The Distant Sound of a Miracle
All across the land, a curious phenomenon is taking place in American downtowns. The phenomenon is known as reaching the “tipping point.” Young people rediscover their downtown and, like urban refugees, return to live and work in the ruins.
A few pioneers arrive first, then a few more. The process finally blooms into a movement. Abandoned office buildings get converted to apartments. A thousand boarded-up storefronts blossom into cafes and shops. No government help is required.
Downtown Seattle and Battery Park in New York tipped some years back. More recently, the old cores of Dallas, Memphis, and even Detroit tipped. Lots of downtowns have tipped.
Except here, of course. Nothing ever tips in Los Angeles. Our old financial district contains one of the largest collections of vintage buildings in the country, yet it remains mired in scummy degradation. Spring Street looks like it is populated by the cast from “Blade Runner.” Main Street occupies itself mainly with peep shows. And so on.
But wait! That distant sound of hammers you hear is coming from the corner of Spring and 4th, where developer Tom Gilmore has initiated an amazing project. If this project succeeds, it just might initiate the tipping of scales in our downtown.
Gilmore has assembled an entire block of buildings extending along 4th Street, from Spring to Main. It includes the 12-story Continental Building, generally regarded as the city’s first skyscraper; the Farmers and Merchants Bank complex, and the San Fernando Building, built by potentate developer James B. Lankershim.
In all, Gilmore will have enough space to create 250 rental apartments from these hulks. In addition, the buildings will offer him a block of storefronts to fill with the required latte outlets and Trader Joe’s. The whole thing has sheer bulk never seen in past efforts to bring downtown back to life.
And it will cost $30 million.
That’s not a huge amount by mega-project standards. But ask yourself a question: If you could raise $30 million, would you invest it in a block of pee-stained buildings abandoned for a decade or more?
That’s what makes Gilmore different from you and me. “Three years from now, people will see me as a visionary or as a maverick moron who lost his shirt,” Gilmore says. “Right now, I think most people believe it will be the latter.”
Having delivered this line, Gilmore laughs. It’s a big laugh, a real laugh. Gilmore is tall, 45, and seems to embrace risk the way a toddler embraces his blankey. He loves it, can’t live without it.
He also loves city life and believes, contrary to popular wisdom, that many young people in Los Angeles share his love. A primary distinction between Gilmore’s project and past downtown efforts, in fact, lies in his intention to ignore the upscale condo market. Rather, he will target his rentals at young, single people just starting their careers.
“These people don’t want to buy a condo, they want to rent an apartment. And that’s what we’ll offer,” Gilmore says. “They also want a little adventure in their lives, they don’t want boring neighborhoods. They want to mix it up, to hang out with people like themselves.”
Walking along the 4th Street sidewalk, Gilmore can see the whole thing in his mind. The windows of the early 20th century buildings will glow with the light from hundreds of living rooms. The sidewalks will be filled with people walking, sitting, eating supper under the trees.
As he walks into a corner storefront space in the San Fernando building, Gilmore waves his arms expansively. The ceilings rise 25 feet over an ancient tile floor and sunlight pours in through the huge windows. “I see restaurant, right?” he says.
At that moment, yes, I saw restaurant. In Gilmore’s presence, you would, too. But a hundred caveats must precede any prediction that a restaurant, in fact, will appear on the ground floor of the San Fernando Building, or that hundreds of young people will come to live there. Here’s a couple:
* Thus far, Gilmore has used only private funding for the project and has not sought any subsidies from the Community Redevelopment Agency or other government agencies. Still, he needs to secure construction financing, and regular banks won’t touch it. If he fails to get the funds from other sources, the project could collapse.
* The ghosts of other revitalization projects stand along Spring Street as a reminder of where good intentions often end up. The CRA’s own Premiere Towers project at 6th and Spring now sits half empty, awaiting sale. On 7th Street, an attempt to convert the magnificent Roosevelt building into apartments died last year for lack of financing. The conversion of the Million Dollar Theater building on Broadway has lost millions of dollars and will lose more before it turns a profit, if ever.
Still, there is reason to hope. First and foremost is the sense that Gilmore’s timing may be right. Almost in spite of itself, Los Angeles has grown into a city, and the newest generation of young adults here may, indeed, hunger for the city experience.
“In every other city where downtowns have been reborn, the process has been met with disbelief,” says Dan Rosenfeld, a real estate executive and former Los Angeles city official. “The experts always take a look at the first project and say, ‘It will never work.’ Yet it has worked in places as unlikely as Dallas. Believe me, if it can happen in Dallas, it can happen here.”
Also, shockingly enough, it turns out that demand is high for the 3,000 rental apartments in downtown. Overall, downtown buildings operate at 98% occupancy, and many buildings have waiting lists. Charles Loveman, a real estate consultant, says demand far exceeds supply.
“The market can easily absorb 250 more units,” Loveman says. “In fact, it could absorb much more than that.”
So we’ll see. I have a friend who often expresses his good-bowl-of-soup theory of city life. If you can walk around a neighborhood and easily find a place that offers a good bowl of soup, he says, then you know you’ve found a good place to live.
At his most basic, Gilmore seems to be following that theory. He is determined to offer not only a place to hang your hat but a neighborhood where people can find the things they need, including a good bowl of soup. If he can do it in downtown Los Angeles, it will be a miracle.
Let’s pray for that miracle.
