Ain't Life Grand (Avenue)?

Photo Credit: Los Angeles Times

The largest single development in downtown LA gained final approval after a unanimous vote by City Council. This mega-project -- 3.6 million SF of development and at least five highrises -- will be built almost entirely on public land that will be transferred through a 99-year lease to the developer, Related Cos. Through this blog, continue exploring the issue of subsides and public-private partnerships. There appears to be plenty of risk to go around:

Early estimates put the tax rebates for Grand Avenue at $40 million over 20 years. But a recent report from the city's legislative analyst estimated that the rebates could cost $66 million. The largest tax break would be in the 14% city hotel tax, a maximum of $60.5 million over 20 years, the report said.

From the beginning, the Grand Avenue project has been marked by a nontraditional public-private marriage. Besides the proposed tax breaks, government agencies are providing the land, investing in street improvements and subsidizing affordable housing in the project.

Related and its fiscal partners, meanwhile, are taking much of the financial risk — particularly tenuous in a downtown real estate market that has shown signs of softening. They also are subject to a number of requirements, including the condition that all construction and permanent jobs in the development meet the city's "prevailing" or "living" wage requirements.

The first phase is expected to begin construction in October of this year with completion slated for 2011. A lot can happen in five years, but even if there's some exposure to taxpayers and developers alike, this investment in big ideas that could pay off immensely both financially and otherwise.

In today's Los Angeles Times, an op-ed essay by columnist Patt Morrison wonders aloud: "Does L.A. need another downtown?", asserting that the city that elicits images of ten-lane freeways and endless suburbs has already "turned the corner", somewhat organically and perhaps marginally, if only because more and more people are already moving to the Bunker Hill area, where Grand Ave. and its star-chitecture (re: Frank Gehry) will soon dominate. So does LA need a mega project that will create a downtown? Or is downtown revitalizing on its own, thank you very much?

Morrison comments broadly on American culture that is applicable from Omaha to Oceanside, one of convenience and instant gratification -- anywhere:

Big-screen TVs and iPods create audiences of one. And nearly every suburban city and neighborhood replicates the chain-store commerce of the next one, which proves that, like certain actresses and the Botox needle, the risk lies in too much as well as in too little. No one is going to travel from the San Fernando Valley to 1st Street for the same Pottery Barn experience that's available 10 blocks from home. If you've seen one Gap…

Morrison points out that NYC, of all places, doesn't really have a defined center, arguing that no city really needs a desginated center, then likens the "ranchos" from early CA days to today's self-sufficent suburan pods, a constellation of centers if you will. Still, doesn't Grand Avenue have the potential to be, if not the center of gravity in Southern California, an iconic place of which Angelenos would be proud? His main point is that any new place must offer something that people can't get in their own "burgs", and it seems that if Grand Avenue goes off well, people will leave the 'burbs for downtown LA, even if they're still plugged into their iPods. Morrison wraps up his column with a hilarious and telling encounter:

The day I knew to a dead-bang certainty that downtown was already back was when I was crossing a street on the way to a restaurant. Walking toward me, in the crosswalk, was a couple with skis over their shoulders and ski boots in hand. I looked around for the cameras that had to be shooting a chewing gum or beer commercial — that's a lot of what downtown has been for ages, Hollywood's ready-made back lot.

No cameras. I had to ask them: "Were you … are you … do you?"

Yep, they said. We've been skiing. And we're coming back home. To downtown.

Now, let's turn to Denver, where Union Station has been one of Denver's central icons. Falling into disrepair for decades in the 20th century, downtown Denver is already well on its way to recovery, and then some. So maybe downtown Denver is already standing on its own two feet, and there's no need for the grand vision and public-private commitment to Union Station. Absent this redevelopment, however, I think that a cobbled-together Union Station could be turn into something much less than grand that would leave a gaping hole in the heart of downtown. Aesthetics, finance and politics aside, it's very encouraging that cities are dreaming big and seeking to make sense of their center(s).