Group Calls for Vast Plaza in Revival of Civic Center

Frustrated by years of unsuccessful attempts to resuscitate downtown Los Angeles’ civic heart, Mayor Richard Riordan and a small group of leading cultural and political figures have banded together to promote a dramatic transformation of the city’s center into a pedestrian-friendly plaza ringed by cultural institutions, government buildings and residences.

If approved, the set of projects offers what backers see as a chance to deliver Los Angeles a grand public space--the absence of which was keenly felt during the much-ridiculed millennium celebrations--plus restaurants and shops between major attractions to generate a vibrant street life.

But the proposal faces formidable political and financial obstacles, including the question of whether the government should subsidize private development. Similar objections have torpedoed many previous attempts to re-create the area.

According to supporters, the plan is intended to fashion a more attractive, accessible plaza linking the Walt Disney Concert Hall, scheduled for completion in 2003, with the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, which is set to be finished in 2002. The Music Center of Los Angeles County, whose board received the plan Monday, would undergo an extensive face lift as well. That small portion of the project alone is expected to cost about $50 million. A later phase envisions a park extending east from Bunker Hill to City Hall.

Backers emphasize that planning for the project is still preliminary. It is too soon to put a full price tag on the possible changes--in part because they involve extensive use of public land--and it is just one of several Civic Center visions being advanced by various leaders.

Walking Tour Inspired Plan

Some of those who helped create the proposal, however, are among the city’s most familiar and influential figures.

Eli Broad, the billionaire businessman and cultural leader who has long made it his mission to revive downtown, is among its key proponents, as is Riordan. Indeed, several backers said Tuesday that the plan began to take shape about two years ago during a walking tour of downtown quietly conducted by Riordan, Broad, developer Ira Yellin, Getty Center President Barry Munitz, financier and philanthropist Michael Milken and Deputy Mayor Rocky Delgadillo.

According to Riordan, the group wandered through the Grand Avenue area for three hours on a Saturday morning and concluded that the strip needed a fresh look to accompany the construction of its two new signature buildings, Disney Hall and the cathedral.

From that point, Broad and developer James Thomas, a longtime fixture in the development of downtown, formed a group to draw up plans, enlisting the architects whose buildings are giving the area its new vibrancy.

“We’re really on track now,” Riordan said Tuesday. The mayor said he hoped that initial approvals for the plan could be secured between now and the middle of next year, when his administration ends.

If approved, the Civic Center proposal would significantly alter the look and feel of the area at the center of downtown Los Angeles. Among other things, it could involve tearing down the headquarters of the county government--a building already facing extensive earthquake renovations--building several high-rises that combine residences with commercial space and significantly extending the park in the center of the area. Under the new plan, the park would reach to the foot of City Hall, rather than breaking off a block away, as it does today.

Under the proposal outlined by Broad, Riordan and others, the plan would have three phases. The first would realign Grand Avenue in front of Disney Hall and the Music Center, transforming it with a more pronounced curve banked by wide sidewalks. Two new high-rises would flank the avenue south of Disney Hall and would bring restaurants or other commercial space to the street level.

In the second phase, the county would add a new public reception hall between the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and the Mark Taper Forum. The plan also calls for construction of a children’s theater and other additions.

But it is the plan’s final phase that would have the most obvious public effects. In it, an existing park that runs through the Civic Center would be expanded and made more accessible to the streets surrounding it. It would be extended to the foot of the historic City Hall, itself undergoing earthquake renovations that are scheduled for completion next year.

Developer Thomas said the Civic Center plan is part of a larger vision of Grand Avenue that extends all the way south to 5th Street.

“Some other people are interested in what can be done to make Grand a pedestrian street that is inviting and of use to the whole community,” he said. “We are exploring that possibility and trying to figure out a way to make a better connector to Pershing Square and the public library.”

That notion of filling in the empty spaces between the Civic Center and the library underlies much of the proposal, Thomas added.

“One of the things about downtown Los Angeles that is unfortunate is there are a lot of terrific things downtown, but they are disconnected,” Thomas said. “Nobody ever thinks of these as one piece. . . . One of the challenges for downtown is to get better connections between all of these different and wonderful things we have.”

To win ultimate approval, the plan needs to clear a host of public agencies, including the Board of Supervisors, the Los Angeles City Council and the governing board of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

Some representatives of those bodies have been consulted and expressed cautious optimism about the proposal.

MTA Funds Committed

The MTA has committed $2.2 million in state transportation funds to the Grand Avenue realignment project. MTA is working with the city and the county to realign Grand Avenue between 1st and Temple streets.

Art Cueto, a project manager for MTA, said the project is designed in part to “increase the street frontage on the Music Center side of the street.” He said the goal is to provide increased pedestrian activity on what today is “a very auto-dominated street.”

The MTA’s interest stems from the fact that the Civic Center subway station lies only a block below the Music Center on Hill Street. But the Red Line station is not very accessible to the Music Center because of the existing plaza between the Hall of Administration and the County Courthouse. The transit agency hopes to stimulate riders to take the subway to the Music Center and other entertainment venues, so riders are not just taking the line to commute to work.

“We’ve invested lots of money in providing these facilities,” Cueto said. A goal of the Grand Avenue project is to “strengthen the linkage to the Red Line Civic Center station.”

At the county government, Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky called the proposal “a noble idea.” But he, like others, worried about its ultimate cost and wondered where the money would come from.

Supervisor Gloria Molina, who has discussed the proposal with Broad, declined to comment Tuesday, referring questions to county Chief Administrative Officer David Janssen.

“We’re very supportive of the need to upgrade and update the Music Center, particularly as the Disney Hall comes on line three years from now,” Janssen said. “The challenge is--as in any plan--where is the money going to come from to pay for it?”

One particularly ambitious possibility is a proposal to tear down the county’s existing civil court building and its government headquarters. That would improve the approach to the new cathedral and clear space for buildings more in line with the new center’s look.

Some of the county buildings, including the government headquarters, were damaged in the 1994 Northridge earthquake. The headquarters also has asbestos contamination problems. As a result, officials have been considering tearing that building down and rebuilding, aided by insurance from the buildings and potentially from federal earthquake relief money.

“We’re going to be having some very serious discussion about this building,” Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke said.

The effect on city property would be less than on the county, but the city government does own two parcels along 2nd Street, which runs beneath Grand Avenue. Those parcels could be developed and, under the plan being discussed, could be home to high-rises that would straddle Grand Avenue.

Riordan said no final details had been hammered out on many of the plan’s specifics, but added that he and others have sounded the ideas out with developers who might be interested in building on some of the key parcels. The mayor said some public participation was probable--perhaps in the form of a deal on the city-owned land beneath Grand Avenue--but did not indicate that the city government would be asked to put up cash, a perennially hot topic at City Hall and one that would be even more controversial with the race for mayor just heating up.

Indeed, even Tuesday’s early discussions of the project made it clear that the question of public money will be among the most repeatedly asked as it is debated.

“The cost of this is going to be monumental,” said City Councilwoman Rita Walters, who represents the area and who is an ardent Riordan critic. “It is going to have to be done with private money.”

Walters said officials from the city Community Redevelopment Agency recently approached her to see if she would sponsor a motion to expand the redevelopment area to include parts of the Civic Center that now lie outside the proposed project area. That move, Walters said, would enable the agency to make redevelopment money available to construct the project.

Walters said she refused.

“I told them no, it wasn’t something I would support,” Walters said. “I think it’s time for the private sector to step up and do some of these things.”

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Times staff writers Tina Daunt and Nicholas Riccardi contributed to this story.

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Government Holdings

The redevelopment proposal that includes a renovated music center would require formal approval from city and county agencies. Here is a look at who owns the buildings.

County owned buildings:

Walt Disney Concert Hall

L.A. County Parcel Q

Dorothy Chandler Pavilion

Proposed Reception Hall

Mark Taper Forum

Ahmanson Theatre

L.A. County Courthouse

Hall of Administration

Proposed new Center Theater Group Building

City owned building on city land:

DWP Building

Note: Buildings not highlighted are not owned by the city or county

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Details of Proposals, F1