Downtown Los Angeles Goes Upscale

Less than a decade ago, downtown Los Angeles was pocked with vacant eyesores — aging office and industrial buildings emptied out in the 1990s during an era of corporate downsizing and relocation. The liveliest nightlife bustled on skid row, and many workers fled to the suburbs at sunset, considering the city's core too dangerous a place in which to linger.

But the inner city's fortunes are changing. The infusion of $17 billion in private investment since 1999 is transforming downtown into a place to live, work and play, and giving Los Angeles the same caché as other top cities. In less than a decade, the number of residential units has expanded from 3,200 to 11,000, and another 8,000 market-rate units are being built.

“Those who weren't believers in downtown are having a tough time defending their position that downtown isn't emerging as a 24/7 place to rival some of the great cities in the United States,” says Marc Renard, capital markets managing director at Cushman & Wakefield in Los Angeles.

Among its impressive new developments, downtown has snared AEG's $2.5 billion sports entertainment hub called L.A. Live. The project's first phase opened in October near the Staples Center and Los Angeles Convention Center on downtown's south end. It houses the Nokia Theater, a 7,100-seat venue that will host award shows. When complete, the 5.6 million sq. ft. L.A. Live development will include a hotel, condos, offices, movie theaters, retail, restaurants and clubs.

At downtown's north end, the Related Cos. is building the Grand Avenue Project, a 3.6 million sq. ft. mixed-use development near Walt Disney Concert Hall. The $2.5 billion project's first phase is scheduled to open by 2011.

The emergence of major new projects was inevitable given downtown's daytime population of more than 400,000, says William A. Witte, president of Related of California. Development would have occurred sooner, he says, if not for the recession of the early 1990s.

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source: nreionline.com