Staples Expansion, Southern Anchor, Awaits Public Funds
By DEBORAH BELGUM
Staff Reporter
On the south side of downtown, the $407 million Staples Center draws hordes of sports fans and concertgoers 220 nights a year, pumping energy into a part of the city that had been dying.
But the busy arena continues to be mostly an island unto itself. Fans fill the parking lots around Staples, stop at nearby restaurants, attend a game, and then leave usually in a hurry.
Developing the surrounding area has been slow going in the nearly three years since the venue was completed. It’s been a battle of interests among politicians, developers and community residents and, for those pushing to revitalize Grand Avenue, offers a sobering lesson in how difficult it is to assemble a comprehensive redevelopment plan.
“The challenge is how do you get people to come early and stay late,” said urban planner and developer Dan Rosenfeld of Urban Partners LLC, which is turning the old Herald-Examiner newspaper building at 11th Street and Broadway into office space.
Developing both the north and south sections of downtown is considered by many to offer the critical mass that will lure Angelenos and others into an area that remains mostly empty at night and on weekends especially when there’s no event at Staples.
Turning Grand Avenue into an entertainment and cultural center remains very much a work in progress even with the upcoming openings of the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels and the Disney Concert Hall. Prospects are better on the south side, but several puzzle parts must fall into place.
First, Staples Center officials need to embark on their $1 billion project called L.A. Live, which is being developed by L.A. Arena Land Co. (a partnership of developer Ed Roski Jr., Denver-based Philip Anschutz and media mogul Rupert Murdoch), and which has been referred to as the Staples II expansion project. The project includes a 1,200-room hotel, a 7,000-seat theater, retail outlets, a pedestrian plaza and at least 500 housing units.
But things are not moving along very quickly. Part of the problem has been the sputtering economy. Another wrinkle is a new mayor.
When Staples Center was proposed, former Mayor Richard Riordan practically volunteered to drive in the first bulldozer. The city chipped in $12 million in subsidies. The CRA issued $58 million in revenue bonds and used its power of eminent domain to secure real estate parcels.
Once ground was broken, Staples Center was constructed in a record 18 months.
Times are different. With a number of outlying regions threatening to secede from the city, Mayor James Hahn is more reluctant to grant outright subsidies to help develop L.A. Live even though getting the convention hotel will almost certainly require some kind of government help.
L.A. City councilwoman Jan Perry, whose district encompasses Staples Center, said she wants to reconvene a working group to push the hotel project forward. “What we need to do is define our strategy for financing, which would be a combination of public and private funds, and what that means,” she said.
There has been talk of the city becoming a full or partial owner of the hotel, as has happened with other convention hotels in major cities. But details have not been cemented.
The other piece of the redevelopment puzzle is getting more people to live around Staples Center. This is happening rapidly with several apartments, lofts and condominiums projects taking shape.
Forest City Enterprises Inc. is negotiating with the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency to buy property along 11th Street between Hope and Flower streets to build 250 rental lofts, said Kevin Ratner, a development manager with Forest City. The lofts would be within walking distance of Staples Center and nearby restaurants.
A block away, Lee Group plans to add three stories to an existing three-story building it bought from Anschutz Entertainment Group for $5 million. Lee will build 91 condominiums in the early 1930s structure.
But the cornerstone remains the L.A. Live project. The theory is that once a $300-million hotel goes up, the rest of the pieces will quickly fall into place. Other hotels would be eager to be near the new hotel and the convention center. Retail stores would soon follow.
“There have been so many false starts over the years, maybe this is finally it,” said Rosenfeld of Urban Partners.
