This broken system must be fixed."

Civic leaders and city officials have called repeatedly for the kind of plan that was outlined Tuesday, which came less than a week after prominent Los Angeles business leaders questioned whether Villaraigosa was suffering from a "loss of momentum" in getting changes made. The mayor's aides said they were working on Tuesday's announcement before the business leaders went public with their criticism.

Still, the permitting process has been the subject of concern since the mid-1990s. A committee named by then-Mayor Richard Riordan identified the bureaucratic hang-up 15 years ago, but little has changed, officials acknowledge.

Another panel of business, academic and labor leaders appointed by Villaraigosa also called for reforming the permitting process in a report released in January.

"Streamlining this process will lead to smarter development and more productive and efficient government," said Russell Goldsmith, chairman of Beverly Hills-based City National Bank and head of the Villaraigosa committee.

"It will eliminate many unnecessary costs, confusion and delay that have discouraged and diverted so many entrepreneurs here in Los Angeles."

Several of the city's major business groups -- including the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, the Central City Assn. and the Valley Industry & Commerce Assn. -- applauded the changes.

The business organizations predicted that a nimbler system would make Los Angeles more competitive and be particularly helpful to small businesses unable to hire land-use attorneys and lobbyists to push development projects though the bureaucracy.

Others said the simpler process would give nonprofit developers a greater chance of building affordable housing, one of Villaraigosa's top priorities.

"We need predictable plans and we need predictable planning," said City Council President Eric Garcetti, who called for the 12-to-2 approach last fall. "We want it to be easier to do business here in Los Angeles."
duke.helfand@latimes.com

Theoretically, this could be the monumental change that propels us forward the most. Years in the making. Now you have to sell it!! :)

only time will tell. its definitely a step in the right direction.

Zev’s State of the City
County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky stood at the podium in a ballroom at the Wilshire Grand hotel, taking shots at the L.A. Times, blasting “stupid growth” policies that create unlivable communities, and longing for the days when more issues were debated openly rather than swept under the rug at City Hall.

This was Monday’s monthly lunch of the Current Affairs Forum, convened by Emma Schafer, with 40 or so well-behaved downtown business and government types, lawyers, lobbyists, union organizers, and journalists gathered around a U-shaped table.

Too bad Zev wasn’t holding forth at the old Redwood Room, with his targets crowded around to deflect the criticism with a few rounds of their own over a long night of rowdy story-telling and imbibing. The bar would have been full, led by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Planning Director Gail Goldberg, and unnamed clueless and stodgy editors at the Times who, if their abysmal coverage of this event in the next day’s paper is any guide, wouldn’t know certain local news stories if they reached up and scribbled the lead on their foreheads. For an hour, Zev talked about growth, traffic, and the stresses facing bottom-line-worshipping newspaper groups – all among the top five issues engaging and annoying the populace from Long Beach to Woodland Hills, from the Westside to the San Gabriel Valley.

Zev hates traffic jams as much as the next solo commuter in the car ahead of you: “If we do nothing between now and 2015, somebody’s going to shoot somebody on the streets between the 405 and Ocean Avenue. You can’t just be oblivious to the fact that people are traveling at an average speed of 2 mph going eastbound from Santa Monica during the afternoon peak. The public wants relief.”

The wholesale revamping of zoning rules now being ramrodded through neighborhoods around the city, tripling densities and turning one-story buildings into three-story mega-complexes or worse, will only make it more unbearable. And the rule changes have been slipped in without enough public scrutiny.

“What drives me up a wall is from the day I walked into City Hall on June 10, 1975, there wasn’t an issue like this that wasn’t debated. We always had debates. Tom Bradley and I went at it. These battles were legendary. It went on until the day I left City Hall. Issues weren’t kept off the radar screen.” Zev, at 59, passes for an elder statesman in these parts. He served two decades on the City Council and is in his fourth term as a county supervisor. He’s said he plans to run one final time in 2010 before term limits force him out.

It used to be that you could read about all of the policy clashes in the daily newspaper, which created a rigor of accountability. “No politician or city councilman from the Westside worth his salt would ignore the public, or would do so at his peril, because they’d read about it in the Thursday edition or Sunday edition of the L.A. Times. Well, they haven’t had a zoned section in years.”

The twice-weekly community section was killed in 1995, and now Zev laments that worthwhile stories remain unwritten or dismissed in three-paragraph briefs buried in the California section. “The Orange County Board of Supervisors gets more coverage from the L.A. Times,” Zev complained. “I don’t mean to pounce on the L.A. Times, but it’s a critical problem. It has consequences.” A subdivision in Santa Clarita, approved two weeks ago on 3-2 vote, with Zev and Gloria Molina opposed, “barely warranted a brief.”

On the traffic innovations front, Zev gave a forensic analysis of the Pico-Olympic debacle, the three-phase traffic plan unveiled by the mayor to much fanfare last November, nearly a year after Zev proposed a more radical plan to turn the east-west thoroughfares into one-way streets, with two lanes reserved for buses to travel in both directions. Zev tapped into his office budget to hire traffic engineer Allyn Rifkin to examine the idea.

The mayor’s plan now faces legal challenges by Westside business owners who fear they’ll lose their neighborhood tone and customers when street parking is gone. “When you take away a merchant’s parking in front of his store,” says Zev, “there’s got to be something that that merchant and the community at large gets in return.” This phase of the mayor’s program calls for the synchronization of traffic lights, with the final phase increasing the number of lanes moving in one direction.

Zev sees little merit in signal wizardry alone. “The public will not perceive a benefit. The whole notion of synchronized traffic signals is oversold. When you have volume of traffic like we do in peak hours, the best computer system in the world won’t solve your problems entirely.”

The jury is still out on the mayor’s plan. “If his idea works, God Bless him, I’ll give him all the credit in the world. If it doesn’t work, the sooner he knows that, the sooner he can make a decision on whether he wants to ratchet it up and go back to Rifkin’s plan.”

Oh, so now it’s Rifkin’s plan?

Exposing some of the tensions with the mayor for the lunch crowd, Zev said: “Maybe it’ll be better luck if it’s called Rifkin’s plan than Yaroslavsky’s plan. It seems to be an issue.”

On the subway front, Zev said a top priority must be extending the Purple Line west from Western Avenue to Santa Monica. He’s working with Assemblyman Mike Feuer, who’s pushing legislation to lower the votes needed for a sales tax increase from two-thirds majority to 55 percent. If the legislature goes for it, voters, too, would have to approve the lower threshold. “Whether we have a sales tax measures on the ballot in November is still an open question,” said Zev, who sounded more optimistic than in past outings. “We’ve gotta have a fighting chance. Nobody wants to go into this as a suicide run.”



After lunch, Zev took a few more questions from L.A. Sniper:

Sniper: “From where I sit, if you and the mayor got along better, so much more could be accomplished.”

Zev: “The mayor and I get along fine on the policy issues that we agree on. Where we don’t get along are on policy issues we don’t agree on. I’ve dealt with four mayors now. Lord knows, Tom Bradley and I didn’t agree on everything, but we worked together and talked to each other several times a week. Same with Dick Riordan when I was in City Hall.”

Sniper: “How often do you talk to Antonio?”

Zev: “Not often, but I wouldn’t read too much into that. I didn’t talk that much to Jimmy Hahn because I’m not a city councilman. We will have no problem working together on a common agenda for transportation. The traffic problems and the congestion problems in the western part of the county are as acute as they are anywhere in the United States.”

Sniper: “Is it totally out of the realm of possibility that you’ll be running for mayor next year?”

Zev: “I am not running for mayor next year.”

Sniper: “How can you be so sure?”

Zev: “If I were running for mayor, you’d know about it. Most of the talk about me running for mayor has been emanating out of City Hall from people who are trying to marginalize some of these policy issues by reducing them to political tiffs when, in fact, they’re substantive policy issues. I’m not going to keep my mouth shut when I see my neighborhood affected by what the city does. And as a former city councilmember, I’m not going to sit back quietly and watch 20 years of my work product dismantled without a fight. This has nothing to do with running for office.

Fine, really, but Zev and Antonio still need to meet for dinner at the Water Grill soon to hash all this out. I’ll buy – if they pickup the bar tab. Send insults and ammo toBigAl@lasniper.com. LACitybeat

Weekend CurbedWire: MLS's Neighborhood Heat Map
Saturday, March 29, 2008, by Dakota
http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee192/trolltoast/200803.jpg

LOS ANGELES: This ad from the MLS, a breakdown of median condo sale prices by neighborhood (compared to a year ago February ), hit the InBox last night. Fascinating stuff. Notably, prices are on the upswing in Beverly Hills (24.55 percent), Malibu (24.7 percent) and the Sunset Strip (30.70 percent). On the flip side, Downtown has dropped 23.82 percent and Hancock Park-Wilshire is down 29.42 percent. It'd be helpful to also know how much inventory is moving in each area, too.

The "California Dream" is over. Done with. If people still want that suburban utopia ideal from the 50's, they need to move to Arizona, Texas, or the Carolinas.

Hemet doesnt seem to plan on expanding / growing / building up, etc.... And it is just a (long) drive away from the big cities... Perfect place for NIMBYs, IMHO :)

Beverly Hills approves condo project
http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee192/trolltoast/beverly2.jpg yesterdayla

A $500-million condo-hotel plan may also win City Council passage. Many residents are concerned about traffic congestion.
By Martha Groves, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
April 11, 2008
If you hate to sit in traffic at the intersection of Wilshire and Santa Monica boulevards, prepare to discover your inner reserves of patience.

To the dismay of residents wary of overdevelopment, the Beverly Hills City Council has approved a high-rise condo and retail project for the eight-acre site of the defunct Robinsons-May department store.

What's more, the council is expected Tuesday to approve an ambitious $500-million proposal by the Beverly Hilton to add condos and the West Coast's first Waldorf-Astoria Hotel to the mid-century Hilton's fabled site. The two projects would be next-door neighbors at Wilshire and Santa Monica, one of the busiest intersections in the region.

Many Beverly Hills residents for years have been battling what they perceive to be uncharacteristically tall and dense development in the historically low-rise community. Construction of the Montage Beverly Hills, a large luxury resort hotel with condos, is well along in the city's Golden Triangle commercial district, and several other mixed-use projects are in the pipeline.

Mayor Barry Brucker said the 9900 Wilshire project, approved by a 4-1 vote Wednesday evening, would secure about $60 million in upfront fees for Beverly Hills -- "more than any other project in the history of the city" -- to help fund street improvements and other work. He added that the project would result in less traffic than Robinsons-May in its fading days.

The Hilton project, on the other hand, would create a great deal more traffic than the current hotel generates. Moreover, residents face the prospect of sharing the road with construction workers and their equipment for many months.

Critics of the 9900 Wilshire project contend that the city's planning commission and council needlessly rushed the approval process by holding twice-weekly meetings in recent weeks.

The frequency made it difficult for residents to participate, opponents said.

"Everybody knew they were going to approve it -- the steam-rolling train going down the track," said Ken Goldman, president of the Southwest Homeowners Assn. "I'm very sorry that both the commission and council didn't take time to catch their breath and give the community a chance to absorb what was going on."

The 9900 Wilshire project would include a small amount of retail and restaurant space and 235 ultra-luxury condo units in two buildings -- one beginning at nine stories and stepping up to 13 and the other starting at 13 stories and rising to 15.

The developer eliminated 17 units from what was originally proposed for the site, at the western gateway to Beverly Hills next to the Los Angeles Country Club.

Goldman maintained that the buildings "create a Great Wall of China of Beverly Hills, and I felt that was unfortunate regardless of how striking an architectural statement it might be." The project's designer is Richard Meier, the architect of the Getty Center.

Candy & Candy, a London-based firm known for building "super-premium" residences, bought the property a year ago for $500 million from New Pacific Realty, a Beverly Hills firm that had paid $33.5 million just three years earlier. New Pacific was planning to spend $500 million to redevelop the site with a number of environmentally innovative elements.

J.A. Mirisch, a Beverly Hills film distributor and local blogger, said the council should have gotten a better deal with the 9900 Wilshire developer. He said he hopes that homeowner groups figure out a way to fund an effort to put the two projects on the ballot. "Having a referendum . . . would be a great course of action," he said. "It would serve as a referendum on overdevelopment in general."

martha.groves@latimes.com

Anyone heard about this?

http://www.studioparkhollywood.com/

Anyone heard about this?

http://www.studioparkhollywood.com/

I do not know, but that website looks like it is stuck in 1995 :ohno:

It sounds like an extremely hi-tech attraction, then whats with the old-school website for it?

http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee192/trolltoast/27638673_287130309_11ea49e168517d9a.jpg brightcove.tv

Zev: Density debate long overdue
1:14 PM Sunday
Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, becoming the go-to voice raising questions about the urbanists' rush to let developers densify new areas of Los Angeles, took his cause to Sunday's LAT Opinion section. He writes:
The debate about the availability of housing in Los Angeles and the city's development policies has been testy but long overdue. Fueling public outrage over growth policies that would significantly increase density are well-grounded fears that, in the clash between overdevelopment and neighborhood preservation, the developers will prevail.
Urged on by some elected officials, city planners have decided that the "smart" and "elegant" way to grow the city's housing stock is to double the allowable size of new buildings,bust through established height limits and reduce parking-space requirements -- effectively rolling back more than two decades of neighborhood-protection laws.

There is nothing smart or elegant about such growth. On the contrary. It's development run amok and with an utter disregard for how it affects the livability of the city's neighborhoods.

He argues that affordable housing can be built without surrendering quality-of-life concerns to the developers. Last week, the section let Marc Haefele argue that Yaroslavsky is off-base.

Good advice: One of the best ways to cover City Hall is to get out of City Hall and "instead, wander through the many fund raising dinners where the real clout is on display," blogs Bill Boyarsky, a member of the ethics commission that is supposed to watch over L.A. politicans. LA Observed

Report: L.A. needs 113,000 new homes
By Kerry Cavanaugh Staff Writer
Article Launched: 04/12/2008 09:52:09 PM PDT
http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee192/trolltoast/los-angeles-satellite-imageAAA.jpg nasa.gov

The city of Los Angeles must build nearly 113,000 new housing units by 2014 to meet the needs of a growing population without worsening the shortage of affordable homes, according to a new city study.

Some 25 percent of the homes need to be affordable for poor and lower-wage workers, yet new development in Los Angeles is primarily for wealthier buyers and renters, according to the study.

The housing development target - plus strategies to meet the goal - is laid out in the city's draft Housing Element, which is now being considered in public workshops around the city.

The goal of the report, said Principal City Planner Jane Blumenfeld, is to lay out city policies that will help Los Angeles build 113,000 new homes.

"113,000 new units is doable, but not easily doable," she said. "We want everybody to have housing so the Housing Element is about how exactly you do that."

The analysis found that Los Angeles has plenty of land to build housing.

More than 21,000 parcels across the city are underdeveloped based on their zoning and could be easily redeveloped to accommodate more than 350,000 additional units.

Yet those parcels are scattered throughout the city, and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has said he wants to see development focused around transit stops.

He has also proposed requiring developers to include affordable units in new projects citywide.

"We're setting forth the idea of mixed-income
communities throughout Los Angeles," said Deputy Mayor Helmi Hisserich.
"We're trying to look at each community and have a balance of income levels and jobs."

But from 1998 to 2005, the city built just 20 percent of the low- to moderate-income homes that were needed, according to a report by Livable Places and UCLA.

At the same time, more than 9,000 rent-controlled apartments were demolished or converted to condominiums.

"You have this underproduction of affordable housing and the loss of affordable units," said Shashi Hanuman, senior staff attorney with Public Counsel.

She wants the Housing Element to spell out how the city will prevent the loss of affordable apartments to demolitions and condo conversions.

"We have had so much displacement of working families. This is a plan for the future and we should be thinking about what's going to happen when the market picks up.

"Are we going to see mass displacement again?"

The Housing Element is being released amid growing concern about density, and a community backlash against city efforts to let developers build taller, bulkier buildings if they include affordable housing.
kerry.cavanaugh@dailynews.com

THEME PARK MAY LAND IN AREA; PLANS ANNOUNCED FOR STUDIO PARK HOLLYWOOD.


Byline: Angela M. Lemire Staff Writer

Studio Park Partners Inc. announced plans Monday to build Studio Park Hollywood, a 1,000-acre entertainment resort and working production studio in Southern California, with Santa Clarita Valley topping its list of potential sites.

The newly formed resort development corporation, comprising executives with backgrounds in the theme park industry, said Santa Clarita was among four sites within 30 miles of Hollywood being eyed for the resort, but company executives remained tight-lipped on specific sites.

``Right now we're talking to four different land developers in Southern California, so it's too early to say anything yet. There's nothing locked down,'' said Marty Mincer, a spokesman for the Florida-based company.

Resort planners are hoping to draw 10 million visitors annually, company officials said.

Mincer declined comment on whether talks have occurred with Valencia-based The Newhall Land and Farming Co., one of Southern California's largest landowners. Newhall spokeswoman Marlee Lauffer said she was unaware of discussions between the two companies.

The company has not discussed the project with city of Santa Clarita officials, Mincer said. Los Angeles County and Santa Clarita city officials said they were unaware of the proposal.

Development plans will be effective as soon as successful financing is complete. Studio Park Hollywood's grand opening is slated for 2005, company officials said.


Entertainment analyst Kevin Skislock of Laguna Research Partners said the proposal comes at a time when many developers are attempting to open similar projects combining elements of entertainment, dining, retail and theme parks.

``The fact is that getting location-based entertainment off the ground requires a huge upfront investment,'' he said. ``I congratulate them for having a compelling vision, but getting the financing is a very tough hurdle.''

In January 1998, Studio Park Partners floated a plan before San Francisco city officials to build a $2 billion theme park on the city's Treasure Island, anchored by a 13-story hotel resembling a Mayan pyramid.

That proposal was similar to the plans now surfacing in the Southland - high-tech simulation-style rides and nature trails in a junglelike setting.

Jan Shaw, film operations director and a partner in Studio Park, likened the resort's design to those in Orlando, Fla., which combine major theme parks with licensed movie-based attractions, high-end hotels, golfing and recreational resorts such as water parks.

The project is being designed to meet demands in the tourism industry, as well as the film industry, she said.

``Hollywood is the entertainment capital of the world,'' said Shaw, later adding, ``We know there's a demand for sound stages and resorts in that area.''

Plans call for the state-of-the-art production studios to include eight sound stages, computer graphics imagery and animation, recording studios, a media center, production support services, studio tour, back lots, broadcast center, international cable network and satellite capabilities.

Santa Clarita's greatest draw is its proximity to Los Angeles, combined with its rural character and links to nearby natural attractions, such as Castaic Lake and Lake Piru Recreational Area, Shaw said.

Shaw said the site chosen would have to be conducive to grading and would accommodate open space and wildlife preserves, as well as hiking trails.

The themed resort would include three major resort hotels overlooking lakes and lagoons, a business conference center, educational institute, championship 18-hole golf course and a performing arts pavilion. On-site recreation areas also being planned include a wildlife center, nature trails for hiking and horseback riding, a rodeo arena and campgrounds, Shaw said.

Some attractions would focus on the history of filmmaking in Hollywood. High-tech rides and shows will capture ``interactive, guest immersion experience,'' Shaw said.

Publication: Daily News (Los Angeles, CA)
Date: Oct 26, 1999

this is and old old old proposal

California subsidy for NFL stadium is blocked
State lawmakers balk at a plan to use tax money to lure a team to a proposed site in the city of Industry.
By Patrick McGreevy, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
April 17, 2008

SACRAMENTO -- Faced with angry opposition from Los Angeles County supervisors, state lawmakers Wednesday sidelined an effort by the city of Industry to get millions of dollars in tax subsidies that could help lure a National Football League team back to the area.

Backed by developer Ed Roski Jr., who wants to build a football stadium on 600 vacant acres he owns in Industry, the city had asked for power to divert $829 million in county property tax revenue from basic government services to subsidize unnamed development projects.

But county officials, complaining that much of the money would come from their already tight budget, blitzed state lawmakers with letters and phone calls demanding that they vote against the proposal.

Minutes before its first hearing, Senate Majority Leader Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles), who had gutted an unrelated bill of its contents and replaced it with Industry's bid, pulled the proposal from consideration. Her Senate district includes Industry, home to 804 people.

The bill she changed, SB 1771, originated by Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Los Angeles), would initially have provided counseling for homeowners imperiled by the mortgage crisis.

Roski, his firm and employees have contributed more than $1 million in the last five years to California political causes and candidates, including Romero and Padilla.

County Supervisor Gloria Molina, whose district also includes the city, denounced Industry's effort as "an abuse of power," saying that it would use redevelopment money improperly.

"They are not using it to reduce blight," she said. "They are using it to attract a football stadium. . . . Everybody wants an NFL stadium, but I'm not so sure taxpayers should be footing the bill for that."

Molina was joined by county Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, the county's lobbyist, firefighters and others in calling state legislators to voice opposition.

"This is a rip-off," Yaroslavsky said in an interview, explaining his message to legislators.

The bill would have allowed the city of Industry's expiring redevelopment program to be extended for another decade while no longer requiring state review or proof that there is still blight.

Romero said her primary reason for carrying the proposal was the city's promise to build hundreds of units of affordable housing, with or without a stadium.

Supporters had hired a team of high-powered lobbyists, including former state legislators, who pitched the legislation as essential to the plan for affordable apartments.

"It would be great to have a football team once again in Los Angeles County, but it wasn't an issue for me in terms of moving the bill forward," Romero said.

The http://Industrycity of Industry is a 2-mile-wide, 14-mile-long strip of land along the 60 Freeway that is home to industrial parks, scrap yards and strip clubs.

Incorporated in 1957, it has a checkered development history.

One of the city's founders spent three years in federal prison for his role in a kickback and bid-rigging scheme. Roski is a major landowner and builder in Industry.

A spokesman for Roski said the site of the proposed NFL stadium is not within a redevelopment project area, and there is no plan to ask for public funds for the project.

That the bill is being supported at the same time the NFL stadium is being proposed is "coincidental in timing and unrelated in purpose," said John Semcken, a vice president of Roski's Majestic Realty.

Semcken said Majestic has large holdings in the redevelopment area, so it supports helping the city with economic development.

Opponents of Romero's bill say there is no more blight in Industry, so it would be improper to divert money from police and fire services to build streets, sewers, traffic lights and other public works that would primarily serve a stadium and provide commercial development to make the area more attractive to the NFL.

City Manager Phil Iriarte said the proposal by Roski's firm calls for private financing of the stadium, and he does not believe that any redevelopment money spent to enhance the area and its streets would be a deciding factor for the NFL.

NFL staff members have visited the Industry site and met with Roski. Though the nation's No. 2 television market has been without an NFL team since 1995, placing a team in the Los Angeles area is not a top priority, league officials say privately.

Roski, chief executive of Majestic Realty, had partnered with billionaire Philip Anschutz to build Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles, and is a minority owner of the Kings hockey team, Lakers basketball team and Staples Center arena.

Backers plan to seek a parliamentary waiver to revive the legislation.

"There are sufficient concerns that have been raised by folks that we obviously pay a great deal of attention to," Romero said.

http://www.latimes.com/media/thumbnails/mapimage/2008-04/37947626-16210754.gif

Rick Caruso shows off his new world in Glendale http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee192/trolltoast/38180708-23160854.jpg Brian Vander Brug/LATThe developer gives a tour of his dream of luxurious living and consumptive indulgence -- with a ready-made forest trucked in at night.
April 23, 2008

The invitation arrived in a jewel box with a faux diamond garter around it, or maybe a faux diamond necklace.

"A Return to Glamour," said the platinum, beaux-arts card. In the black velvet case was a sprinkle of artificial rose petals.

Rick Caruso, who is remaking Southern California as a constellation of lifestyle centers anchored by Cheesecake Factories, was inviting me to a black tie affair on May 1 -- the grand opening celebration of the Americana at Brand in Glendale.

Even before I could accept the invitation, Caruso e-mailed me to see if I wanted a sneak preview.

I thought he'd never ask.

Caruso greeted me at the entrance on Brand Boulevard one morning last week as dozens of workers put the finishing touches on his $400-million vision of residential and retail nirvana, a project so fantastical it will -- for better or worse -- transform the center of Glendale and blow the adjacent Galleria mall back into the last century.

Caruso was tan and loose as a Rat Packer at a cocktail party, a man who could not be more comfortable in his own skin. He wore pressed slacks and a sharply cut dress shirt, along with a Swiss coffee-colored hard hat that said "the Americana at Brand" on it, with his name underneath. He handed me a hat of my own, with my name already affixed. In Caruso World, details are everything.

He is, of course, the man who gave birth to the Grove at 3rd and Fairfax, a wildly popular, Disneyesque Main Street of chain stores, dancing water and babes in strollers. Rockwellian nostalgia is blended with Pottery Barn modernity at the Grove, and a Sinatra-and-friends soundtrack brings a little bit of Vegas to the party.

Americana is clearly a first cousin of the Grove, except that it's not just a destination, but an address, with 238 apartments and 100 condos (priced from $700,000 to $2.4 million) built into an upscale village Caruso says he modeled on Madison Avenue in New York and Newbury Street in Boston.

The stores include Barneys New York, Juicy Couture, Anthropologie -- the kind of places that will "redefine" the retail experience in Glendale, my guide explained. A two-car trolley will transport shoppers through an undisturbed dream of consumptive indulgence, a movie-set reality dressed up with an 18-screen theater, dancing fountain and massive outdoor crystal chandelier.

"We're trying to re-create urban living, where it's nice and luxurious," Caruso said as we came upon a European-style entryway to the Marc, an apartment building he said is inspired in part by the Four Seasons Resort in Maui. It has a "Caruso Affiliated" symbol blazed into the ground like a medallion. For the busy professional just home from work, he told me, there will be a concierge to answer every need.

"You'd call the Call Center and they'd say, 'Mr. Lopez, how can I help you?' Let's say you want a steak, a Caesar salad and a bottle of wine.' "

All of that would be delivered to my apartment after a massage at the spa and a quick splash in the lap pool.

"Bottom line -- we're operating like a five-star hotel."

We worked our way up to an apartment with a bird's-eye view of Caruso World. From a broad balcony, we took in a perfectly manicured park -- children's play area included -- called the Green. A full-grown sycamore is one of more than 500 trees on the property. You shut down the freeways at night, Caruso explained, and truck in your ready-made forest.

The gold-leaf statuary includes an 18-foot tall replica of "The Spirit of American Youth" from Omaha Beach in France, commemorating the invasion of Normandy, and atop a domed condo stands lady "America" with sword, wreath and eagle.

"This symbolizes for me a lot of my beliefs as to what this country is about," said Caruso.

What's interesting about Caruso's invitation to me was that he knows I've critiqued the Grove as commercial artifice -- the very antithesis of a serendipitous, organic experience in city living. He knows, too, that what he showed me last week is not my cup of tea, and he even joked about dropping the outdoor chandelier on me depending on the drift of this column.

Traffic will be unbearable, I told him. He sloughed it off, saying he paid $7 million for road improvements that will make it work. We'll see about that.

What I like about Caruso is that he is unabashed and unapologetic.

And judging by his success, more of the world shares his taste than mine.

But here's my question: Where do all these shoppers come from? There isn't an unlimited pool of people who can afford places like Americana on Brand or the Grove. So you have to think they're just luring people away from some other shopping spot, including more authentic cityscapes like Larchmont Village or Montrose's Honolulu Avenue.

Caruso has told me he admires those more organic commercial zones, but he is in a very different business. Caruso builds monuments to Western civilization, and while some might find the Americana at Brand a soul-sapping contrivance of nostalgia and patriotism, the masses will undoubtedly flock there.

The truth is that I occasionally go to the Grove, which my daughter loves (though not as much as we both love the adjacent Farmers Market). I could imagine her running across the Green at the Americana too, as I reluctantly surrender my stuffy inhibition, knowing that with several more mega-projects in the works after this one, soon the matter will be indisputable.

It's Caruso's world, and we just live in it.

steve.lopez@latimes.com

Bye, Bye McMansions http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee192/trolltoast/2008-05-mansionization.jpg
"...the maximum residential floor area contained in all buildings and accessory buildings shall not exceed 25 percent of the lot area, except that when the lot is 20,000 square feet or greater, then the residential floor area shall not exceed 20 percent of the lot area or 5,000 square feet, whichever is greater." Curbed LA

Is that only for single family homes? Does anyone even build those anymore in LA?

The same people who don't want to be forced onto mass transit by restricting parking and tolling roads fight to restrict a natural market and cultural phenomena in their neighborhoods. Persians and Armenians with money like big gaudy houses......I say, let'em build.

New $125 Million Studio Planned for Los Angeles Area

By Daniel Taub

May 15 (Bloomberg) -- A $125 million independent movie studio with 14 soundstages and a back lot featuring city and residential streets is being planned for a 37-acre lot in Moorpark, California, a suburb of Los Angeles.

Sound stages at the site, to be called Commonwealth Studios, will range in size from 9,600 square feet to 20,000 square feet, grouped in pairs. The outdoor street sets will be equipped for fire and rain scenes, and the complex will also have office space, a health club, a conference center, a pool and a spa.

Commonwealth Studios will be the largest studio built from the ground up in California since a site once used by ``Our Gang'' producer Hal Roach and now known as CBS Studio Center was developed in Studio City in the 1930s, said John Marshall, an independent producer and one of the site's developers. The new lot will help keep movie and television productions from leaving the Los Angeles area, where filming space is tight, he said.

"It's in fact a reality that people are leaving just because there just isn't any place to shoot here in town,'' Marshall, 60, said in an interview. His screen credits include assistant art director on 1997's "Batman & Robin.''

The complex is being developed by Thousand Oaks, California- based Triliad Development Inc. and financed by Agoura Hills, California-based PEGH Investments, both closely held. The studio will be run by Marshall and Bernard Weitzman, a former executive at Universal Studios, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc., Desilu and Lorimar Pictures, the two men said today in a statement.

Ground Breaking

Marshall and Weitzman, 85, said they plan to break ground on the site in April 2009, with construction likely taking 18 months. The two are meeting next week with movie studios, production companies and individuals interested in leasing all or parts of Commonwealth Studios once it's built, Marshall said.

The location was chosen because many entertainment-industry production workers live in nearby Simi Valley, and the site is about a half-hour drive, without traffic, from the Universal Studios and Warner Bros. lots, Marshall said.

"It's the most affordable site with the least amount of time to reach,'' he said. "I have to educate people that Moorpark is not the dark side of the moon.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Daniel Taub in Los Angeles at dtaub@bloomberg.net.

^^ I heard about this a couple of weeks ago. Needs some more approvals though.

Survey Says LA is 4th Best City by Design in America http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee192/trolltoast/40586833la.jpgi.pbase.com

In some sort of poll/survey conducted by architecture firm RMJM Hiller, Los Angeles has been named the fourth best city by design in the US (meaning, the city taken as a whole is put together well which makes our quality of life bearable). Number 1 on the list is Chicago. Lame.

"In this survey, only manufactured design was considered—natural advantages such as rolling hills or soaring mountains were discounted. Schubert says that Los Angeles was able to beat out more traditionally green cities like Portland, San Francisco, and Denver thanks to its aggressive new green initiatives and because of its attempts to reduce existing urban sprawl and create a denser city center."
Also beating LA were Boston (#3) and New York (#2). LA gets special attention for its green building ordinance. Curbed LA

^^ no surprise here. Although I find it hard to believe that Chicago is #1. I would definitely put New York as #1...and by far!

^^ no surprise here. Although I find it hard to believe that Chicago is #1. I would definitely put New York as #1...and by far!


New York is just big. Chicago is actually the best designed city in the country. Most of the lake is reserved for public recreation. Cultural facilities tend to be centralized. Fairly decent public transportation. The best looking expressway in the country (Lake Shore Drive). Most of the city is a grid with numerous diagonal streets to ease movement. Generous parks spread all over the city. Chicago was able to be designed because of the fire. Daniel Burnham's plan for the city is one of the best thought out plans for development of a major city. Chicago was planned. New York and Los Angeles happened.

Developer returns luster to L.A. landmarkshttp://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee192/trolltoast/41144074.jpg
Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times
Wayne Ratkovich in the lobby of his latest Los Angeles restoration project: renovation of the 30-story tower at 5900 Wilshire Blvd.
Wayne Ratkovich's restoration projects have helped change the attitude of the local real estate industry
By Roger Vincent, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
July 22, 2008
Developer Wayne Ratkovich had little idea 30 years ago when he and his partners bought an unwanted office building in downtown Los Angeles that a forgotten gem lay waiting.

The office market at the time was hot for glass and steel towers, and to hell with the old piles such as the Art Deco-style James Oviatt Building. The former UCLA football player in his 30s wasn't sure exactly what "Art Deco" encompassed.

What he uncovered was an architectural treasure that he proceeded to bring back to life. He profitably restored its Roaring '20s grandeur, and today the building at 617 S. Olive St. is home to many tenants including the retro-glam Cicada restaurant.

Once hooked on rescuing fading stars from the city's past, Ratkovich went on to revive several others including the landmark Deco-style Wiltern Theater and the elaborately decorated Fine Arts Building. His latest project is across Wilshire Boulevard from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Nearly complete, it is the resuscitation of a distressed 1970s skyscraper -- with a strictly 2008 front porch on its way.

Ratkovich's success also helped change the attitude of the local real estate industry, which had assumed for decades that newer buildings were always more profitable than old ones and cavalierly razed many of downtown's greatest buildings from earlier eras.

"Wayne and a few others including Ira Yellin showed us something that was right here under our noses. His projects helped bring people back to the traditional urban areas of Los Angeles," said competitor Dan Rosenfeld, who helped restore the frequently filmed Bradbury office building downtown that played a central role in the 1982 hit "Blade Runner."

Ratkovich is regarded as one of the pioneers along with Yellin and Gene Summers, setting the tone for sophisticated restorations of historic buildings in L.A. starting in the 1980s, even when it wasn't always profitable. Developer Tom Gilmore revved up the market again early in this decade with his successful conversions of old downtown office buildings to apartments.

Ratkovich's work earned him frequent accolades, but also proved humbling. Two large-scale projects in a row in the 1980s -- restorations of the Wiltern Theater building and Chapman Market in the Wilshire Center neighborhood -- were financial flops.

His company is private and finances are confidential, but Ratkovich acknowledges losing millions of dollars on those ventures even though the properties built in the 1920s and '30s were widely considered to be beautifully restored.

The losses were wrenching, yet Ratkovich successfully redeveloped several other projects including the Fine Arts Building downtown, the former C.F. Braun & Co. office campus in Alhambra and, most recently, a Wilshire Boulevard high-rise in Los Angeles built in the early 1970s that had lost its luster. Renovation of the 30-story tower at 5900 Wilshire is still underway, but improvements have already attracted several new tenants including the venerable entertainment industry trade publication Variety.

"Development is like oil wildcatting or farming," he said. "There are some good years and some that aren't so good."

Many of downtown's older buildings had already been knocked down when Ratkovich bought the Oviatt Building in 1977 because they were considered obsolete. A similar fate was perhaps in store for the Oviatt, which the Los Angeles Archdiocese wanted to sell after receiving title in a parishioner's will. Ratkovich acquired the former department store turned office tower for $450,000 and spent about $5 million to restore it before selling it for $13.5 million.

"That changed us," said Ratkovich, founder and president of Ratkovich Co. of Los Angeles. "We moved into the urban marketplace."

The 13-story Oviatt was one of the most sensational local buildings in an age when owners spent lavishly to distinguish their properties. A haberdasher to the city's elite and a dedicated Francophile, builder James Oviatt had persuaded the great French art glass craftsman Rene Lalique to make the Oviatt Building his first commercial project.

Lalique's etched glass work was found throughout the structure, from the entrance doors to the windows of Oviatt's deluxe personal penthouse and rooftop garden, which once included a small pool, tennis court, putting green and "beach" with sand imported from the Riviera.

Ratkovich grew up in less-glamorous circumstances. He was the youngest of six children born to immigrants from Serbia who settled in Alhambra soon after he was born. The family later moved east a few miles in the San Gabriel Valley. Ratkovich graduated from La Puente High School before attending UCLA on a football scholarship in the late 1950s and early 1960s. At 6 feet, 3 inches tall, he played end on both offense and defense.

Like many of his peers, Ratkovich was caught up in the spirit of President John F. Kennedy's call for a "New Frontier," and the political science major settled on the idea of becoming a real estate developer. He could help build better cities, he reasoned -- and hopefully make a good living, perhaps even get rich, in the process.

"I was very naive and didn't know what I was talking about," Ratkovich said.

After a brief stint in the Army and eight years learning the business at a large real estate brokerage, Ratkovich took off in 1972 to form a partnership with an industrial developer.

By the 1970s, however, the economy was in a doldrums and there wasn't much demand for new buildings. Renovating the Oviatt Building seemed a good way to land some business, but it ended up leading to his new specialty as an urban developer.

Ratkovich "certainly has had his challenges doing these projects but he believes in them, and overall they've been successful," said architect Brenda Levin, who has worked on several of them with him. Where others saw decrepit, obsolete buildings, Ratkovich saw opportunity and was willing to take a risk, she said.

One of the bigger risks was to put a top-drawer restaurant on the ground floor of the Oviatt. Yet Rex Il Ristorante was a glamorous success that lured limousines to a dodgy stretch of Olive Street. http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee192/trolltoast/PrettyWoman-JuliaRoberts-008-2.gif
sugarysweetandeverythingnice.blogspot
When the wealthy lawyer played by Richard Gere took Julia Roberts to a fancy dinner in 1990's smash movie "Pretty Woman," he took her to the Rex. More recently, scenes from the movie "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" and the television show "Mad Men" were filmed in the restaurant now known as Cicada.
Ratkovich remains committed to restoring the urban cores of L.A. and other cities as a developer and officer of the Urban Land Institute, a real estate think tank and trade group.

"Our strategy is to rescue," he said, "to take over challenged buildings and make them better."

roger.vincent@latimes.com LATIMES

Hotel Development Grows Despite Economy
By Bob Howard Last updated: July 29, 2008 07:30am

IRVINE, CA-The slowing economy is not deterring bullish hotel developers in California, according to a new study of the state's year-to-date hotel development trends. The study, by Irvine-based Atlas Hospitality Group, shows that developers opened 4,500 hotel rooms in the that in the first half of this year, nearly four times as many as they did during the first half of 2007.
Along with the increase in the number of rooms that are opening, the number of rooms under construction in the state is rising too. It climbed more than 14% overall in the state to 14,070 rooms for the first half of this year, with that statewide figure representing an increase of 26% to 9,971 rooms in Southern California and a decrease of 7% to 4,098 rooms in Northern California.

One of the most dramatic jumps in rooms under construction is in Los Angeles County, where the number has leaped 241% to a total of 4,558 rooms in 25 hotels in the first half of this year. That compared with 13 hotels totaling 1,336 rooms under construction in the first half of 2007. One reason for the new construction in L.A. is that Los Angeles is one of the strongest hotel markets in the country, according to Alan Reay, president of Atlas.

The new openings in Los Angeles County for the first six months of the year included the 100‐room Hampton Inn & Suites in Burbank, the 94‐room Holiday Inn Express in Hollywood and the 36‐room Palihouse Holloway in West Hollywood. In Orange County, two new hotels have opened: the 174‐room Renaissance ClubSport Aliso Viejo and the 110‐room Hampton Inn & Suites in Seal Beach, compared to no new hotel openings in the first half of 2007.

The Atlas report notes that the “complete collapse of the subprime mortgage market and its huge impact on residential developers” is expected to affect hotel development. “We are going to see a greater supply of affordable land as lenders off‐load their foreclosed inventory at huge discounts,” the report says. “This will make a lot of sites more appealing and affordable to hotel developers, especially in urban markets where they were competing with condo developers,” who have now, pretty much, disappeared from the market. GlobeSt.com

Measure aims to fight traffic by curbing growth in Santa Monica
The ballot measure would halve the rate of commercial construction for 15 years. Meanwhile, the city's proposed general plan suggests capping heights based on buildings' use.
By Martha Groves, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
August 4, 2008
Raising the specter of rampant development and a rising tide of street-choking traffic, a group of Santa Monica residents has begun pressuring friends and neighbors to vote in November for an initiative that would limit commercial construction for 15 years.

Predictably, the Residents' Initiative to Fight Traffic, or RIFT, has created a schism in the city, where the desire to maintain the area's small-town scale and charms often conflicts with the need to create jobs and spur economic gains.

Santa Monica is not alone. November is shaping up to be a pivotal month for cities grappling with growth and traffic. Beverly Hills voters will weigh the merits of a proposed expansion of the Beverly Hilton that would include luxury condos and the West Coast's first Waldorf-Astoria hotel at the busy corner of Wilshire and Santa Monica boulevards.

Redondo Beach residents, meanwhile, will mull two competing measures -- one a citizen-produced initiative and the other sponsored by the City Council -- both of which purport to give residents more say in development and land use matters.

"These [initiatives] are examples of people frustrated with the consequences and trade-offs forced by economic prosperity," said Randall Crane, a professor at UCLA's School of Public Affairs. Proposition 13, the 1978 measure that limited increases in the state's property taxes, "gives local governments no real discretion over their revenues except through land use planning toward commercial, sales-tax-generating development," he said.

"It has really distorted planning for community building, jobs and livability," said Stephanie Pincetl, a researcher at UCLA's Institute of the Environment.

Indeed, Proposition 13 exacerbated the long-standing pressure on elected officials to make development their priority. The constant search for revenue, prosperity and jobs -- in other words, growth -- explains in large part why Southern California looks the way it does: sprawly, congested and polluted. It also explains, Pincetl said, the Los Angeles City Council's initial reluctance to accept Griffith J. Griffith's 1896 gift of Griffith Park: It would take too much land away from development.

Ballot measures intended to control or manage growth typically encounter stiff opposition from the building industry and chambers of commerce. Even when measures succeed, Pincetl said, they are "virtually futile" given the region's multiple jurisdictions and varying needs. Communities "can't control what's going on next door," she said.

But community activists are determined to have a voice in matters that they say affect their quality of life.

"Developers and their friends at City Hall want you to believe that runaway commercial development is good for our city," the measure's backers say in their arguments for the measure. "Big developers make huge profits in our city, while residents get stuck with -- and pay for -- the huge traffic mess they create."

Opponents -- including an odd-bedfellows alliance of businesses, developers, renters' rights advocates, environmentalists, preservationists and the school board president -- kicked off a campaign against the initiative at a rally Wednesday. They say it would limit the city's ability to collect revenue for schools, fire and police departments and other social services and to promote mixed-use projects and transit-oriented development with housing and shopping.

"RIFT is so full of loopholes that the damage it will do to the city will be felt for years to come," said Terry O'Day, co-chair of the opposition campaign and executive director of Environment Now.

The measure would limit new development of offices, hotels and stores to 75,000 square feet a year, about half the current rate. The Santa Monica Coalition for a Livable City, the group behind the measure, said schools, hospitals, low-income housing and other vital community-serving projects would be exempt.

Although the measure's supporters invoke traffic as their key motivator, the initiative does not directly propose solutions to existing traffic problems. Rather, it aims to curb future commercial development that proponents say would exacerbate conditions on the city's already congested streets.
Jeffrey Tumlin, a transportation consultant to the city, said many of the streets are filled to capacity at peak periods. At the city's eastern edge, freeway ramps have become bottlenecks.

For four years, Santa Monica has studied its land use and traffic circulation as part of revamping its general plan, as required by state law every 20 years. In the last year, the city has held more than two dozen workshops and hearings to review proposals and get input from the public.

On Thursday, the City Council endorsed the plan that emerged from the public process. It calls for "no net new trips" -- in other words, no increases in traffic.

The council agreed that most future development should be concentrated around transit centers -- downtown, Bergamot Station and the area around a mid-city park, all of which have been proposed as sites for Expo Line light rail stations. The idea is to reduce traffic by making it easier for residents to use public transit to run errands and go to offices, restaurants and attractions.

Under the proposed general plan, developers could earn approval to exceed height limits if the projects provided low-cost housing and "extensive" public benefits such as parks or transportation improvements.

They would also have to go through a public process after which the council would decide whether to approve any extra height.
For example, on Wilshire Boulevard, developers could extend a 32-foot limit to as high as 55 feet if they satisfied the requirements.

Now, developers can build to 55 feet only if the project is 100% low-cost housing.

Planning director Eileen Fogarty said the council agreed with the Planning Commission that the proposed plan would protect 94% of the city -- in effect, all of the residential neighborhoods -- from development that would be incompatible in character and scale. Extra height would be allowed only in a tiny portion of the city, Fogarty said.

Some council members expressed concern that the proposed plan did not go far enough to reduce heights and densities along key boulevards, including Wilshire and Santa Monica boulevards. Some longtime residents say they dread the potential for "canyonization."

"In general, I think the heights and densities are too intense," said Councilman Ken Genser, a former planning commissioner. On the other hand, he praised the plan's requirement that most development above the first floor be housing.

"We're overbuilt with offices in the city, and housing is a need," he said.

Before the proposed plan can be adopted, it faces months of environmental review and discussion about what benefits new projects would have to provide to win approval for extra height.

Tumlin, the transportation consultant, said neither the ballot measure nor the city's land use and traffic plan could solve the traffic problem on its own.

"To address traffic congestion," he said, "we have to do a lot of things and all at once. . . . The important thing is to put any new development where people can get around without a car."

martha.groves@latimes.com
Los Angeles Times

Santa Monica is gonna get 2 rail lines in the near future and there worried people wont be able to get around because of more development?

Hey "Beat" why are you breaking up with LA? And what's up w/ the "NY" avatar? Boostering?

I'm moving to NYC in October :)

But why?

I'm sorry to hear that, BEAT

I'm moving to NYC in October :)
How terrible! Will you be alright?

geez! You hate to see that ...

I'm moving to NYC in October :)

yeah but why all of the "breakup" stuff and "it's me not you LA"?

Withee Malcolm Architects Design Tierra Del Rey, Oscar de la Hoya's First Golden Boy Partners Community
Thursday August 21, 7:00 am ET

Workforce-priced homes by Metro Housing Partners will open in March 2009 First new planned community in South Gate since 1990

http://www.tierradelreytownhomes.com/TdR_Images/TdR_Entrance_Final.jpg

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 21 /PRNewswire/ -- Golden Boy Partners, the real estate development company formed by Oscar De La Hoya, boxing superstar and founder of Golden Boy Enterprises, focuses on underserved, primarily Latino, urban neighborhoods in Southern California. For the company's first housing venture, Tierra del Rey, De La Hoya and his partner, Metro Housing turned to Withee Malcolm Architects, a design firm recognized for their ability to bring high quality architecture to affordable housing.
ADVERTISEMENT


Tierra del Rey will be comprised of 107 for-sale town homes on five acres located at Firestone Boulevard and Calden Avenue in South Gate, California, a city of approximately 100,000 residents located 12 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles. Designed for working families, the homes will range from 1200 to 1600 square feet, and contain two and three bedrooms with up to three and one-half baths.

The design of the town homes is well-suited to the target market of first time buyers with young families. With two and three bedroom options on three levels, the floor plans offer the possibility of an extra bedroom or den on the first floor, a bonus space that could be used for a grandparent in an extended family. Homes also provide comfortable living spaces, with nine-foot ceilings, walk-in closets, and stylish kitchens.

Borrowing its architectural vocabulary from Mediterranean and Santa Barbara styles, the development will feature stucco exteriors, tile roofs and private balconies. The secure, gated community will offer extensive landscaping and family amenities including two pocket parks with playgrounds, barbecues and sun shelters. Many of the homes will offer views of the downtown Los Angeles skyline.

"Our goal is to provide new housing for current residents of South Gate, and to offer an opportunity for young people to purchase homes near their families and become residents of the community where they grew up," says Larry Scott, President of Metro Housing Partners, the community's developer. De La Hoya concurs, "Tierra del Rey realizes our vision for urban redevelopment that supports the dreams and aspirations of the people who live in underserved communities like South Gate."

Withee Malcolm, with numerous successful workforce housing projects in their portfolio, shares the development team's belief in the power of quality housing to help build strong communities. "We know that families don't think of their homes as housing, and we don't think of our work as projects, but as communities," says Dan Withee, firm principal. "That's why we take the time to create the high quality, workforce housing."

"Budgets are more restrictive, but we add value with an inventive design approach -- using common materials in uncommon ways, paying attention to scale and detail," adds Dirk Thelen, Withee Malcolm's design architect for the project. "We provide more than architecture; we create a sense of possibility."

"Despite the substantial slowdown in the suburban housing markets, we strongly believe there is a continued shortage of urban housing alternatives for working families in Los Angeles and Orange Counties, and we are focusing our initial efforts on developing housing for that deserving demographic," pointed out Scott. "By providing housing for working families, at the same time we will be revitalizing many of the Southland's older, established urban communities."

The developers and their architects couldn't be more in synch as De La Hoya concludes, "Golden Boy Partners is not just about real estate development. It is about building communities and changing lives."

Withee Malcolm Architects serves clients in the residential and commercial industrial markets throughout the West from offices in Los Angeles and San Diego. For more information on the firm visit their website at http://www.witheemalcolm.com

For additional information on the development: http://www.tierradelreytownhomes.com or http://www.metrohousingpartners.com

A smart bill for smart growth in California is on the verge of passage in Legislature
George Skelton, Capitol Journal
August 21, 2008 SACRAMENTO -- Shorter commutes. Less sprawl. Cleaner air.

Denser housing closer to downtown near transportation hubs.

"Smart growth" it's called.

California policy makers have been yakking about this -- dreaming about it -- for decades. But too many interests have been prospering from dumb growth or have merely been skittish of a future they can't quite visualize.

Enter a tenacious policy wonk with roots in local government: state Sen. Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento). He has just managed to finesse to the verge of legislative passage a visionary smart growth bill that, by its nature, also fights global warming. It has been a two-year struggle, fought mostly under the media radar while budget chaos crippled the Capitol.

It helps, of course, that Steinberg, 48, has been selected by Democrats to be the next Senate leader. He is carrying serious clout. An official Senate vote is expected today electing Steinberg as president pro tem when the next Legislature convenes in December.

A former city councilman and assemblyman, Steinberg is into substance, not sound bites. And his legislating style is a throwback that succeeds.

"It's a gift anymore to have a legislator who can really dig into a complex issue and be able to mete out a fair deal -- the stuff that people used to do up here that make things work," says Ed Manning, a lobbyist for the building industry, which supports the Steinberg bill after negotiating a compromise.

"When you look at the scope of the bill, it's pretty significant."

The measure (SB 375) links regional planning for housing and transportation with California's new greenhouse gas reduction goal (AB 32) enacted in 2006. The goal is to reduce greenhouse emissions to the 1990 level by 2020. That's a 30% cut from projected emissions.

"One issue everyone has been afraid to touch is land use," Steinberg says. "Everyone understands about using alternative fuel. But land use has been the third rail. AB 32 changed the equation because now land use has to be part of the solution to global warming. You can't meet our goal just with alternative fuels. You have to reduce the number of vehicle miles traveled.

"If people are going to drive -- and they are going to drive -- we need to plan in ways to get them out of their cars faster. That means shrinking -- not the amount of housing, not economic development, not growth -- but shrinking the footprint on which that growth occurs."

Steinberg wants it to occur within a smaller circle around downtown.

Basically the bill would work like this: Each metropolitan region would adopt a "sustainable community strategy" to encourage compact development. They'd mesh it with greenhouse emissions targets set by the California Air Resources Board, which is charged with commanding the state's fight against global warming.

And this is the key part: Transportation projects that were part of the community plan would get first dibs on the annual $5 billion in transportation money disbursed by Sacramento. (Projects approved before 2010 would be funded under the current system.)

Another biggie: Residential home-builders would be granted relief from much of the environmental red tape for projects within the community plan.

Local governments also would be required to expedite zoning and allow the builders to actually build.

"We needed to create more certainty," Manning says.

He adds that builders decided they'd rather help plan the strategy for the war on global warming than just wait for the state air board to act unilaterally.

Environmentalists had the same attitude.
"It's a watershed moment for the environmental community," Tom Adams, board president of the California League of Conservation Voters, told the Assembly Local Government Committee on Tuesday as the panel approved the bill. "We realized we had to encourage growth, but growth in the right location. Otherwise, we'd get growth anyway, but in the wrong location."

Adams calls the measure "the most important land-use bill in California since enactment of the Coastal Act" three decades ago.

"Emissions from cars and light trucks are the largest single source of greenhouse gas in California," he continues. "We will never be able to achieve our climate goals unless we locate housing closer to jobs. The number of miles that people drive is increasing almost twice as fast as the population growth."

It's an unusual coalition: environmentalists and home-builders.

Cities and counties also support the bill. They gain extended planning time for housing.

But Steinberg couldn't reach deals with every interest, and there is still opposition from commercial property owners, the transportation lobby and manufacturers. They all want the same environmental streamlining deal that home-builders got.

"We're moderately opposed," says Jack Stewart, president of the California Manufacturers and Technology Assn.

Steinberg says the bill can be tweaked next year. Time has run out for this legislative session.

The bill is on the Assembly floor and, if passed as expected, must return to the Senate for approval of amendments. No Republican voted for the measure when it first passed the Senate last year before substantial amending. It requires only a simple majority vote.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger hasn't taken a position on the bill. But since global warming has become his pet issue, it's hard to imagine him vetoing the measure. Anyway, it would be a lousy way to begin a relationship with the next Senate leader.

The governor can think about it this way: Los Angeles would probably be a lot more livable today if this law had been passed 50 years ago.george.skelton@latimes.com Los Angeles Times

I'm moving to NYC in October :)

Hey, I moved from LA to NYC 3weeks ago. Bye Bye LAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!! It alot better out here so far.

Werd you get tired of LA (and even NYC) after awhile but its funny because when it comes down to it nowhere else really matters lol. believe me now that im in TX!!

Boo bye, westsidestory. Don't get into any prancing knife fights

Big Bucks Buildup

Public projects dominating L.A.’s construction landscape http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee192/trolltoast/719214781_5d1adbaae5.jpg juy_socal/Flickr

By CHARLES PROCTOR
Los Angeles Business Journal Staff
The economy may be down and the price of construction materials may be up, but Los Angeles builders are about as busy as ever.

For the second straight year, there are 50 projects valued at $100 million or more under way in Los Angeles County, as shown by the Business Journal’s annual survey of construction in the county. Four years ago there were only 11 such projects.

Although private-sector construction is hitting a rough patch, builders can thank voters who years ago approved funding for massive public-sector projects, and hundreds of millions of dollars in government subsidies for infrastructure improvements.

Many of the big public projects are schools that are part of a $19 billion, multiyear effort to refurbish and replace the Los Angeles Unified School District’s aging campuses. Three others are freeway projects funded by the state and federal governments.

It’s a trend that builders say they have seen before: In an economic downturn, government-funded projects come to the fore, as the money is usually set aside years in advance.

“When things get slow in the economy, the public side kicks in,” said Kevin Dow, vice president and manager at the regional office of New York-based Turner Construction Co., which this year broke ground on two LAUSD campuses with a combined value of $218 million.

Among the new public projects is the $391 million Central Los Angeles Learning Center on Wilshire Boulevard, being built by Colorado-based Hensel Phelps Construction Co. The campus will serve more than 4,000 students at the site of the old Ambassador Hotel. The sprawling complex is slated to open in 2010, and will include a public park and three separate school buildings.
Road work

Three new highway projects with a total value of over $470 million also broke ground this year across Los Angeles County. Two of the projects will add carpool lanes to parts of the Golden State (5) Freeway, and the Pomona (60) Freeway. The third is a repaving project along nine miles of the Long Beach (710) Freeway.

“All of these projects are helping to stimulate the economy and provide needed improvement for our infrastructure,” said Jeanne Bonfilio, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Transportation. “We feel it’s a win-win situation, especially as the economy is in a downturn.”

In fact, public transportation projects took three of the top four slots on the list.

The two biggest projects on the list are the Metro Gold Line across East L.A., at $869 million, and the Expo Light Rail Line, from downtown L.A. to West Los Angeles, at $862 million. The fourth project on the list is the $504 million renovation of the Tom Bradley International Terminal at Los Angeles International Airport.

While several big private-sector projects are being built, many of them were started before the credit crisis hit. And the number of private-sector projects in the future may fall. Lenders are extremely cautious in this environment, and that makes it more challenging for developers to get their ventures financed. “Instead of two years ago when we had one lender ready to jump in, we’re now seeing developers having to rally numerous lenders,” said Michael Bernica, the senior vice president of operations at Webcor Builders Inc.
“A lot of our livelihood in this next year, as compared to two years ago, is going to depend on the lenders.”
Bernica said the problems with the economy haven’t significantly impacted Webcor’s largest projects, such as the $478 million LA Live complex downtown and the Century luxury condominium tower in Century City. But it’s different for the company’s smaller projects.

“I almost want to say they’re on life support,” Bernica said.

The rising cost of construction material, which has been an ongoing issue, hasn’t helped. Material prices, already up, are expected to increase 4 percent in 2008 as demand rises in developing countries. Also to blame are the volatility of the commodities market and the weak dollar, according to Reed Construction Data.
Waiting for turnaround

Developers and builders alike are waiting for the situation to turn around so private projects can move forward.

Among them are the first phase of the $1.8 billion Grand Avenue project, the $1 billion Park Fifth condo tower downtown, and a slew of multimillion-dollar groundbreakings for and expansions of hotels and condos across the county.

“They have to be able to get investors,” said Dow of Turner. “I don’t know what will trigger that, but it will take some sort of movement in the economy.”

The construction boom hasn’t translated favorably to the job market. Construction jobs in the county in July totaled 149,700, a decrease of almost 7 percent from the same time last year, according to data from the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp.

The job losses can be traced to the depressed housing market, which drove down demand among home builders. However, the impact was lessened because public works jobs increased and nonresidential construction jobs didn’t register a steep decline.

“A lot of public-sector projects always take a long time to get going,” said Jack Kyser, LAEDC’s chief economist. “But once they do, that will provide a little bit of a cushion this year and into 2009.”

Kyser predicted that public projects would buoy the construction market even more next year.

“It’s very tough out there, and a lot of people think that private-sector construction is going to continue to struggle to find financing into 2009,” he said. “You’re probably going to see more public-sector projects on the list next year.” Los Angeles Business Journal

Seeing red at the Pacific Design Center http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee192/trolltoast/ralphiemagcomnnnn.jpgralphiemag.com
The third building on the West Hollywood site, to be sheathed in near-scarlet glass, begins to rise.
By Roger Vincent, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 25, 2008
As construction workers laid steel posts from which a bright red building will rise at the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood, architect Cesar Pelli inspected the progress and talked about how buildings had changed since the great Blue Whale first went up in the 1970s.

Even the new structure's color -- a blaring, fire-engine red -- would have been a shock in those days, when most buildings were modernist and spare.

The rounded Blue Whale, as it is popularly known, came first in 1975, followed by a green neighbor in 1988. Now work is underway on the long-planned third piece, a sleek structure clad in shimmering red glass.

The first two buildings at the design center were unusual enough for their times, Pelli said, with their wild, post-modern configurations and potent hues, so it's probably best that this building was saved for last. The unusually shaped, intensely colored building would have been galling to many during the Cold War, when "red" was a synonym for communism, he said.

"This would have been impossible in the 1970s because of the political implications of the color," Pelli said. "Red is wonderful, though."

And back then, China -- or Red China as it was often called -- wouldn't have been able to produce the high-end insulated windows that will cover the building in a red sheath. "Nobody would have thought the Chinese could have competed at making glass when we did the blue and green buildings," the architect said.

Pelli, whose designs include the skyscraper Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, was also in town to examine a 30-foot model of how the glass skin will look when the eight-story Red Building is complete. The mock-up, he said, was "a piece of reality to make sure everything is right before we go ahead."

The red glass curtain wall enveloping the $160-million edifice on San Vicente Boulevard just south of Santa Monica Boulevard will be the most complex of the three at the Pacific Design Center, owner Charles Steven Cohen said. "It will have thousands of pieces of glass that are all different sizes," he said.

Work on the foundation is well underway, Cohen said, and the building should be ready for occupancy by August 2010. Unlike the blue and green structures, which were built to be showrooms for the interior design trade, the Red Building will be offices only. Cohen, a New York developer and landlord, hopes to attract tenants in creative fields -- and they must like red.

"We spent a great deal of time with the glass manufacturers making them do it again and again," said Pelli, who declared he was finally satisfied with the color, even though it had no official name. "It's a very beautiful red," he said, "close to scarlet."

roger.vincent@latimes.com

^^ I actually don't like those buildings and they're going to add another ugly one...

^^ I actually don't like those buildings and they're going to add another ugly one...

I'm not a big fan either. With the massive amount of land they take up, they really disrupt what is otherwise a very pedestrian-friendly section of the city.

I like those a lot.

The Red Building
http://www.red-building.com/

You'd think the design for a design center would look better...

http://la.curbed.com/archives/2008/10/big_wetherly_project_will_take_out_a_few_residences.php#reader_comments



Meet the Wetherly Project, a very large development planned for a swath of land around S. Wetherly Drive and Almont Drive, right near the Four Seasons Hotel. According to city planning documents (the project is in the environmental impact report stage), the development "would demolish 84 existing apartment and condominium units in seven buildings and construct approximately 132 condominium units in one 16-story building (208 feet tall) and eight townhouse units in a three-story building (35 feet tall)." And 350 parking spaces will go in a subterranean parking structure, too. That big building in the rendering is the 16-story tower, but it's not immediately clear where the smaller three-story building is. If you're one of those who would lose their home over this, we hope there's a big buyout awaiting you. Oh, and the architect is Nadel Architects and they are looking for LEED Silver certification on the building.
· The Wetherly Project [City Planning Dept]

132 condominium units in one 16-story building (208 feet tall)


^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I don't like this one much. Low rise Weho is what its character has become and I'm not opposed to that. This just seems out of scale with the area. Perhaps even if it was that tall but it needs a different design, this isn't Miami.

More Details About Eli Broad's Beverly Hills Museum


http://la.curbed.com/archives/2008/12/more_details_about_eli_broads_beverly_hills_museum.php

Earthquake drill finds weaknesses in steel high-rises http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee192/trolltoast/kla4067a.jpg
Simulation of a massive Southern California quake suggests about 5 such buildings would collapse. But many engineers say other buildings are riskier and should receive priority in retrofit plans.

January 2, 2009
Modern steel buildings have long been considered among the most sturdy in the event of a major earthquake. But a model of a massive quake in Southern California has sparked debate among scientists and engineers over whether these structures are more vulnerable than previously thought.
http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee192/trolltoast/kla4067abc.jpg
The Great Southern California ShakeOut, the nation's largest quake drill, suggested that about five high-rise steel buildings in the region would collapse in the modeled magnitude 7.8 quake.

High-rise steel buildings sustained less damage than unreinforced brick buildings and older concrete buildings in the analysis. But the damage they sustained was greater than expected based on the standard building design formulas.
http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee192/trolltoast/kla4067abcd.jpg
"It has huge implications," said Lucile Jones, a U.S. Geological Survey seismologist who served as chief scientist for the ShakeOut project. "When these types of buildings collapse, we could have 1,000 people in them. That's something to worry about."

The findings come 14 years after the Northridge earthquake, which exposed weaknesses in some older steel buildings.

Jones said she hopes that policymakers will use the results of the November drill as they develop guidelines for retrofitting existing buildings and set standards for new buildings. But not everyone finds the ShakeOut scenario so worrisome.

Luke Zamperini, principal inspector for the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety, said the scenario is interesting but doesn't necessarily demand action.

He was not convinced that an earthquake of that size would cause any steel high-rises to collapse.

"It's hypothetical," Zamperini said. Changing building codes "is based on forensics, on what we've seen happen. Engineers are not willing to make changes on what people theorize might happen."

Standard building design formulas rely on the average effects of earthquakes recorded worldwide, said Swaminathan Krishnan, an assistant professor of civil engineering and geophysics at Caltech who led the modeling. But information on earthquakes the size of the one modeled -- a magnitude 7.8 on the San Andreas fault -- is sparse, he said.

Simulations of this size became possible only in recent years, thanks to supercomputers that also allowed scientists to feed in specific geological and topographical details for Southern California.

The model produced a lot of long, rolling ground motions in the Los Angeles Basin that are problematic for tall steel buildings, especially those built before the 1994 Northridge earthquake.

That quake exposed problems in a type of welding technique that had been popular for several decades. A Federal Emergency Management Agency study of 185 steel-frame buildings in the San Fernando Valley showed that two-thirds had damaged welds after the temblor.

About half of the damaged welds were cracked and the rest had more serious defects. Eleven percent of the buildings sustained damage to more than 10% of their connecting welds, which are critical to the buildings' structural integrity.

Krishnan estimated that across Southern California there are about 150 of the kinds of buildings that sometimes had problems in the Northridge quake.

Krishnan modeled hypothetical buildings at 784 locations and fed ground motions into the computer. Buildings fell at about 12% of the locations, but none of the collapses in his model matched up to the actual locations of tall buildings.

Because the actual buildings are close to the model's collapse zones, Krishnan recommended that emergency planners prepare for eight collapses. Standard formulas would have expected zero.

"I think this is a big difference," Krishnan said. "The building codes have not assumed for ground motions as strong as these."

A panel of structural engineers reviewing Krishnan's results told the Geological Survey they considered "one or more" collapses to be more realistic.

After debate, the ShakeOut authors compromised by estimating five collapses.

Thomas Heaton, a Caltech professor of civil engineering who was not involved in the modeling, said he was glad the ShakeOut brought attention to steel buildings.

"Our building codes have served us extremely well, but sometimes the public gets the general idea that with modern buildings, there are no problems," he said. "Well, the truth of the matter is, there's a lot of work to do."

Ronald Hamburger, a former president of the Structural Engineers Assn. of California who was part of the review committee, agreed that the collapse of a few steel high-rises in such an earthquake was likely, but he, like many structural engineers, worried about focusing too much on the steel high-rises.

"There are the hundreds of other buildings that are going to collapse," he said. "It's much easier and financially doable to fix the other buildings than figure out which five steel buildings collapse.

"Given the total inventory of buildings that exist in California today, high-rise steel-frame buildings are still among the safest buildings we have," Hamburger said.

Despite the debate, Jones said she's happy that the process has produced more consensus among scientists and engineers that an earthquake of this kind would bring down tall buildings.

"Just waiting to see what falls down and prohibiting it . . . means we have to kill people before we say, 'Build it that way,' " she said.

"As scientists, we would prefer to find a way of incorporating the knowledge we have into the process."
jia-rui.chong@latimes.com photo kla4067 Jia-Rui Chong L O S A N G E L E S T I M E S

^^Milky you mispelled Los Angeles at the bottom. That is unacceptable:bash:

hjahahahahhahahahaa

way to fucking go Milky. :)

I like how he chopped that picture up though

The most incredible article ever!

Hammer Forum
Reinventing Los Angeles: Easing Sprawl, Growth, and Gridlock

Kenneth Small http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee192/trolltoast/kennethsmall-1.jpg http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee192/trolltoast/2005-12-suburban_sprawl-3.jpg http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee192/trolltoast/stefanospolyzoides-1.jpg Stefanos Polyzoides
Aside from palm trees and movie stars, Los Angeles also has a reputation for epic traffic congestion, endless suburbs, and smog. Is there a utopian antidote to this dystopian reality? What are the root problems, and how can design address them? Two experts help us envision the path to a livable, sustainable Los Angeles. Stefanos Polyzoides’s career covers the theory and practice of architecture and urban design. He is especially interested in new urbanism, transit-oriented development, mixed use development, and sustainability. He is a partner in the firm Moule & Polyzoides. Kenneth Small is a professor of economics at UC Irvine, and specializes in urban, transportation, an environmental economics. Recent research topics include urban highway congestion and the effects of fuel-efficiency standards, public-transit pricing, and fuel taxes. He served as an editor of the journals Transportation Research and Urban Studies.


Hammer Forum: This ongoing series of timely, thought-provoking events addresses current social and political issues. Moderated by Ian Masters—journalist, commentator, author, screenwriter, documentary filmmaker, and the host of the radio program Background Briefing on KPFK 90.7FM.

Public programs are made possible by a major gift from Ann and Jerry Moss.

Additional support is provided by Laura Donnelley, Bronya and Andrew Galef, and the Hammer Programs Committee. HAMMER/UCLA

Interesting. That picture with all of those little houses looks like nothing in the City of LA primarily the urban core. I take it that they are referring to the entirety of the metro area but aren't almost all US metro areas sprawling? And isn't it a fact that LA's metro area doesn't even sprawl as much as the NY Metro or even Chicago? So are they referring to the City of LA or to the metro area? MSA or CSA? And wouldn't this be applied to every US metro area especially those in Texas and Florida?

vegas sprawl is the most amazing to me. houses as far as the eye can see and no ocean to stop them on any side of the metro

I was thinking the EXACT same thing klam...

Interesting. That picture with all of those little houses looks like nothing in the City of LA primarily the urban core. I take it that they are referring to the entirety of the metro area but aren't almost all US metro areas sprawling? And isn't it a fact that LA's metro area doesn't even sprawl as much as the NY Metro or even Chicago? So are they referring to the City of LA or to the metro area? MSA or CSA? And wouldn't this be applied to every US metro area especially those in Texas and Florida?

You're absolutely right. I don't see how LA's sprawl is any worse than that of any other city in the United States.

Just look down fom space. I have. You'll see that the Los Angeles CSA :ohno: is its own singular entity and at night you can clearly define its perimeter. Chicago spreads out very far but is looser and not as dense. New York's CSA is actually merged by cities in Connecticut, New Jersey and, amazingly, Pennsylvania! (According to the government) But, this is a discussion for City-Data. Las Vegas is a very small, bright point of light by compare. Yep. All bullshit flies right out the window when you look down from above :)

^^ of course vegas is much smaller, but they had a great chance to contain the city in a tighter, denser fashion... and they don't even have the major earthquakes that we get (besides small tremors).

Housing companies like 'BROAD' are more concerned with how many units you can fit on the land that's purchased. They never care about issues concerning urban density. They want return on the dollar. In Vegas, Summerlin is the prime example.

Well Vegas is kinda done growing out now. They can only go a little bit farther up into the foothills in North Vegas and parts to the east. Everything else is pretty built up, right milque?

I think after that happens, city planners will have to make a decision to either densify in the downtown and Strip area or extend the city over the mountains somehow. By looking at how Vegas originally grew, they'll find some way to sprawl even more.

Well if LA can fill all the cracks between hills and smaller mountains, then I guess Las Vegas can too. You are right though, the areas you mention are really the only areas it has left to expand into, and then it has to start squeezing its way between hills and such.

I went to the "reinventing LA" discussion and the two panelists were well aware that LA is the densest urbanized area in the US. But they explained that sprawl means a bunch of different things. LA is still "sprawling" because it is not centralized, because the jobs are 'sprawled' across the entire metro. If we had the mass transit system of tokyo or London it would be no problem, but because we are a relatively new city in the car-obsessed USA, we had no real chance to develop a comprehensive rail system. The red car system really wasn't what people think it was--it ran primarily at-grade with no separation from auto traffic. Buses were a legitimate improvement in many ways. Both of the panelists believed the only hope for LA involves people going less places, living more locally. Building transit can help, but it will take 100 years or so until we really have anything that compares to the convenience of private autos.

We do not need to get everyone off the freeways, just enough until the traffic is not much of an issue. I do not think that takes 100 years.

^^I think more specifically we need people off the freeways for local, daily trips, which ought to include going to work. Freeways/highways/what have you were intended for long distance travel, not for your dentist appointment and groceries. Dweebo2220 alluded to this in his summary of the panel discussion. Freeways would also do well, once we get local traffic off of them by increased mass transit use and pedestrian-friendly living/working arrangements, to be repurposed to include more multi-modal transportation (a la bike lanes and centerline light rail and whatnot), discussed in this article, taken from Brand Avenue (http://brandavenue.typepad.com/brand_avenue/2009/01/interstate-redux.html)

Interstate Redux

I always pay attention to what Metropolis' Karrie Jacobs says, and her most recent column is especially good. It advocates a complete rethink of our Interstate highways, suggesting that we might look back one day and marvel about the days when these massive, sprawl-inducing, city-reorienting transportation corridors supported only one mode of transport:

...It’s time for us to look at the interstate system not as an aging network of highways in need of repair or replacement but instead as we might look at a navigable river. Congressman Earl Blumenauer, of Portland, Oregon, a noted infrastructure advocate, says the system represents “a tremendous national untapped resource.” It encompasses a lot of land. Funds were appropriated at the outset for the purchase of two million acres; according to one estimate, the system actually takes up 40 acres per mile, or 1.87 million acres. But what if we could make those highways beautiful, not by removing bill boards, as Lady Bird Johnson did in the 1960s, but by using the corridors for more than moving cars and trucks? What if we thought of them as the backbone of a new, more diverse 21st-century transportation system? “It’s time for a different vision, Blumenauer says. “And a principle for that is how we coax more out of existing resources.”


One obvious idea would be to integrate highways with new rail lines running down their rights-of-way:

...Obviously, the interstate, with its generous rights-of-way, is a prime spot for new rail lines, both high-speed intercity trains and commuter rail. In the Bay Area, BART trains to outlying suburbs often run in the median strip. The same is true in Chicago and Blumenauer’s Portland. There are similar plans all over the country, including one for a Midwest system that would use high-speed trains and commuter rail to link major cities in nine states; and a scheme in Colorado to run high-speed rail along I-25 and I-70. The recently opened New Mexico Rail Runner connects Santa Fe and Albuquerque along an interstate corridor. It makes sense that rail would go where the people are, and over the last half century, people have settled along highways. But while there are many regional rail projects around the country, there is no national plan. As Shelley Poticha, president and CEO of Reconnecting America, a transit-advocacy group, points out, “One thing that would need to change is we would have to ask the federal government to think in an integrated, interdisciplinary way.” In layman’s terms: the highway planners and the rail planners would have to be in the same room.
The highway corridor of the future also lends itself to the integration of energy lines, particularly as our automobiles, and what powers them, changes:

Maybe the interstate system has a role to play in remaking our energy infrastructure. On RepowerAmerica.org, an offshoot of the Al Gore–inspired We Campaign, you can find the argument for building a “smart grid,” a new, unified national system for distributing electricity that would incorporate far-flung power sources, such as wind farms and individual rooftop solar arrays, and apportion them efficiently. It’s described as “an interstate highway system for electricity.” I initially assumed that that was a metaphor, just as the Internet used to be thought of as the information superhighway. Then I read a bit further and came across this: “These power lines can be above ground, buried underground, under freeway medians—there are many options.”

Again, the real interstate is a network linking our population centers, and if a new grid needs to be built, it might make sense to piggyback on those well-defined corridors. The proposed smart grid presumes that we’ll soon have “a massive national fleet of clean plug-in cars.” Plug-in hybrids will be capable of two-way “vehicle to grid” exchanges. You’ll plug them in to charge them, but they will also store power that the grid can draw on dur ing the day, when you’re not driving. A park-and-ride lot then becomes a de facto electrical substation. New rail lines will require electricity and could, if hybrid technology is put to work, conceivably generate electricity and participate in a novel give-and-take approach to power. Additionally, Blumenauer suggests “using the right-of-way for a solar array, which can allow the electrical needs of the highways to be self- generating.” Now you would need the highway planners, rail planners, and energy planners sitting at the same table.


Version 2.0 of the highway cloverleaf--and zooming out in scale, the "edge city" around it--matures into an urban center. Soulless places like Schaumburg, Tysons Corner, and the world of Office Space (below) actually do have a future:

Anyone who has done any long-distance driving harbors deep ambivalence about these provisional places. Yes, they’re specifically designed to allow you to get off the highway, gas up, use the restroom, grab a burger, and continue onward with the fewest possible complications. Some of these interchanges have grown into what Joel Garreau called “edge cities”—dense, traffic-clogged jumbles of shopping centers, offices, and hotels. These asphalt landscapes now rep resent planning ideas so discredited that even commercial developers don’t much care for them.

What I propose is that interchanges become hubs. Maybe you’re parking your hybrid, plugging it into the smart grid, and getting on a commuter train to go to work, or maybe you’re switching from a long-distance train to the local connector—or perhaps you’ve arrived by bicycle (have I mentioned bike lanes?). In any case, it might be nice if these interchanges were redeveloped to suit the needs of human beings rather than cars. Done right, these nonplaces could grow into neighborhoods, towns, or cities. And selling redevelopment rights at key interchanges might be a way of underwriting some of our sexy new infrastructure. “The right-of-way is extraordinarily valuable,” Blumenauer notes, “and being able to put the pieces together differently so that various modes and facilities play multiple roles is one of the most important discussions. It would be nice if it became the centerpiece of what the new administration and the next Congress do.”

Jacobs' piece finds its echo in the Chicago Tribune's Blair Kamin, who pronounces the end of the architectural icon, to be superceded by a focus on the design of infrastructure:

If nothing else, the economic constraints of the new era are likely to induce a new aesthetic austerity. After Art Deco and its fabulous riot of zigzagging, multicolored ornament, the few buildings that were constructed in the 1930s were noticeably simpler than their Jazz Age predecessors....

But the real issues transcend style. They are about whether the new infrastructure will help usher in a new set of urban growth patterns—dense neighborhoods where you can walk or bike to the corner store to buy a carton of milk—or whether new roads and bridges will simply reinforce suburban sprawl....

A new age is at hand, though the old one isn’t completely over, of course. Later this year, the end of the building boom will deliver the Trump International Hotel & Tower in Chicago, which will be America’s tallest building since the completion of Sears Tower in 1974. Also scheduled for completion this year: the Burj Dubai, which, at a jaw-dropping height of 2,600 feet, seems sure to remain the world’s tallest building for a while now that the rival Nakheel Tower has been put on hold.

Though behemoths such as these will dominate the headlines, the conversation already is shifting away from the “wow” buildings that have dominated architecture for the last dozen years. What matters now is whether Obama’s infrastructure investments can transform the American landscape as well as sow the seeds of economic recovery. Icon architecture is no longer the issue du jour. It’s sustainability—and survival.

but it will take 100 years or so until we really have anything that compares to the convenience of private autos.

But this is still a carcentric mentality. No transit system will ever come close to the convenience and autonomy of a private car. Show me a city with a well established and highly used transit system and I'll show you a city with a massive fleet of taxi cabs that are btw private autos. I don't want to see a reinvention of the wheel but for Los Angeles just a connecting of our major trip generators and that shouldn't take 100 years to accomplish. Connect Dwtwn, CC, SM, Glendale/Burbank and let the natural process of reorientation begin to happen. In fact it's begun to happen already.
Thanx "Dweeb" for attending this but do you get the feeling that some of these "pinheads" are still viewing the city from behind the windshield of their Prius?

"unmentioned", i love the article and have been thinking for some time the modern transit systems (all of them) need to be reinvented. like what's the next step after cities like NYC, LA, and Chicago run out of room for sprawling modern highrises and rows of heavy rail and should we let it get to that point. the grand railroad station and freeway system need to be reinvented and combined. think a freeway clover combined with an HSR station (with rail down the freeway median) with an ecology over it with 250,000 residents in a single structure (250 floors) topped off with blimp/airship travel. these structures contain the residents, health/educational facilities, fire/law facilities, office, retail, restaurant, recreation, entertainment, and green space. a good example is the sky city 1000 visionary structure for tokyo. these transit systems connect other ecologies together.

^^ Who said anything about raising taxes? Are you now talking about ANOTHER relevant issue? Besides, you think a Fed bailout won't have any repercussions as well?

So where is you BULLSHIT LOGIC??? I was making a point that it's not just as simple as blaming the Dems for caving to the right. :ohno:

Of course a 2/3 majority is needed, but when you have so many self-interests groups (which, by the way, aren't necessarily all bad), there is never any effective plan (or budget) to move this state in a focused general direction.

Of course I say it's a HANDOUT!!! A HANDOUT MENTALITY to be more specific! Especially when people are so quick to blame the Feds for not getting their piece of the pie (in this case, mass transit funding)...

By the way, I didn't say INVESTING in transportation in itself is a HANDOUT!! You think just because I mentioned perhaps the state (instead of the Feds) take responsibility for transit funding, you think I'm claiming ALL Fed funding is a bailout? You're the one with the BULLSHIT LOGIC!!!!

Care of klamedia I just found out that Hollywood Park is being demolished to make way for a mixed use community. Anybody else think this is a horrible waste of what should be a historic landmark for an otherwise blighted community? I tried searching the forums for news of the redevelopment but I proved I'm search function retarded :tongue3: Hollywood Park Tomorrow (http://hollywoodparktomorrow.com/)

http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee192/trolltoast/2896772441_3be52f4012_o.jpg Luckman Plaza reclad... Sunset/West Hollywood... nice glass :) photo LA Curbed

The new Luckman Plaza building looks especially cool at night. The horizontal lines all light up and define the building with stripey coolness.

This topic stated out being for Los Angeles metropolitan area, not Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro). It was that way even a couple of pages ago.

There is a Los Angeles Area Transit Issues topic on the main Los Angeles board, I don't know why we need the same discussion in both. If there needs to be a topic on Transit Development News, then one can be created I guess. But then it will be about the development, not the problems with current system (that can go in the said Issues topic). So far the transit talk on this page has been about transit issues, not development news. The title of these topics should speak for themselves.

Guys, this isnt the thead for transit talk. please go to the transit thread in the main Los Angeles forum for transit talk.

This is where we should post updates on projects all over LA that do not have specific threads, a general thread about LA area projects, developments and news.

Curbed has a story on a proposed Casden development. It's sort of between The Grove and the Park La Brea seniors area and is senior oriented. Naturally enough, community reaction is opposed even though traffic is about break even from the Ross which is already there. The 15 stories is tall for that block but not out of proportion with Park La Brea, nearby. I assume it will get cut back in height.

It's not near any proposed subways (Wilshire, Beverly Center and SM Blvd. are about equally far); we're going to need shuttles since this area is getting dense with seniors.

http://la.curbed.com/archives/2010/01/_yesterday_news_emerged_that.php