ìDowntown is going through one of the most interesting metamorphoses in its long, long career,î says Jack Kyser, chief economist and senior vice president of the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation. ìPeople will be surprised at what it looks like in five years.î
The entire city seems to be shedding old skin, or at least renewing itself with the redevelopment equivalent of Botox. Predictably, moneyed interests are rah-rahing the new lofts, apartments, and condos, but critics are concerned that, while the cityís growth will continue to be led by working-class immigrants, little of the new housing addresses their needs. ìThereís an enormous population pressure on L.A. because of immigration and because of the tremendous strengths of the local economy,î says USC associate professor of history Philip J. Ethington.
Mid- to high-priced residential developments, from downtown loft conversions to the massive Playa Vista development near Marina del Rey, are reshaping the metropolis in a major way. New downtown cultural monuments, particularly Staples Center, Walt Disney Concert Hall, and the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, are a draw, and more are on the way, including a planned redevelopment of Grand Avenue between First and Third streets, a park between Grand Avenue and the Civic Center a few blocks east, a new police headquarters in Little Tokyo, and a $70 million Mexican American cultural center on Olvera Street to be called Plaza de Cultura y Artes. To the west, in Koreatown, plans are taking shape for a 4,200-student education complex at the site of the Ambassador Hotel and a 260-unit condominium-and-retail complex at Wilshire Boulevard and Western Avenue. At Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street, a los angeles loft project plans to bring 60 units online. On the Westside, a $100 million residential-and-commercial project dubbed Palazzo Westwood is in the works. Alongside estimates that the regionís population will grow by more than five million by the year 2050, all this development indicates the city is in the midst of what Ethington calls its ìthird waveî of growth.
ìYou see three big periods of growth,î he says. ìThe í20s, when some of the signal monuments were created ñ City Hall, Westwood, the big satellite areas, Hollywood. And then the next phase was postwar, with a vast expansion of the suburbs. Then you can look at this as a third major period of its growth, taking place now. But itís a different kind of growth. Itís rebuilding. Developers are looking all over to reuse space.î
The development boom in these economically flat times could seem like a paradox, but there is a driving force: housing demand, including sky-high rents and even higher property values fueled by real estate speculation, retiring baby boomersí investments, and low interest rates. Los Angeles is at a point of maturity where political leaders and developers are thinking urban instead of suburban for housing solutions.
ìCities are truly ecosystems,î says developer Tom Gilmore. ìThey have an almost tidal nature in the way they grow and develop and spread. The tide goes out, reaches its natural limits, and then begins to look inward again.î The biggest beneficiary of this reexamination is downtown, where 1,673 housing units have been etched out of old office buildings, hotels, and factories, and about 5,300 more are planned. ìUntil a few years ago, los angeles loft downtown Ö seemed ancillary to the city Ö ,î declared The New York Times recently. ìBut that was then.î Now, people like nightlife marketing guru Dave Dean call downtownís financial district home. He first moved to the area for a two-year stint in 1998, but found, back then, ìit was like living on the moon,î he says. ìThere was nothing around.î
He moved back, to a loft-office space last year, and now finds seeds of nightlife at the Standard Hotel and the Golden Gopher lounge. Sometime next year heíll be able to get groceries at a Ralphs thatís under development nearby on Flower Street. ìWhat drew me downtown was, having lived in San Francisco, London, and New York, it really feels like a city,î Dean says. ìAnd I can jump on the freeway and be anywhere in 10 minutes.î This year, Dean is planning his fourth New Yearís Eve mega-party, Giant Village, on the streets of downtown. Heís expecting 12,000 revelers rocking out to the Killers live and dancing to DJs Paul Oakenfold, John Digweed, and Mark Farina on four blocks near Wilshire and Hope. ìNow people are very comfortable with this area,î he says. But, while party people will be living it up, the new look and feel of downtown doesnít seem accessible to all.
Rising Up, Rising Down
USCís Ethington says the greater community could face a price of upheaval ñ 1992-style ñ if it ignores minorities, the working class, and immigrants in its march toward redevelopment. Although he finds some good in the renewed housingís proximity to the urban core, Ethington says the city is still segregated. Research heís conducting at the moment finds that the city is more diverse than at any time since 1940, yet daily contact between whites and minorities remains less than ideal, with segregated enclaves remaining. The kind of high-priced los angeles loft housing thatís happening with adaptive reuse isnít helping, Ethington argues. ìThe poor and working class canít really win in this situation,î he says. ìThe development is all for profit. Itís aimed at the affluent end of the market Ö . Itís going to translate into more crowded living conditions for working people. This is all exciting and celebratory in a period of social peace, but thereís no guarantee against another upheaval. The [1965] Watts riots were sparked by terrible overcrowding and lack of attention to segregation and impoverishment. Iím not saying the outcome is necessarily going to be a riot, but somebody has to pay attention to the majority of the city that is not white collar.î The professor notes that in many of the buildings in and around downtown, where rents usually start around $1,200, ìthereís a lot of attention paid to security and isolation. That doesnít speak well for a rubbing-shoulders scenario.î While demand from young professionals is there ñ downtown los angeles loft fill as ¥¥ soon as they open ñ more pressing housing demand in the region comes from the lower-income service workers and immigrants, who have a hard time with median home prices at more than $400,000 and median rents in the $1,100 range. ìThe downtown thing is going to get a big haircut soon,î says urban scholar Joel Kotkin, the New America Foundationís Irvine Senior Fellow. ìI think the lofts are too expensive, and I think thereís going to be a limit to the demand. Iím not so sure youíre building communities there.î
But boosters are happy the cityís core, once barren save for the ìurban pioneersî who braved aggressive panhandlers and car burglars for the privilege of living the loft life, is starting to take off, at least financially. Bankers and lawyers are leasing apartments near the financial district (Gas Company Lofts, the Pegasus building, and the nearby Medici), while artists are expanding from their traditional base near Alameda Street and Traction Avenue south to the industrial zone (Toy Factory Lofts ñ oneís listed for sale at $710,000), north to Little Tokyo (Little Tokyo Lofts), and west into Skid Row and the Fashion District (Santee Court lofts). Restaurants from Ciudad to Peteís CafÈ cater to the benefactor and City Hall sets, respectively.
ìWhat weíre seeing is very contextual,î says Linda Dishman, executive director of the Los Angeles Conservancy. ìHow do we bring life to our historic, underused resources?î For preservationists, the redevelopment boom has provided an opportunity to reinvent historic structures, and there have been bitter losses, including the school districtís plan to raze most of the Ambassador Hotel in Koreatown, site of Sen. Robert F. Kennedyís assassination in 1968. But there have also been countless successes, from the saved Belmont Tunnel, once home to the Red Car subway line, now neighbor to a planned housing development, to St. Vibianaís Cathedral, scheduled to reopen in February as a performing-arts center. ìThis ensures some historic structures will stand for another 150 years,î says Trudi Sandmeier of the conservancy. ìThis is truly gratifying to see these buildings reborn.î Whatís missing in the urban core, perhaps, is more nightlife. The conservancyís Broadway Initiative started in 1999 to help area landlords transform their offices into lofts and apartments under the then newly minted ìadaptive reuse ordinanceî that opened the door to such conversions. The initiative then set its sights on the preservation of Broadwayís 12 historic theaters, the largest such concentration of movie and show venues in the nation, according to the conservancy. A few theaters, including the Orpheum and the Los Angeles, have already come back to life. Now the organization is conducting a market analysis to decide what reuse options would be best for some of the other venues. Ideas include nightclubs, comedy clubs, and restaurants. ìWeíre sort of right on the cusp of what I believe will be a massive transformation of Broadway,î says Sandmeier, the conservancyís Broadway Initiative coordinator. ìWe want to create a 24/7 scene downtown.î Billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad, meanwhile, is helping to spearhead the 16-acre park planned for the area between the Civic Center and the Music Center. The space will also contain retail establishments, restaurants, and nightlife, and the city-county authority in charge of the project is already wooing retailers such as a Borders bookstore, Broad says. ìTheyíre not trying to create a mall downtown, but they want to have unique types of retail,î he says. ìThey want to have life from 8 in the morning ítil past midnight every day. There will be a culture and civic district, which is Grand Avenue, then I see a convention/sports district, which is Staples Center and all theyíre planning to do to the south. Hopefully, weíll connect the two areas with some sort of fun transit.î Indeed, the Community Redevelopment Agency is studying the possibility of creating a downtown trolley circuit using restored Red Cars or replicas. But for the city, the storyís more than just los angeles lofts downtown. Itís everywhere thereís new housing being developed for a thirsty market. Almost one year ago, L.A.ís adaptive reuse ordinance, originally limited to downtown, was opened to citywide use. The result is that moguls are also looking at residential redevelopment in places like Koreatown, where 260 units are planned for ìThe Wilshire at Westernî; Hollywood, where two projects, including ìThe Lofts at Hollywood & Vine,î will bring 129 units to life; and Miracle Mile, where 45 units are planned for a building at Wilshire and Crescent Heights boulevards. Itís not all about adaptive reuse, either. Developer G.H. Palmer has eschewed the tax and code benefits of reuse, along with public funds, to create a privately bankrolled web of brand-new Italianate apartment buildings (the Medici, Visconti, et al.) west of downtown that are expected to bring 1,500 luxury rental units to the city. Nearby, a skyscraper at 1100 Wilshire Blvd. will be transformed into 250 housing units. Two blocks south, a Holiday Inn is being converted to hipster residences. And, a few blocks west, a Home Depot and Starbucks have planted roots. ìAll of a sudden, these things start to fall into place,î says economist Kyser.
Palmerís buildings have been criticized, however, for their fortress-like positioning that isolates them from their largely Latino, working-class-immigrant neighborhoods. Critics also accuse Palmer of doing everything he can, including avoiding strings-attached public money, to sidestep affordable housing in his projects. His buildings are strictly ìmarket rate,î which translates to expensivo. Meanwhile, on the Westside, Playa Vistaís Phase 2, approved by the City Council this fall, will include 2,600 housing units ñ apartments, condos, and homes ñ and retail space of 150,000 square feet slightly more than a mile from the ocean. Billed as ìsmart growth,î the project will include the kind of shopping and office-adjacent living that proponents spin as an ìurban village.î ìIt was the beginning of sort of a return to the suburban-village model, really the model that L.A. was built on,î says scholar Kotkin. ìItís happening in a lot of areas ñ Studio City, Burbank, Pasadena ñ that are self-sufficient in a cultural sense. You work and live in the same five-mile radius. Thatís where weíre going.î While opponents argued that Playa Vista would generate too much traffic for already overburdened Westside streets, some urban planners and experts say there is no other way: The market must accommodate millions of newcomers and their housing needs by building on the last remaining open spaces, and reusing aging and historic structures. ìWhen we look back in 20 years on the increasing density in Los Angeles lofts, weíll say it started here Ö ,î Fernando Guerra of the Center for the Study of Los Angeles told the Los Angeles Times after Playa Vistaís approval.
Back From Hell
The notion of young professionals and middle-class families invigorating life within the city limits and arriving to the barrios in and around downtown would have been almost unimaginable more than a decade ago. The 1992 riots saw thousands of white, middle-class families flee the city, clogging freeways in SUVs, U-Hauls, and luxury sports cars as core urban neighborhoods still burned with rage. Thatís the year developer Gilmore arrived from New York. ìIn í92-í93, there were the riots and their aftermath, and the Northridge earthquake was about to hit,î he says. ìThe city was truly at its most fragmented. L.A. had set itself into these segregated mini-towns and was having trouble coming up with a civic notion of what it was anymore. Maybe thatís when a place is ready for its greatest change.î In 1993, a Time magazine cover story asked, ìIs the City of Angels Going to Hell?î Thus, city fathers and mothers began to reflect at a time when the cityís planning momentum seemed flat-footed and shell-shocked. Los Angeles was no longer the glamorous place to be, nor the immigrant-fueled metropolis of the future touted in previous years. Developer Broad re-envisioned los angeles lofts downtown as the regionís cultural center and campaigned, sometimes at the behest of former Mayor Richard Riordan, to get the Museum of Contemporary Art and Walt Disney Concert Hall built, and he helped plant the seeds for the planned redevelopment of Grand Avenue. Although the arts institutions have become magnets for change, different city and business leaders seemed to be thinking in parallel. As the concert hall, the new cathedral, and Staples Center to the south were on the drawing boards, developers had their own ideas of a new downtown. ìItís sort of this amalgam of things that happen, and sometimes theyíre unrelated,î says Gilmore. ìWe were planning the ëOld Bank Districtí at the same time Geoff Palmer was planning Medici. They were totally unrelated, but there was a similar notion on both our parts that something was about to happen.î People like Gilmore, Downtown Center Business Improvement District President Carol Schatz, and architect Wade Killeler lobbied City Hall for a law that would allow them to convert abandoned and underused office buildings to los angeles lofts, apartments, and condominiums. In 1998, anticipating the revitalization of downtown and City Hallís approval the next year of adaptive reuse, the New York transplant purchased three early 1900s buildings at Fourth and Main, structures that would become the cornerstones of his Old Bank District. Gilmoreís also a principal in the purchase and redevelopment of the nearby El Dorado Hotel, the Palace Theater, and St. Vibianaís Cathedral. ìWhen I look at the important things downtown, I look at Staples Center, Disney Music Hall, and us in the historic core,î Gilmore says. ìThose are the three legs of the three-legged stool that make downtown finally have some sense to it.î Inner-city developers know thereís some distance to go. Opening up their projects more to street life, for example, means there must be safety, goods, services, and culture. Already, Gilmore says heís inundated with retailers who want to put shops, cafÈs, and bars of all types in the ground floors of his buildings. And this, he thinks, ìmakes the streets nicer, and so it drives your market even more.î Real estate moguls see progress in downtown more than they see problems.
ìDowntown has been neglected, but itís now going to get started on brighter days,î says Yuval Bar-Zemer, a principal in Linear City LLC, which developed the Toy Factory Lofts and is working on the Nabisco Building across the street in southeast downtown. ìA street once covered with prostitutes and homeless is coming to life.î For developers, the biggest obstacles to reinventing the cityís housing stock ñ particularly for middle- and lower-income residents ñ are construction costs (materials and fuel are through the roof) and red tape. ìThe prices of construction are escalating dramatically,î Bar-Zemer says. ìItís not going to stop development at this point,î he says. ìBut thereís going to be an adjustment in what people can build and how much of it they can build.î Gilmore credits City Hall, particularly former Mayor Riordan and his Planning Commission, for kick-starting the cityís los angeles loft housing boom by passing adaptive reuse. But he says bureaucracy continues to be daunting for those who want to turn, say, an old office into a new loft. Rules regulating doors, windows, electrical outlets, and fire-safety precautions abound and add to the bottom line. ìThe city and state, unintentionally perhaps, over the course of decades, have created a system that makes dense urban living significantly more expensive than it needs to be,î Gilmore says. ìFor me to build new construction in downtown, it costs me $225 a square foot. Do the math. How can you ever create affordable housing in an urban environment at that cost?î The city does, however, often require, or at least request, that redevelopments and new projects include some low-income units, and even the Westsideís decidedly yup-scale Playa Vista Phase 2 will include a few $600-per-month units. The question for the future is, will L.A. finally become a city and cease being a collective of communities? ìI get a kick out of it when people say L.A. is this, and L.A. is that,î Gilmore says. ìItís a work in progress, and it will never be finished.î Atlanta Lofts