DTLA Momentum and Big Tasks Ahead

Last week we broke ground on the multi-billion-dollar investment in the Los Angeles Convention Center – an achievement that was the result of diverse stakeholders uniting in partnership for a  common cause. The week prior, CCA released a 90-day action plan that BIDs like ours (DTLA Alliance, Fashion District, Historic Core, others), residents, and business owners, all contributed to; a real community driven plan.  And earlier, the DTLA Residents Association held a day of action at City Hall – with neighborhoods across DTLA represented – to highlight the results of their community survey which prioritized the needs of residents and small business owners. 

Mayor Bass responded by announcing that the Los Angeles Police Department will deploy foot patrols and trained bike officers in downtown neighborhoods. Trained mental health teams will be deployed to priority areas. City officials will advance plans and fast-track key permits for downtown developments. And the City of Los Angeles will implement a coordinated effort to remove graffiti, clear trash, and beautify major streets and public spaces. Last week, the Los Angeles Sports & Entertainment Commission released it’s much anticipated Community Activation Toolkit, and it’s a timely roadmap for how we can participate around the World Cup games that are less than 9 months away.  We’ve recently had meetings with the Mayor’s Office of International Affairs to understand how we can highlight our neighborhood and venues as hosts for National Hospitality Houses during the LA28 games.

Last week, LA Tourism convened a new Visitor Experience Task Force that we are eager to contribute to, hopefully expanding our current hospitality partnership through additional cross trainings and dedicated resources.  And Metro has announced it is moving forward with investments in three downtown stations ahead of the Olympics, including the Pico Station in the heart of the Social District.   

In the coming days we will be launching our new website with features that will benefit residents, business owners, visitors, and potential investors.  There’s even a multi-lingual chatbot! Over the coming weeks, in partnership with SPNA, we’ll be developing a public safety infrastructure grant to help property owners deploy camera technology that can eventually be monitored in real time by LAPD or our Safety Ambassadors.  And while it may take time for them to grow and bloom, the Jacarandas we planted at Pico Triangle will form an attractive canopy for a new public art project finally approved to move forward at a critical gateway into Downtown. 

Momentum is contagious. But will it spread to Oceanwide Plaza?  If the City’s investment in the Convention Center is not enough to make future development privately profitable, we should finally move forward with a public solution. The Meadow at the Old Chicago Post Office, could be a guide to adaptive reuse that reimagines the site without the towers, and proceeds with an environmentally responsible partial demolition. A retail and parking podium could anchor a great urban greenspace above the structure and maintain a digital signage program that matches the area aesthetic and amplifies the return on investment in a public-private partnership. 

Gilbert Lindsey Plaza was not a part of the approved modernization of the Convention Center. But we now have an opportunity to rethink the space in isolation, or as part of a linked greenbelt that expands from Figueroa down to Exposition Park, and into Downtown along the once proposed reinvention of DTLA’s historic streetcar line.  The Atlanta Beltline, the Highline in New York, the Lafitte Greenway in New Orleans, the 606 in Chicago, and even the Chandler Bikeway in Burbank, are among many successful rails-to-trails projects that could serve as inspiration for a pedestrian and bike scaled greenbelt through downtown. Imagine connecting residents, workers, and visitors to our numerous points of interests, including a great lawn at the doorstep of a world class Convention Center.  

We’ve invested nearly $15 Billion over 15 years into public transit, and once Olympic peaks in ridership have come and gone, we need to have a plan to leverage this investment to once and for all deprioritize the automobile in DTLA. Doing so would allow us to reorient the public realm and unlock our potential as one of the great urban centers in the world.  It would also create more space for much needed housing instead of parking.  For sure, it would be a culture change for Los Angeles. But that’s a necessary change and downtowns are always at the forefront of place evolution in every great city.              

The momentum we’ve built in the last few weeks has to not only be contagious, but it must also infect our clarity about the future and forever change our vision of what’s possible. Great places are not arbitrary. They’re created through incredibly thoughtful and hopeful intention.  The task ahead of us in the near term remains clear; we have to be able solve public safety and homelessness and complete the expansion of the convention center against a racing clock. But beyond that, in the time and space that begins to expand after 2028, the next 3 years have to become prologue to something greater. I’m setting our hopeful intention on owning true transformation in that space – for the Social District, and as we’ve demonstrated successfully, in partnership, for Downtown.