A New Mix for Urban Living
From Pasadena to Long Beach, developers and architects are touting the benefits of stacking homes above shops and businesses in a lively urban mix. The trouble is that it can get too lively.
Just ask Sonia Rivas about the sounds of early-morning trash trucks on Broadway and other disturbances outside her apartment above Grand Central Market in downtown Los Angeles. “I hear the ambulances all the time,” said Rivas, a graduate student at USC.
The sounds of the city are part of the trade-off of living in a culturally rich and vibrant setting, urban boosters say. But architects and developers are taking steps--from using soundproof glass to innovative building design--to soften some of the harsh edges of city living for a new generation of urban pioneers.
The new “mixed-use” projects rising across Los Angeles County are not as quiet or as spacious as the typical suburban home or apartment complex, but they offer more comforts and amenities than previous generations of urban dwellings.
“It’s not as Arcadian as living out in the suburbs, but it has a lot of advantages,” said architect William Roschen of Roschen Van Cleve Architects.
Buildings that combine apartments with businesses dot many of the Los Angeles area’s pre-World War II neighborhoods. But these early models of mixed-use development proved to be no match for the allure of the single-family suburban home or garden-style apartment, with pool and balcony. Many of the older buildings lacked convenient parking, outdoor spaces and other amenities.
The same style of buildings may have housed the middle class and wealthy in New York and San Francisco, but they had little status in Los Angeles.
“The idea was to come here [to Los Angeles] and live in your own house,” said architectural historian Diane Ghirardo at USC. “They were not coming here to live in dense areas. It was only the poor who lived stacked up in dense [neighborhoods].”
But designers and developers say the scores of mixed-use projects in the latest generation to be built in Los Angeles County are more livable than their predecessors. In many cases, adding double-glazed windows, air conditioning and wall insulation can filter out street noise and dirt.
Some architects set upper-story residences back from the street to create terraces and balconies that shield the units from noise rising from the street and sidewalk.
The Wilshire Borgata, a 60-unit condominium on a busy section of Wilshire Boulevard in Brentwood, uses a traditional architectural feature, the courtyard, to provide relief from street noise and activity. Architect Johannes Van Tilburg also has included a courtyard in a new Pasadena complex, where the units with a tranquil courtyard view probably will command a premium over those facing busy Colorado Boulevard.
“Not all units are created equal,” said Van Tilburg, who has designed numerous mixed-use buildings across Los Angeles.
The six-story Borgata and similar projects also feature shared outdoor spaces, such as a swimming pool. These spaces were missing in many older buildings, where outdoor areas might be limited to a fire-escape landing or small balcony.
“You want to get some outdoor space where you feel somewhat private,” said Thomas Brink, of RTKL Associates Inc., who oversaw design of the 387 apartments at Paseo Colorado, the Pasadena development that opened in September and includes stores, restaurants, a supermarket, gym, spa and multiplex cinema.
Paseo Colorado, like other new developments, also includes resident parking separate from spaces for shoppers and moviegoers. “You will have your own [exit] lane so you won’t have to sit behind the movie crowd,” Brink said.
Brink and other designers also have had to juggle the often conflicting needs of residents and the businesses below. At Paseo Colorado, where the first units will be completed early next year, apartment windows face away from loading dock areas. Early-morning deliveries will be prohibited to shield residents from the noise of trucks and workers.
Some developers also are careful about what businesses are included in their buildings to make sure they are compatible with residents.
For example, at CityPlace in Long Beach, where plans call for 200 housing units that will sit above and alongside storefronts, business tenants may include a cafe or a dry cleaner but “probably not a nightclub,” said Paul Jennings, chief executive of PCS Development, which will build the apartments.
Efforts to shield urban residents from noise and other potential problems can create fortress-like buildings that isolate residents from the streets and the surrounding city, urban planners and designers say.
To help avoid isolation, some architects place apartment management offices and recreation rooms--usually hidden from view--in ground-floor, storefront spaces to form a stronger connection to the street and to add to pedestrian activity.
“It’s really about energizing the street,” Van Tilburg said.
For Rivas, who lives in the Grand Central Square Apartments, it’s the energy of the city that prompted her move from Sherman Oaks to downtown Los Angeles 21/2 years ago.
“I came here because I wanted to be close to all the cultural things,” said Rivas, 34. “I like it here.”
