Central City West in Move to Revitalize : Public and Private Initiative Taken to Plot Out Its Future

Without much fuss or public notice, a collaborative public-private initiative is under way to revitalize the run-down district west of the Harbor Freeway, adjacent to downtown.

Tentatively named Central City West, the 150 acres of mixed residential and commercial properties are bounded by the freeway, Lucas Avenue, Olympic Boulevard and Temple Street.

The players in this initiative are a coalition of the area’s major stakeholders, known as the Central City West Assn., along with the city Planning Department and other municipal agencies, plus the two City Council members, Gloria Molina and Gilbert Lindsay, whose districts take in the area.

These interests are represented on a steering committee set up to oversee the 12- to 18-month procedure that will result in the development of a transportation and land use specific plan for the district.

‘Team of Thoroughbreds’

On Feb. 15 the City Council approved a one-year interim control ordinance that will regulate development in Central City West while a team of consultants appointed by the association develops an urban-design and land-use plan for the area.

This “team of thoroughbreds,” as CCWA founder member Kevin Ketchum, real estate director for Thomas Properties, described it, has recently published a detailed work program.

Architect Kurt Meyer and partner Cliff Allen, the consultant team leaders, hope to evolve a strategy that will create an identifiable community out of what is now a socially, economically and architecturally confused no-man’s land between the Harbor Freeway and the Westlake district bordering MacArthur Park.

The consultant team casts a wide net. Included are architects, urban designers, transportation experts, landscape architects, historic preservationists, affordable-housing specialists and a strong community liaison represented by the Eastside office of Barrio Planners.

Collect Information

This cadre of specialists will report continuously to the steering committee. Next summer, the team is to come up with a specific plan to present to the City Council.

The team’s first task will be to collect information on the district’s physical and human characteristics.

Of special concern will be an investigation of the balance between jobs and housing in a neighborhood that hosts many undocumented people living in substandard conditions under the shadow of towering commercial developments, such as the $170-million Transpacific Center under construction beside the Harbor Freeway.

Further down the line, the team will begin to formulate alternative scenarios for the possible land use and transportation-linked potentials in the area. Along the way, environmental impact reports and many public meetings are to provide continuous consultation with the community.

“Our aim is to find clues in the area out of which we may develop a coherent urban design that is intrinsic to the nature of one of L. A.’s oldest neighborhoods,” Allen said. “As we go along, we will try to strike a balance between a democratic and consultative process and the need to shape a district no one now can readily define.”

Marriage of Strategies

“We want to avoid the many mistakes made in the Central Business District,” said architect Ken Chang, a CCWA member who represents Crown Hill Development, a coalition of Asian stakeholders in the area. “We don’t see Central City West as a challenge to downtown so much as a twin that will reinforce the impact of the urban core.”

“The process we hope to see here will be a marriage of top-down and bottom-up strategies,” said public policy consultant Norman Emerson, another CCWA team member.

“The area stakeholders might easily have gone for piecemeal development of each land parcel. Instead, they have combined with the city to evolve a more farsighted procedure that they hope will bring them longer-term benefits.”

Meyer, who said he was attracted by the “patient money” represented by the stakeholders’ restraint, is aware of the immense urban-design challenges posed by Central City West.

“The name itself, which is both clumsy and somehow subservient to downtown, reveals the physical and human incoherence of the area,” he said. “After we have all plowed through the procedures and collected all the data and consulted everyone imaginable, the central question will remain: What is this place, and how should it be recognized?

“It is a monumental task, one that could make or break our professional reputation. If we can pull it off, we will have set a prime example for the future of Los Angeles as it struggles to both renew itself and cope with the problems of greater urban densities and related traffic problems.”