MySpace? Really?

The Alexandria has a MySpace page. Here's a sample of the About Me:

Live In A Legend*************** ***************Designed by famed architect John Parkinson, whose creative power produced such notable projects as Union Station, Los Angeles City Hall, and The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, The Alexandria exudes confidence that not only comes with brilliant design but with a charm and personality all her own. ***************Hollywood fell in love with The Alexandria from the start. Legends from Charlie Chaplin, Mae West, and Humphrey Bogart to Rudolph Valentino, Clark Gable and Greta Garbo called her home. Three U.S. Presidents and foreign dignitaries followed suit making The Alexandria one of the most famous buildings in the city. ***************Now, you have the opportunity to live in the same residences as these legendary celebrities and make a history all your own. Currently in renovation, the new Alexandria will offer a charming, affordable and secure environment in the heart of the evolving downtown Los Angeles community. This is an opportunity to get in on the ground floor of the new urbanism movement and a growing, citywide revitalization effort. +++++A Facelift for our Beauty+++++ ***************The Alexandria is receiving a $14 million renovation including manicured common areas with fashionable furnishings for your enjoyment and entertaining, and our popular ‘micro-lofts’ will feature all new appliances, floor coverings, ceiling fans and light fixtures. Additional plans include a fitness center, business center, lobby diner, black box room for resident performances & exhibitions, and storage lockers for your convenience. Construction begins in the fall of 2006 and is scheduled for completion in the spring of 2009. ***************All new residents must meet affordable income guidelines but will benefit from rents starting in the $450 per month range including utilities.

Hm, no mention of the crack dealers hanging out by the front door. An oversight, I'm sure.

Putting the ass in assimilation

Tuesday's LA Times had an amazing article, "New generation of L.A.-area Latino leaders aren't as friendly toward 'amigo stores'". Apparently, the City Council in Baldwin Park wants to do away with "amigo stores" (you know, quinceañera shops, Mexican restaurants, crédito fácil furniture stores,etc.) and bring in high-class retailers like Fridays and Cheesecake Factory. The quotes in the article are comedy gold:

"We want what Middle America has as well," said the second-generation Mexican American, recounting the meeting. "We like to go to nice places like Claim Jumpers, Chili's and Applebee's. . . "

"Some opponents say that one councilwoman had told critics to "go back to [Tijuana]."

"I don't know where they got that," said Councilwoman Marlen Garcia. "What I said was 'We're striving to insure Baldwin Park doesn't look like Tijuana.' "

Sam Romero, 73, owner of St. Teresa's Catholic Gift Shop on 4th Street, said he once cracked to a local paper that one local politician "broke every glass and mirror in the house so he wouldn't have to see a Mexican."

"Councilwoman Marlen Garcia, said she was tired of pining for the Islands, Chevy's and Jamba Juices of neighboring West Covina...

"As soon as they said 'La Curacao,' I said, 'That's it,' " Garcia said. "We're not against our culture, nothing like that. But we want something that speaks to every culture."

Oh God. Now that I've finished LOL'ing, I'm depressed. What bums me out is this perception that it has to be all or nothing, either 100% amigo stores or a generic mall with the same fucking stores you see from Santa Monica to Covina. One of the things I love about Downtown is that you have both. You have all of the 99 cent stores and botanicas and joyerias on Broadway and in the Fashion District, but you also have 626 Reserve and Pete's and a bookstore on Main. That's what makes it such a rich community. That's what makes it fun to live down here.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of Downtown planners who see it the way the Baldwin Park politicos do. They want to clear out the SRO's. They want to evict all of the Latino stores from Broadway. they want to bring in the Banana Republics and Baja Freshes and turn downtown into a mall with cooler buildings.

Look, I like Starbucks as much as anyone and having a Starbucks down here would be nice, but not if it means getting rid of all of the cheap gold stores and sunglass vendors and the video game stores down on Los Angeles. Can't they co-exist? Why does it have to be all or nothing?

Being from NYC, I see that it can be different (thought unfortunately, NYC has also become a little more generic, a little more chain-oriented than it used to be). If you walk down Broadway in New York, yeah, you can shop at the Gap and H&M, but you also get the great cheap shoe emporiums, the Chinese department stores that sell satin bedspreads and cotton Mary Janes and giant woks, the street vendors who sell Gucci knock-off bags. This stuff can all live together, believe me. And it should. Otherwise, you're living in Reseda with tall buildings and expensive parking. And what's the point of that?

Alexandria landlord slapped by judge

From the LA Times:

A federal judge has found that the city of Los Angeles allowed more than 100 poor and disabled people to be improperly evicted from a downtown residential hotel slated for redevelopment.

Judge Margaret M. Morrow issued a preliminary injunction last week ordering the city's Community Redevelopment Agency to locate dozens of the now potentially homeless people and pay them relocation funds.

She also ordered the owner of the Alexandria to make the building habitable for the remaining 100-plus tenants, many of whom are elderly and disabled.

The ruling is the latest turn in a long-running battle over redevelopment downtown. It marks a victory for the homeless and their advocates, whose claims that hotel owners were treating them badly fell on deaf ears in city government for months.

...

The Alexandria, a stately building at 5th and Spring streets, was built 102 years ago as a luxury hotel. Its architect, John Parkinson, also designed such notable buildings as Los Angeles City Hall, Union Station and the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

For a time, the hotel, with its Tiffany skylight, was the most glamorous in all Los Angeles. But by the 1980s, as downtown fell on hard times, the beaux-arts revival landmark had become a weekly rate residential hotel, serving as housing of last resort for hundreds of disabled people.

In 2006, as gentrification was sweeping through downtown and lofts began to transform old buildings, developer Ruben Islas and partners purchased the building and began renovating it.

Islas, who specializes in low-income and senior housing, pledged to keep the building as affordable housing and received funds from the CRA and the federal government to help pay for the rehab.

Soon, however, many long-time tenants of the building, organized by homeless advocacy groups such as the Community Action Network, began accusing developers of waging an illegal campaign to get them out and replace them with wealthier clientele.

They claimed that the water and elevators were shut off for days at a time, destroying their quality of life and leaving the disabled among them stranded upstairs without potable water or flushing toilets.

The Los Angeles City Council and the CRA board declined to step in, despite the parade of residents in wheelchairs urging them to do something.

Islas denied the charges and accused his critics of sabotaging work at the Alexandria by turning off the water and disrupting service on an elevator.

Last fall, residents filed a lawsuit charging that Islas and his partners "systematically and intentionally worked to remove the long-term tenants of the Alexandria and replace them with non-elderly, non-disabled and non-African American tenants."

The lawsuit, which seeks damages, is set for trial next year.

If you look at the Alexandria's website, it definitely seems as if they are trying to get lofties into the building (check out this photo, which, trust me, does not resemble anyone who currently lives in the hotel).

This situation truly sucks because there are so many buildings in this area that can be developed without displacing people (the building I live in, and most of the buildings in the area, were vacant before they were developed into lofts). One of the things I love about downtown (despite my over-reaction to the Hayward shooting) is that it is economically diverse in a way that you see a lot in New York but don't see much in LA. The SRO residents were here first, and if they lose their housing, they have no place to go but the street. Plus there are plenty of empty buildings/lots that can be developed, so why push out people who really need their homes?

Rents in the Historic Core

A post on Curbed LA breaks down the rents at some of the loft buildings in my neighborhood.

Union Lofts: $1800 for 630sf. Dark, no tubs in bathrooms.

Chapman Flats: $1800 to $2200 for 800sf

Pacific Electric Lofts: One month rent free with 13 month lease (but no info on rents)

The article doesn't say if in-building parking is included. That would definitely add to the appeal, but these buildings still seem way overpriced. These rents are going to come down--believe it.

More thoughts on downtown development

I saw a post on Curbed LA that mentioned LA Live. Since I had only a very vague idea of what LA Live is, I did a little googling and quickly found out that LA Live is basically Marina del Rey combined with Universal City Walk, located right next to the Staples Center.

Wow. Talk about missing the point of being downtown.

I know that South Park is supposed to be the most successful neighborhood in Downtown--but by what criteria? Do we really want to recreate Marina del Rey Downtown? I mean, if you want a Marina del Rey living experience, wouldn't you rather just live in Marina del Rey and be able to walk to the beach?

If you're going to develop Downtown, you should exploit what's good about being in a dense city: walkability, readily available mass transit, older buildings with details you don't find in newer construction. That's the hook. Not, "Ooh, it's just like Third Street Promenade! And almost as expensive! Only it's not next to the beach and the freeways form a cluster fuck around it!"

The Bank District/Gallery Row/Historic Core (pick the name you like best) makes a lot more sense. You're restoring the beautiful Beaux Arts and Art Deco buildings that are already there. There are more and more restaurants, bars and galleries springing up. It's a quick trip to the freeway but you're not living right next to it. You have easy access to most of the major bus and rail lines in the city. And you have a lot of economic and ethnic diversity, which is not the case in most of LA.

It'll be interesting to see what happens in South Park as the condo crash continues. I think the more central areas of Downtown may wind up doing better in the long run. The artists and creative types who are drawn to the Historic Core may be more likely to stick around simply because their expectations are more reasonable. And the changes to the neighborhood are driven by residents, rather than by developers.

Downtown developer up shit's creek (which is good news for folks like me)

From Bloomberg via Curbed LA:

May 11 (Bloomberg) -- A package of Los Angeles real estate on sale for 35 cents on the dollar is attracting investors to the depressed shares of Meruelo Maddux Properties Inc., the biggest private landowner in the city's four-square-mile downtown.

The stock has plummeted 85 percent since an initial public offering 15 months ago as the global credit crisis threatens to disrupt refinancing of $200 million in mortgage debt coming due in the next 12 months, as well as completion of the city's tallest downtown residential tower.

Meruelo Maddux owns or controls 80 acres including the Little Tokyo Shopping Center, home of the country's largest Japanese supermarket, as well as warehouses and buildings used in Tom Cruise's action film ``Mission Impossible III.''

...

Meruelo Maddux's market capitalization of $142 million is about a third of the book value of its properties minus debts. Loan payments and maintenance consume $500,000 a month more than the company takes in, eroding the developer's $13.5 million in cash.

...

Meruelo Maddux's biggest bet is that people will want to live downtown, where 500,000 work but only 35,000 dwell....Meruelo Maddux is building a 34-story rental tower, known as 717 Ninth, that will be Los Angeles's tallest downtown residential structure. Twenty floors have been erected so far. The building is across the street from a 50,000-square-foot Ralphs Grocery Co. outlet, the first supermarket-chain store to open downtown in more than 50 years.

Bank Balks

While a ``large bank'' pulled out of a $97 million construction loan for the tower in January, the project will be completed on time next year, Meruelo told analysts on a March 31 conference call, without identifying the lender. The company is negotiating a new loan, he said.

People do want to live downtown. What they don't want to do is pay $700K to do it. Wonder what the sales prices will be when the tower is finished next year?