When the Downtown rental market turned sour, so did plans for L.A.’s new welcome mat to the world. : Dreams of a Civic Centerpiece Fall Hard on Vacant Lot

A civic center can often mirror a city’s soul, reflecting its present fortunes and its highest aspirations.

In San Francisco, you step outside City Hall and see the ornate old War Memorial Opera House, the Museum of Modern Art and shining Davies Hall, a glass-walled cathedral to the arts. The concert hall fairly glows with sophistication and urbanity--a vision of all San Francisco’s best feelings about itself.

In Los Angeles, you step outside City Hall and see government offices, the high-rises of Bunker Hill and one notably vacant lot, strewn with brush, piles of concrete rubble and mismatched trees. The empty parcel, surrounded by a sagging cyclone fence, rubs like a burr in a city already chafing with self-doubt.

It has been nearly 20 years since the property at 1st Street and Broadway was laid bare--stripped of the old state office building that had been deemed unsafe after the Sylmar earthquake.

Now, the last, best plan for refurbishing the land is in danger of falling by the wayside and the city is without a suitable welcome mat at its own front door.

The government officials who oversee the property are threatening to cut off a seven-year agreement with developer Raffi Cohen, who has failed to carry out a plan to build twin office towers, fronted by an expansive plaza, shopping arcade, fountain and trees.

Thursday was the deadline for Cohen to start the project or relinquish his option to develop the land, which is owned jointly by the state, county and city. Until the last minute--and even after it passed--Cohen was scrambling to modify his lease agreement, trying to buy time so that his dream development could go ahead.

A backhoe and a tractor rumbled over the property in the waning days of Cohen’s lease--turning the old steps of the state building to rubble. Underground, crews began to tear asbestos out of the long-closed parking garage.

Those who have followed the property’s fortunes for years said the hurried groundbreaking was a desperate attempt by Cohen to preserve his development rights. But a construction manager said that the eleventh-hour demolition was a sincere attempt to begin the project that is to be called First Civic Center.

Cohen won’t talk about it. County officials who manage the property are also close-mouthed, although they are expected to decide its fate as early as next week.

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In its time, the plan for 1st and Broadway had offered Los Angeles as much flash as cash. Architectural critics praised the verve of its design--twin office towers shouldering a glass pyramidal “head” and a wide plaza dotted with kiosks offering food and drink. Government money managers salivated at the prospect of $2.5 billion in rent that they were to collect over 66 years.

But the plans were dependent on finding tenants to fill 600,000 square feet of offices and, when the Downtown rental market turned sour, so did plans for L.A.’s new welcome mat to the world.

One partner backed out of the deal not long after it was set. Then Cohen defaulted on the $125,000 monthly rent he paid to control the property. Construction schedules were set back. Now, with tenants still lacking, Cohen’s current partner, Melvin Simon, reportedly wants out of the deal.

Cohen has already poured $5.5 million in rent into the property and he owes about $1 million more, plus other expenses. All he will have to show for that investment, if his lease is not extended, is about $3.5 million he has collected from an adjacent parking lot.

Besides an extended lease, Cohen wants permission to begin construction of the plaza and a subterranean parking structure while postponing the office construction, said Dan Rosenfeld, who manages the state of California’s properties. “A plaza in front of City Hall is worth something, but how long can we give him a hunting license for something else that might not be there?” Rosenfeld asked.

Something must be done, he said, or the empty lot will remain “like a gaping hole where a tooth has been ripped away.”

Mayor Richard Riordan calls it ugly and says that the end of the Cohen deal might open the door for a new arrangement to create “a broad open plaza with huge trees.” He holds out high hopes for the old city core, noting that the Union Rescue Mission is moving out, that the dilapidated police headquarters will probably be rebuilt, and that as many as 5,000 state workers are scheduled to move into new offices Downtown.

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Harry Pregerson, a U.S. Court of Appeals judge and a lifelong Los Angeles resident, said he cringes every time he passes 1st and Broadway. He has quietly tried to promote the opening of a center for cultural understanding, a place where ethnic, racial and religious groups could come together. Pregerson would like the center named for “two models of tolerance”--Rodney G. King and Reginald O. Denny.

But for now there is just the old, graffiti-marked concrete bunker that was once the foundation of the state office building, and an abandoned gas pump.

The rusted chain-link fence surrounds a graveyard of old political placards. Through the years, the only semblance of progress was the addition--after each election--of a new list of politicians to the billboards that loomed over the site.

Now even the billboards have been knocked down. What will happen next, nobody is quite sure.