Plan for an L.A. Times Square to Get Key Airing

Seeking to bolster and reshape the city’s core, the Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday will consider approving an eight-year plan to transform 27 acres of parking lots and ramshackle buildings around Staples Center into a shopping, dining and entertainment district that would be a West Coast version of Times Square.

The $1-billion project, proposed by a private development group that includes the owners of the Staples Center, is expected to eventually require tens of millions of dollars in public assistance as developers seek to revitalize the area around Olympic Boulevard and Figueroa Street.

The development, which would significantly alter the downtown skyline, calls for building a towering, four-star hotel, 7,000-seat theater for musicals, award shows and other live entertainment, as well as two apartment towers with a total of 800 units and a second, smaller hotel. A 250,000-square-foot expansion of the adjacent Los Angeles Convention Center is also in the works.

“We are trying to create a lively, entertaining, vibrant district that people will feel comfortable being a part of,” said Tim Leiweke, president of the Arena Land Co.,which owns Staples Center. “We hope that it is the kind of place that people want to come from all over the world to see.”

Despite a tax subsidy that some city officials believe could reach $75 million, a number of council members, community groups and labor organizations have signaled their support for the project, saying it will energize a somewhat desolate part of downtown and bring business to the city’s struggling Convention Center.

The proposal calls for the construction of a strip of nightclubs and restaurants, shops and music venues, all trimmed with neon lights and colorful signs alongside the 45-story hotel.

“Anything that will stimulate more business and bring more people downtown to socialize and spend their money is a good thing,” said Councilwoman Jan Perry, whose district includes the area.

Although the plan before the council on Tuesday does not address the issue of taxpayer help, developers and city officials are continuing to work behind the scenes to figure out how big a subsidy the development would need. The City Council in June agreed to spend $150,000 to hire a consultant to advise the city on its options.

One proposal calls for the city to use up to $75 million in bed taxes collected at the hotel to help finance the project.

“The next leg of this journey will relate to subsidies and that kind of business,” said Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas.

Some critics question whether it is appropriate to dip into public coffers to help finance a project that is being proposed by billionaires, including media mogul Rupert Murdoch and railroad magnate Phil Anschutz.

“God knows they don’t need a public subsidy,” said Councilman Joel Wachs, a longtime opponent of taxpayer support of private projects. “My main focus has been making sure that developers pay for their own development.”

Mayor James Hahn on Fridaysent a letter to council members voicing his support for the Staples expansion, but cautioning against using public funds to help underwrite it.

“Funding should be sought from [the] private and commercial sector and not from the taxpayers of Los Angeles,” Hahn wrote.

But Staples officials say the high-rise hotel is not feasible without public help.

“It is usually an economic necessity to have some economic participation in order to make those kinds of projects pencil out,” Leiweke said.

Leiweke argued that residents throughout the city will benefit from taxes generated by the project, including sales and utility taxes from the hotel.

“We are absolutely convinced a convention center hotel will bring all kinds of new business back into downtown L.A.,” Leiweke said.

Indeed, the absence of hotel space around the Convention Center has long been a point of criticism among some convention organizers.

Developers Agree to ‘Living Wage’

San Francisco, for example, has 10,000 hotel rooms within an easy walk of its convention facilities. That compares with about 640 rooms close to Staples. Anaheim and San Diego also have more accommodations, Staples officials said.

And they said the project has other benefits.

Forming an unprecedented coalition, the developers have worked out a labor agreement with unions and neighborhood groups to ensure that the city’s “living wage” will be paid for at least 70% of the 5,500 permanent jobs the project is estimated to create. Officials have also agreed to include affordable housing and new parks in the project.

“There is enormous community support for the project,” said Gilda Haas of the Figueroa Corridor Coalition for Economic Justice.

Ridley-Thomas added: “The company is on the verge of setting a new standard in terms of the level of support to the community. . . . They have worked with interested stakeholders to create benefits beyond the immediacy of the Arena Company’s own bottom line.”

That approach is in marked contrast with efforts to build the Staples Center several years ago. Then, the residents were not organized to act, and Staples officials acknowledged that they were insensitive to the community’s needs. Housing was torn down and people displaced. No housing will be destroyed for the latest development.

There was an effort this time around to “do it right,” Leiweke said.

“I don’t expect any problems at City Hall because of the unique coalition,” Leiweke said. “We have done this with the community. We learned from our last experience how things should get done.”

The plans for the development--known as the downtown L.A. Sports and Entertainment District--have been in the works for a year and a half.

Error Delays Committee Hearing

The developers had hoped to win final approval for the project before the lame-duck council and Mayor Richard Riordan left office at the end of June.

But the project got bogged down in the city’s bureaucracy. Last week, the plans were supposed to go before the council’s Planning and Land Use Committee for a hearing. But that meeting was canceled after city officials discovered that the clerk’s office did not post and distribute the agendas, as required under the Brown Act.

Finally on Tuesday, the proposal will receive a full hearing at City Hall, city officials said.

Wachs, who is leaving office at the end of the month, said he hopes someone else on the council will “take up the mantle” on the issue of taxpayer assistance.

“We probably won’t hear anything about the subsidy until I’m gone,” said Wachs, who is taking a job at an art institute in New York City. “But we all know it’s part of the deal.”