One Little Thing Is Missing

For years, plans to remake downtown’s Grand Avenue into the Champs-Elysees of Los Angeles amounted to just grandiose talk. Then along came Jose Rafael Moneo’s Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels and, more spectacularly, Frank Gehry’s Walt Disney Concert Hall, pumping some reality into the dreams. Next up: the $1.2-billion Grand Avenue Project, which aims to stitch the grand new buildings together with parks, restaurants, shops, offices and housing.

The public authority formed to oversee the project could choose a developer as early as next month. Here’s the catch: No one has yet figured out just what the winning team would build. The design itself is still at the grandiose-talk stage, with disconcertingly few details and dismayingly little public debate over what one of the largest developments in downtown history should look like.

Hiring a developer got ahead of agreeing on a design because of money concerns. Slated for development are four parcels around Disney Hall owned by the city and county. Besides the land, public investment in this public-private venture will include about $300 million in streets, sewers and other infrastructure. The private developer will be expected to foot the remaining $900-million tab. With this in mind, the advisory committee spearheading the selection emphasized finances over design. Rather than drawings and models, the two finalists were asked for 30-minute presentations on their qualifications, with just 10 minutes devoted to “concept analysis.”

What sketchy concepts emerged were not inspired. New York-based Related Cos., for example, talked of entertainment provided by Cirque du Soleil and media giant Clear Channel. Grand Avenue may never replicate a Paris boulevard, but that doesn’t mean it has to become the Las Vegas Strip. L.A. also doesn’t need another Third Street Promenade, Old Town Pasadena, Universal CityWalk or, worst case, Hollywood & Highland, a labyrinth of video screens and billboards that proved that consumers have limits.

Grand Avenue should aspire to be something uniquely Los Angeles as well as unique to Los Angeles. There is enough public in this partnership to insist that the heart of the city not become something just for those with brand-name tastes and fat wallets.

Yes, financing is key, as anyone familiar with the struggle to get Disney Hall built knows. But the soaring steel concert hall is also a testimony to the role of design.

It’s up to the elected officials who make up the Grand Avenue Authority to exact a clearer picture of what the developed avenue will become before hiring a developer to build it.