Riordan Unveils Revitalization Strategy

Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan’s strategy to revitalize the city’s poorest neighborhoods by shepherding private capital to key projects was largely praised Wednesday as a long-awaited ingredient for economic recovery. However, some criticized the effort as just another fragment in Riordan’s “scattershot” approach to economic development.

The mayor formally unveiled the strategy--dubbed Genesis L.A.--to a packed audience at the Magic Johnson Theatres in the Crenshaw District, where he was introduced by the former basketball star turned businessman. Johnson will develop one of the targeted projects. He also sits on an advisory board to draw more private investment to the effort.

The new strategy will avoid the missteps of Rebuild L.A., the public-private group launched after the 1992 riots that generated little tangible change, Johnson said.

“The important thing here is something will get done,” he said. “There will be jobs. There will be opportunities.”

The initiative already has drawn $40 million in commitments from Washington Mutual, Bank of America, Wells Fargo Bank and the Department of Water and Power. The sponsors are expected to make real estate investments in the projects, with the goal of attracting additional backers and financing. Some project sites are vacant and others are being developed as industrial and retail clusters.

City staff will help funnel existing public benefits to the projects, expedite permits and work to draw new investors. The city also plans to sell naming rights on the projects to the biggest sponsors.

Council members Mark Ridley-Thomas and Nate Holden, both of whom have projects planned for their districts, praised the initiative, saying they believe the private investment will spur important new development.

Both represent areas of the city that were hard hit by the ’92 riots. Both also stressed the need for city officials to work closely with the projects.

“It is not practical to even consider these projects coming to fruition without public participation,” Ridley-Thomas said.

Other community lenders characterized the strategy as the most concrete to emerge from the Riordan administration.

“It’s exactly the strategy that should have been followed after the riots--strategic investment in projects that have been on the drawing board but haven’t been able to happen” because of a lack of financing, said Roberto Barragan, vice president of the Valley Economic Development Center. “There is going to be revitalization because of the scale of these projects.”

But Peter Dreier, director of the public policy program at Occidental College, said the Riordan administration lacks a cohesive economic development strategy, adding that this latest initiative does little to change that.

The city “should be doing something much more strategic about where it puts its money, how to leverage public funds to create the best jobs, how to combine residential and commercial development so you get holistically good neighborhoods, and how to use political leverage to get lenders to make long-term commitments,” Dreier said.

“In the absence of having a more holistic, rational and consistent approach to economic development, the mayor is simply adding another ornament to a Christmas tree that is not very well defined.”