L.A.’s Civic Center, conceived in the 1920s as a pedestrian-friendly municipal core built around greenways, is home to the largest complex of government-owned buildings in the United States, outside of Washington.
By day, the area constitutes 40 traffic-clogged acres of drab structures inhabited by more than 200,000 public employees. By night, it is largely abandoned with the exception of the Music Center theaters and adjacent Walt Disney Concert Hall and holds no permanent residents.
The planned $1.3 billion Grand Avenue Project, including a revitalized 16-acre park in the Civic Center, is aimed at fulfilling some of early city planners’ original vision for a pedestrian municipal core.
The project, which stretches southward to Fifth Street, will add 1,000 residential units adjacent to the Civic Center in Bunker Hill. Along with Disney Hall and Our Lady of the Angels Cathedral, it will help transform the Civic Center into a cultural destination.
After a lengthy public outreach process, developer Related Cos. is expected to submit its final plans next month for approval. “We emphasized and heard back in turn from the public that a very important part of the plan was the public spaces,” said Related Principal Bill Witte. “We’ve tried to make the site very urban and dense, but also to open it up, to take advantage of L.A.’s climate.”
The existing district includes L.A. County’s administration and courthouse buildings, along with state and federal court buildings and a detention center.
The jewel of the district is L.A.’s City Hall. Built in 1928 and beautifully restored after the 1994 Northridge earthquake, the 28-story Beaux Arts tower was for years the only building allowed to exceed the city’s 150-foot height limit. It has also earned a nostalgic place in pop culture blown up in “War of the Worlds” and the location of the Daily Planet newspaper for the “Superman” television show.
Witte said the planned park will run from City Hall to the Music Center, and support “a wide range of community-wide uses,” including farmers’ markets, festivals and outdoor concerts.
The Los Angeles Grand Avenue Authority, a joint city-county powers authority created by the union of the County Board of Supervisors and L.A.’s City Council, has overall responsibility for the project.
All property to be included in the project is owned by either the Community Redevelopment Agency of the City of Los Angeles or the county. The project was initiated by the Grand Avenue Committee, a public/private partnership formed in 2000.
