What are the biggest changes you’ve noticed downtown since you started working there?
Since 1999, people stay here after work to play, come downtown as a destination to play, and live here. The less obvious changes are: People choose DTLA to work at a co-working space to be a part of the buzz and excitement of DTLA – even though they could work from home. People Uber or Lyft to meetings or lunch around DTLA instead of driving and reparking. The severe traffic in DTLA is not coming from commuters, but more likely from construction or events. The white-collar worker that would never take mass transit before is taking mass transit now.
Business: Omgivning Architecture and Interior Design
Neighborhood: Historic Core
Title: Principal
Years working downtown: 17
Why does it make sense for your business to be located downtown?
We provide design services for developers that want to significantly renovate/change the use of their building and require permitting and/or design. Most of the buildings we work on are located downtown, and our staff is absorbed in DTLA, whether they work, live, and/or play here. We know the city staff, the local developers, the restaurant operators. We know the past and present of any neighborhood and everything that is happening here. Our work is informed by our knowledge about DTLA.
What are your favorite things about downtown?
DTLA has a loyal pioneering spirit that both its residents and even many workers feel and contribute to. It is constantly changing, morphing, improving. It is a community that thrives on things that are unique, new, and different. It is exciting to be a part of and it represents the pinnacle of what Los Angeles is.
Least favorite?
Folks that are mentally ill and/or have major addictions have always been a part of DTLA. I have learned to be empathetic and have taught my son about the sad realities of our world. However, my least favorite part of downtown is having to step over a passed-out person on the sidewalk in front of my building when I come to work in the morning. It is unacceptable for a humane society to exist like this.
Some building owners have unrealistic expectations of what their buildings are worth and it is driving costs up. At the same time, the city is requiring more and more regulations for renovations of the buildings and driving costs up. In many situations already, the development projects do not make financial sense for investors.
Do you live downtown as well?
I lived in DTLA (Pacific Electric and Roosevelt buildings) from 2008 through 2014. My son was 5 when I moved here in 2008. I started my firm Omgivning in 2009. There was and is a huge sense of community here, one that I still have not experienced in the eight or so other neighborhoods that I’ve lived in in Los Angeles. My son and I loved living in DTLA. Since I work in DTLA, all my projects are here, I started to feel a need to get away a bit, and I recently bought a house in Mount Washington. There was no opportunity downtown for me to invest in something small that I could call my own and renovate.
Where do you see downtown in five years? Ten years?
We have an enormously long way to go in five, 10, or 20 years. We have so much potential for expansion and density downtown due to our transit system. We have barely hit the surface of DTLA development and growth.
– Daina Beth Solomon
