Hotels, Stadium for Downtown L.A.

Your May 20 article concerning a hotel for the L.A. Convention Center identifies a long-standing problem with that facility. I’ve been covering trade shows there as a reporter for various magazines for more than 10 years, and, yes, it needs a hotel close by. In fact, it probably needs three hotels.

For years the Los Angeles Convention and Visitors Bureau has let various conventions send out maps of the convention center and “nearby” hotels, some of which are as far away as Long Beach and Pasadena. People who come for a convention and end up at one of those “nearby” hotels sometimes pay $40 for a cab ride or have to rent a car. If they rent a car, they often find that the parking is full by the time they get to their event.

The L.A. Convention Center is simply too small for a big show and too big for a small show. Since the North Hall was torn down to make way for Staples Center, this is even more true.

In Anaheim and Long Beach, hotels that are genuinely close by allow convention organizers and exhibiting firms extraordinary flexibility because hotel ballrooms and function rooms are also available to handle the overflow. Building a major hotel or two, along with more parking and another exhibit hall or two, would allow L.A. to compete for convention business at more than giveaway prices. The fact that there are already a lot of hotel rooms in the city is not relevant. People attending a convention want to walk to the event, not take long cab or bus rides. And, if they’re local, they want to be able to find reasonable parking.

Francis Hamit

Frazier Park

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Re “Grandstanding Mayor Slim Jim Needs New Game Plan for NFL Stadium,” May 19: Steve Lopez has it wrong. Downtown L.A., at the center of expanding Metro Rail and freeway access, is the perfect place for a stadium and has handled sold-out Staples events with barely a blip. This space will not be in a vacuum if integrated with adjacent retail and entertainment proposals.

Lopez’s suggestion to place the stadium at the far edge of the city is an environmental disaster. He brought out the notion of putting the stadium in the Dodgers’ parking lot. Steve, you might check with the neighborhood about that one. You might find that the neighbors would be more willing to see baseball come down off the mountain and into Philip Anschutz’s stadium and Chavez Ravine returned to much-needed housing stock.

Roger Christensen

Sherman Oaks

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Frank del Olmo calls the representatives of the National Football League “snake-oil salesmen” (Commentary, May 19). Then Del Olmo states that “a group of successful business leaders is asking City Hall for tax subsidies.” No tax subsidies have been requested, although a bond issue to be paid back by the business group has been requested. Who is the snake-oil salesman? By the way, I am firmly against tax subsidies.

Lopez, on the other hand, wants more public discussion of the issues and more guarantees on the bond and interest payments. Lopez lists other reasons why the stadium should not be downtown. I also think there should not be a downtown stadium and would like to add a reason not mentioned. Currently the traffic going downtown to events at the Ahmanson, Taper, Chandler Pavilion, Staples Center, the Convention Center and, soon, Disney Hall, as well as for other reasons, is overwhelming. Major consideration in the public discussion should be given to resolving increased traffic congestion.

George Wolkon

Pacific Palisades