A New Chance for Pershing Square to Get a Fresh Start

The best-laid plans of many an urban reformer have foundered on Pershing Square, the city’s oldest--but far from its proudest--public park.

A longtime haven for dope peddlers, panhandlers and homeless people, the 124-year-old downtown Los Angeles park enjoyed a hurried $1-million face lift in time for the 1984 Olympics. A few years later, a business group sponsored an ambitious design competition that drew more than 200 proposals, suggesting transformations ranging from a traditional Mediterranean plaza to a “botanical freeway.”

Other years have seen infusions of noontime entertainment and food vendors to lure office workers down from their skyscrapers. But eventually--either because of lack of money, support or bad timing--the minstrels and mimes would fade away, the flowers would die, the office workers would go back to their cubbyholes, and the street people would return.

Now the dreamers are at it again. But this time around, downtown observers say, the builders of a new Pershing Square appear to have what it will take--including financing, local business support, top-flight urban design talent and political savvy--to revitalize this persistent civic eyesore.

Developed by Mexico City architect Ricardo Legorreta and Philadelphia landscape architect Laurie Olin, the plans call for vibrant hues and show influences of the traditional Mexican plaza. Envisioned are food concessions, a large public performance area, a soaring water tower and a low, sculptural fence around the park perimeter.

“It would be tragic if we couldn’t get some sort of plan approved for this very important public space,” said Nelson Rising, a senior partner in the development firm Maguire Thomas Partners, which is leading the effort in part because of the multimillions of dollars of high-rise office space it has built or is building nearby. “We think this is . . . eminently doable.”

Nonetheless, the challenges are substantial. Past efforts have spurred controversies over commercialization of the park and what to do about the street people who are its main inhabitants.

After months of quiet discussion, the Pershing Square Property Owners Assn.--which includes Maguire Thomas and about 25 other large stake-holders--recently went public with its design concept for the square, bounded by 5th, 6th, Hill and Olive streets.

To help pay for the make-over, the property owners have agreed to tax themselves by forming a Mello-Roos assessment district, authorized in state legislation passed in 1982 to fund a wide variety of public capital facilities such as schools and cultural centers. The taxes would be used to back a bond issue of as much as $8.5 million, which would be guaranteed by a lien on the owners’ property.

Another $6 million would come from the city Community Redevelopment Agency, which initially committed the funds several years ago.

Said Herbert Marshall, who oversees redevelopment projects in the central business district for the CRA: “This effort has a 109% out of 110% chance of succeeding because you have the people who are going to pay the bill happy about being involved.”

Given the dismal record of attempts to revive Pershing Square, however, the property owners are reluctant to say when they think the rebuilding could begin. Rising stresses that the design plans are still “in an evolutionary process” and subject to a consensus of the property owners. The project also faces a number of bureaucratic hurdles, ultimately needing City Council approval.

“The pathway to Pershing Square is littered with people who made optimistic projections,” said John T. McAlister, a Maguire Thomas executive who is also president of the Pershing Square Property Owners Assn. “There is tough work out there to be done.”

One of the chief challenges is designing a park that will be attractive to the diverse communities that adjoin it. The park’s constituents would range from shoppers and merchants in the jewelry district along Hill and in the ethnic shops along Broadway to the legion of downtown high-rise office workers.

Some people believe that ridding the park of transients is needed for any revitalization effort to succeed.

“All they have to do is get rid of the bums,” said Chris Henry, 25, an office worker who was eating a fast-food lunch on the square recently. “They land on the benches and you can’t get a seat.”

But advocates for the homeless said they hope the park will not be designed to shut out the underprivileged.

Maxene Johnston, president of the downtown Weingart Center, which provides services for homeless people, said she does not want to see their needs overlooked.

“What I do not want to see happen is design-and-run, to get the park up and running for one segment of downtown without looking at the consequences for other residents of downtown--people who are poor and do not have a lot of options,” said Johnston, who has been involved in discussions with the Pershing Square property owners.

Johnston said she would like to see a park ranger program established at Pershing Square, which would provide information for people needing social services, as well as security for visitors. A shuttle bus, she added, could be available to take people to the Weingart Center or another facility for aid.

Developer David Houk, a director of the Pershing Square Property Owners Assn., said the condition of the square and its inhabitants “has been a major impediment in our efforts to develop our property.” Houk has been trying to build a 500-room hotel and office-retail complex on the block north of the square.

But the problem, he said, “is not getting rid of the bums. It’s getting nicely dressed people to come into the park and outnumber them.”

To the architects hired by the property owners, the far-flung range of people who might use the park is an advantage, not a liability.

“This square is on the boundary between different populations, and that strikes us as incredible good fortune,” said Olin, the landscape architect. “That means it will be inhabited by people who are truly different from one another. The diversity of people will give strength to the scheme.”

Addressing what many critics have considered one of the square’s chief drawbacks--its size--Legorreta and Olin have proposed dividing its five acres into two squares, united by a long portico running the width of the property.

The upper square would be defined by a sunken, grassy area that could host live musical or dramatic performances. Visitors would be drawn into the park by a reflecting pool and a brightly colored water tower.

The lower square would be dominated by a large circular pool fed by a tiered fountain.

Legorreta and Olin envision plenty of small tables and chairs set amid clusters of eucalyptus and coral trees. Food and retail operations could be housed under the portico. A colorful, decorative fence with gates at the four corners would ring the park, which could then be closed at night. But cappuccino carts, newsstands and other vendors could operate just outside the gates, which would help bring vitality to the area at night.

Although the property owners have agreed on a mechanism for financing much of the redevelopment privately, money remains a major concern.

Costs are being analyzed now, and that “makes all of us very nervous,” said Rising, who worries about a loss of credibility for the city and the property owners should the price tag wind up being too high.

Due to fluctuations in the bond market, the property owners may be able to raise less than the targeted $8.5-million private contribution, McAlister said.

Still to be decided is how to pay for park maintenance once the redesign has been completed. An earlier scheme developed by another property owners’ group proposed having retail and restaurant operations take up as much as 25% of the square. That would have provided revenue essential for upkeep, but critics said it would have threatened Pershing Square’s essential character as a park.

Despite these unresolved issues, however, some observers say that the current revitalization push has several factors working in its favor.

A Metro Rail station is under construction on the square’s east side. Old buildings are being rehabilitated and new high-rises are sprouting, such as the 73-story First Interstate World Center, which became the country’s tallest building west of Chicago when it opened last spring.

Some property owners hope that a redesigned Pershing Square will have a snowball effect on the older parts of downtown to the southeast, which are in need of redevelopment.

“The importance of Pershing Square is very, very high,” said Teodor Garabet, a co-owner of the Jewelers Mall, a glitzy complex of 200 shops that opened last year on South Hill Street. “It is the heart of downtown. (Overhauling it) will give the message that the city and the community want to redevelop all of downtown.”

Downtown planners say that the current drive to renovate the square is bound to succeed--in part because of Maguire Thomas, which Fortune magazine recently rated as the largest commercial developer in the country.

The firm has built the First Interstate World Center a few blocks west of the square, owns the 1,200-car Pershing Square Garage and is building another high-rise next to the World Center, so it has much at stake.

It also has a track record for developing projects that provide substantial public benefits such as building the Bunker Hill Steps, which are reminiscent of the Spanish Steps in Rome, and providing funds to renovate the Central Library.

DEVELOPMENT NEAR PERSHING SQUARE

These are some of the office, hotel and retail projects near Pershing Square that have been approved by the Community Redevelopment Agency. They include new construction and rehabilitation of historic buildings.

1. California Plaza, Phase 1B (under construction) 2. California Plaza Hotel (under construction) 3. Bradbury Bldg. (rehabilitation under way) 4. Broadway Spring Center, Phase 1 (completed) 5. Million Dollar Theater Bldg. (rehabilitation pending) 6. Grand Central Market (rehabilitation under way) 7. California Plaza, Phase 2 (under contruction) 8. California Plaza, Phase 3A (construction pending) 9. Broadway Spring Center, Phase 2 (construction pending) 10. Ronald Reagan Office Building (completed) 11. Clark Hotel (rehabilitation under way) 12. Luby Building (rehabilitation under way) 13. Bunker Hill Steps (completed) 14. First Interstate World Center, Phase 1 (completed) 15. One Bunker Hill Bldg., Phase 2 (under construction) 16. So. Calif. Gas Center (under construction) 17. Pershing Square Center (construction pending) 18. Library Square, Phase 2 (completed) 19. Central Library (renovation and expansion under way) 20. Five-Fifty South Hope St. (under construction) 21. Checkers Hotel (rehabilitation completed) 22. Biltmore Tower (completed) 23. Pershing Square (rehabilitation pending) 24. Broadway Spring Arcade (rehabilitation pending) 25. Western Jewelry Mart (completed) 26. Los Angeles Stock Exchange, Phase 2 (construction pending) 27. USA Plaza Center, Phase 1 (under construction) SOURCE: Community Redevelopment Agency