Center City West Group Formed : Property Owners to Press for Master Plan, Infrastructure

A coalition of major property owners and business and community leaders with financial interests west of the Harbor Freeway in downtown Los Angeles has formed the Center City West Associates to work for a master plan and improved infrastructure for the area, where considerable development is under way and anticipated in the next few years.

Graham Kaye-Eddie, senior urban planning consultant for IHRAmerica (one of the major land owners in the area) and executive director of the new organization, announced establishment of the 23-member group at a press conference last week at the Mayfair Hotel.

“Collectively, we have holdings of about 128 acres,” he said. By comparison, the Bunker Hill Redevelopment area is 86.5 acres in size. On the 128 acres, a multitude of projects are under way or planned. “One million square feet of office space is ongoing right now, and that is a forewarning of the kinds of activity that will go on on the west side of the freeway,” Kaye-Eddie said.

The area of interest is loosely bounded by the Hollywood Freeway on the north, 9th Street on the south and about three blocks west of the Harbor Freeway. Property within the area is occupied by such established downtown entities as Woodbury University, the Episcopal Diocese and Good Samaritan Hospital and such members of the Central Business District as First Interstate Bank, Security Pacific National Bank, Union Oil, Thomas Cadillac and First Grayline Corp.

“Within two to three years, there will be a new hotel, 1,260,000 square feet of office space (including one adjacent to this January’s arrival of the Pacific Coast Stock Exchange in the Beaudry II Building) and a 3,000-car parking facility,” Kaye-Eddie predicted. “In five to seven years, three or four large mixed-use developments will have been built. And in 10 years, there will be 8.5 million more square feet of office space, 22,000 parking spaces, 2,000 hotel rooms and 2,000 residences built.”

Kaye-Eddie outlined the new organization’s goals as: “to orchestrate development futures for stake holders (members) and other owners” . . . and “to interact with governmental agencies for improved infrastructure,” especially street work and freeway access.

The Central City Assn. was not focusing on these issues to the extent that the new organization’s members wished, he said, and so Center City West Associates was established as a California nonprofit corporation.