New Downtown Apartments Aimed at Affluent : But some believe subsidy should have been used for low-income housing.
When Phil Allenbaugh moves into his luxury apartment next Sunday on the southern edge of downtown Los Angeles, he’ll be just the type of upscale resident that developers and many city leaders have been hoping to attract to the area for years.
A 24-year-old salesman of business forms, Allenbaugh will wake up in the morning and take a short walk to call on his clients in the nearby office towers.
At night, he’ll be able to pop into one of the growing number of trendy nightspots in the area before walking back home to The Metropolitan--a 14-story high-rise that, come Tuesday, will be the first upscale rental complex to open in downtown’s fledgling South Park area.
“I’m going to have an extra 3 1/2 hours a day for myself because I won’t have to commute from Santa Ana any more,” Allenbaugh said. “I’m going to park my car in the garage on Sunday night, and not even see it again until the following weekend.
“I’m going to love living in downtown Los Angeles.”
Clearly, this week’s opening of The Metropolitan will mark a milestone in the efforts of Mayor Tom Bradley, the City Council and the Community Redevelopment Agency to turn South Park into a bustling neighborhood of both homes and commerce.
CRA Subsidized Developer
But it will also be a milestone of another sort: A tribute to the frustration of some activists for low- and moderate-income families, who say city leaders are spending too much time and too much money trying to woo young professionals to one of the last bastions of affordable housing in the downtown area.
As with several other new or proposed residential and commercial projects in South Park, the CRA has provided millions of dollars in subsidies to the developer of The Metropolitan. About $10 million of the money that Forest City Properties Corp. needed to build the $45-million Metropolitan came from the CRA.
“It’s just unbelievable that the city is subsidizing developers with millions of dollars to lure yuppies downtown,” complained Michael Bodaken, a senior attorney with the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles. “This city is the homeless capital of the nation. The money ought to be earmarked for homeless shelters and low-income housing.”
Added David Lara, a community activist at Jobs with Peace: “The big question is whether the CRA should be helping to build good apartments for the (lower-income) people who already live in the area, or whether they should be building upscale housing to attract new residents from other parts of town. The Metropolitan won’t do anything for the people who already live in South Park, because they can’t afford the rents.”
South Park is roughly bounded by 8th Street on the north, Broadway on the east, Santa Monica Freeway on the south and Harbor Freeway on the west. The revitalization project has been a source of controversy between city leaders and activists such as Bodaken and Lara almost since planning for the area began in 1970.
Spur Private Development
Bradley, city planners and developers hope redevelopment of South Park will eventually generate thousands of jobs, millions in tax revenue, and an abundance of sorely needed park space and downtown housing. To do that, they have committed more than $500 million in taxpayer money to redevelop the area and spur more private-sector involvement.
But many activists worry that South Park will become merely a Manhattan-like playground where young urban professionals and $1,500-a-month rents will force out all but the handful of poor people lucky enough to land one of the few subsidized condominiums or apartments slated for the area.
So far, the only other new housing that has been created in South Park is The Skyline, an upscale condominium complex that opened about five years ago. It, too, was built by Forest City with financial help from the CRA.
“Projects like the Metropolitan are going to gentrify South Park, and the CRA is encouraging it,” said Bodaken at Legal Aid. “We should be spending the money to build affordable housing, not subsidizing apartments for yuppies.”
But city officials and developers say skyrocketing land prices in South Park virtually mandate public subsidies to build housing downtown, and that attracting upscale renters will lure more businesses and builders to the area.
Creation of Jobs
“I think the money we got (from the CRA) was money well spent,” said Steven P. Albert, president of Forest City Properties. “The city and the CRA want to create the type of urban environment downtown that you find in New York, London and Paris. You do that by building good housing for the people who work there and by creating more jobs in the area.
“Sure, the city could have spent the money on building all low-income housing in South Park. But if they did that, you wouldn’t attract more commerce to the area and you wouldn’t attract upscale housing. If you want to create a real community downtown, you have to start with this kind of housing first.”
Albert also noted that at least 15% of the 270 apartment units in The Metropolitan will be reserved for low- and moderate-income tenants who will pay far less than the $690 to $1,435 a month charged for the market-rate units.
“These people are going to live in a much better home than they would if the city spent all the money to build a (low-income) housing project in the area,” Albert said.
Indeed, Albert’s new apartment complex--already nicknamed “The Met”--is drawing rave reviews from several local architects and city leaders, who say it lends some beauty to an area best known for its neglected industrial buildings.
Views of Skyline
Designed by Los Angeles-based Dworsky Associates, the building’s white stucco-and-glass exterior is accented by the green railings that surround each apartment’s balcony. Mature palms and other huge trees surround the tower, at 950 S. Flower St., in an effort to create a park-like atmosphere.
Inside, a two-story atrium sitting area offers views of the city’s fast-growing skyline. Restaurants and retailers occupy the ground floor of the 14-story structure, as well as the street level of an adjacent three-story building that is also part of the Metropolitan project.
About 30% of the Metropolitan’s 270 apartment units have already been leased, and there are more than 200 people on the waiting list to view the remaining units, Albert said.
