RTD Plans to Develop Land Above Red Line : Neighborhoods: Transit district will unveil its ambitious proposal to build shops, theaters and a supermarket above the MacArthur Park subway station. Hearing on the proposal will be held tonight.

Authentic ethnic restaurants front the spotless sidewalk next to newsstands and card shops, dry cleaners and cobblers. A colorful supermarket is just down the way and airy new apartments overlook it all. People come from around the city to stroll and shop and catch a movie.

This is not Westwood Village or Melrose Avenue or Santa Monica’s Third Street Promenade. It is the Southern California Rapid Transit District’s vision for vacant lots along MacArthur Park, the crime-plagued heart of the doggedly poor Westlake district near downtown.

Today, the RTD will hold a public hearing on its plan for more than two blocks under which the district is building the MacArthur Park subway station, the western end of the first, 4.4-mile segment of the Metro Red Line.

The hearing is scheduled to last two hours, starting at 6 p.m. in the auditorium of the Los Angeles County Medical Assn. at 1925 Wilshire Blvd.

To build the station, the district bought most of the property and demolished the buildings on it. Now that the station construction is nearly complete--the Red Line is scheduled to open next year--the district is planning to develop the property itself.

Construction of the shops, apartments and theaters will not start until at least 1995, said Gary Spivak, RTD planning director. The district must first complete public hearings, select a developer, prepare blueprints, secure funding and perform an environmental study.

The goal of this process--called joint development because the district will enlist private developers to share the work and profits--is to help the neighborhood become an attractive showcase of the city’s ethnic heritage.

In doing so, the RTD hopes to create a reliable long-term revenue source to defray the cost of building and maintaining the subway station below. And, by creating a regional shopping and entertainment center on the subway route, they hope to encourage people to ride the trains.

“This development project is significant for several reasons,” the district stated in its master plan. “As the initial Red Line station located outside the central business district, . . . it provides a ‘textbook’ example of joint development potential (and) the community economic benefits accruing from transit development.”

RTD officials acknowledge some risk in proposing to add restaurants to an area that already boasts many, from Salvadoran pupuserias to the landmark Langer’s Delicatessen. They also concede the risk of proposing to include boutiques along with more down-to-earth shops in a neighborhood of poor immigrants.

The station site, they said, must serve the broad range of people who will use the Red Line. Planners also want to consider many ideas, gauge what builders can support and use the RTD’s clout to better the area by attracting such conveniences as a supermarket. Residents must now travel several miles to a supermarket, Spivak said.

If a particular element does not work, it can always be modified or rejected, Spivak said.

“(RTD board member) Nick Patsaouras now calls us the bus company that’s rebuilding L.A.,” Spivak said. “We want to better the community if we can. . . . (But) this is a conceptual plan drawn up by our consultant. It doesn’t necessarily have to be like this.”

Spivak also acknowledged that the area’s problems with homelessness, drug dealing and crime, and conceded that they could inhibit business. That is why plans call for including a police substation in the plaza and requiring the developer to maintain the arcade to the RTD’s standards.

“Our response to that is that by creating an active, open space where a lot of people want to be, you take care of that problem,” he said. “If you’re the only person in a suit and tie in the place, you’re going to feel uncomfortable. But if you make it safe and clean enough for a lot of people in suits and ties--and everyone else--the activity will take care of crime.”

Success in the difficult environment of Westlake could make it easier for the RTD and Los Angeles County Transportation Commission to attract developers to participate in more lucrative joint-development projects to come in Hollywood, the Westside and the San Fernando Valley.

LACTC planner Nancy Whelan said the commission intends to recoup 3% of subway construction costs--tens of millions of dollars for the multibillion-dollar project--from joint-development deals.

That ambitious goal, based on achievements in San Francisco and elsewhere, is threatened in Los Angeles because county transportation officials did not incorporate joint development into the initial plans for many stations that they now realize are good candidates for such deals.

Even modest joint development was not designed into the Red Line station to be built at Vermont Avenue and Sunset Boulevard until after a master plan was complete. That plan was tossed out and detailed design work halted for months while some potential joint development deals were pursued.

Minutes of meetings of the LACTC’s Rail Construction Corp. subsidiary indicate that similar delays have been experienced at the Hollywood and Vine station, for which plans were complete, and a station at the intersection of Hollywood Boulevard and Western Avenue, for which designs were about 85% ready.

Joint development deals come in a variety of forms. Transit agencies can sell the rights to erect buildings above station sites, sell the right to build pedestrian tunnels connecting existing buildings to subway stations, or team with private builders to design developments that will provide a small but continuous income.

RTD selected the last option for the Westlake project, although Spivak declined to say publicly how much the district expects to earn from the development. He said he did not want to set a target on which bidders might base their offers.

The Westlake project began when the RTD asked community members to make recommendations for the new commercial zone. The RTD then paid a consultant--Kaplan, McLaughlin & Diaz, the same outfit that designed Two Rodeo Drive, the faux French streetscape between Rodeo Drive and Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills--to package those ideas.

That plan, described in a report to the RTD board last month, calls for a three-level plaza incorporating 300 subsidized apartments for singles, families and retirees, as well as a supermarket, an arcade with small retail shops, community center, five-screen movie theater and a round “town square.”

The style in preliminary drawings plays off the Latino flavor of the community, a densely populated low-rise neighborhood that traditionally has served as the entry point for immigrants from El Salvador, Guatemala and other Central and South American countries. The big market is conceived as a mercado in the style of downtown’s colorful and popular Grand Central Market.

Several hundred thousand square feet of office space--a possible addition to medical offices in the area--are an option for the site, the plan said. But the consultants said that in the current bearish commercial real estate market, any significant office development would be contingent on attracting a large public agency. None was recommended.

The RTD plans to move from its location adjacent to Skid Row into a high-rise tower planned as part of a $430-million joint development project at Union Station.