Rebuild Downtown--the Gradual Way : Sometimes sure and steady is the key to urban renewal success

One building at a time, one block at a time. Perhaps the time is now at hand for this more modest but certainly more realistic approach to urban revitalization.

Redevelopment planners for Downtown Los Angeles (and in other major cities) once had far grander visions; they believed that entire neighborhoods, once renovated or razed and rebuilt, would cause the urban core to “turn around.”

We know now that urban revival doesn’t always work that way. In fact, it rarely does. Legions of new, upscale tenants don’t always magically appear to fill those sparkling new blocks of steel and glass. Customers for the retail establishments may not either, or they may not spend enough to keep afloat these fragile enterprises often marooned in vast deserts of vacant storefronts or office towers.

Downtown Los Angeles developers have had their share of failures, but with experience often comes wisdom--and more modest ambition. The Bradbury Building, the Million Dollar Theater, the Grand Central Market, one at a time these old gems are being restored to much of their former glory. Angels Flight should be operational later this year, linking Bunker Hill with the Red Line station at 4th and Hill streets. Plans for the long-vacant lot across from City Hall are again in the works. The hope is, of course, that modest aims reap modest successes that build, one upon another.

Now the state has announced plans to buy and rehabilitate the empty Broadway department store complex at Broadway and 4th Street. When the overhaul is completed in 1999, plans are to locate 1,700 government employees there. This once-lovely building, constructed in 1913, has been vacant since 1966. Marred with graffiti and home to squatters, the building, in effect, divides the Broadway shopping corridor in half.

The move will be a win-win for the state and ongoing redevelopment efforts. The state currently rents office space throughout the county and should save money and improve efficiency by consolidating its employees in a building it owns. Downtown merchants should gain new customers. And as more projects of this sort are completed, Los Angeles may one day find itself with an attractive, vibrant downtown.