CRA to Pour Millions Into Downtown Development

By Kathryn Maese

Two New Project Areas Address Blight in Eight Districts

Two new economic redevelopment plans that will likely pour tens of millions of dollars into projects for several

Downtown districts by May were approved last week by the City Council and Community Redevelopment

Agency.

The vote ends a protracted struggle by the CRA to get around a $750 million spending cap on the existing

Central Business District redevelopment plan floated in 1975, which essentially limited further efforts to clean up

blight throughout Downtown when the money dried up. The new project areas will give the agency a hefty purse

to fund housing projects, particularly in converting historic buildings into apartments; it will offer businesses

incentives to relocate Downtown; and it will modernize much of Central City East's outdated and crumbling

industrial infrastructure, a problem which has plagued the area with its lack of loading docks and trucking access.

"In terms of redevelopment, we'd like to see a plan that sees the needs of both areas," said James Santamaria,

senior planning deputy for Councilman Nick Pacheco, whose district includes nearly 40 percent of the project

area. "But I think it's going to be a very exciting time for Downtown. We're starting to see that critical mass and

with the CRA being a part of the overall equation, Downtown will be a great place to live and work in the next

few years."

CRA expenditures are designated for specific geographic "project areas." The approval creates two new districts.

The Center City Redevelopment Project includes South Park, Historic Core, the Toy District and the Fashion

District. The second area, known as the Central Industrial Redevelopment Project, includes the area east of San

Pedro Street, north of the Santa Monica Freeway and west of Alameda Street.

CRA officials said they had originally proposed a single project area, but decided that the largely industrial part of

Downtown, which includes the Garment District, Central City East and the Alameda Corridor, has a unique set of

problems. Additionally, the area's business leaders say they have been ignored for the last 15 to 20 years, as the

original CBD plan focused its development efforts on erecting skyscrapers and other brick-and-mortar projects.

Meanwhile the industrial, manufacturing, produce and seafood sectors have languished.

The 1975 CBD plan put a $750 million "spending cap" on efforts in the area. When it became clear that more

expenditures were needed, however, former City Councilman Erani Bernardi led an effort to block a cap

increase. The CRA's efforts to inject more money into the community led to a court battle, though Bernardi

consistently prevailed. Ultimately, the CRA elected to create the new project areas rather than continue to battle

for the CDB.

Big Boom

The CRA's goal with any project area is to increase the assessable tax base, something the 1975 plan

accomplished during the construction boom of the 1980s. That plan's wild success stimulated an estimated $3

billion in current development value. Under the leadership of the CRA Administrator Jim Wood and Mayor Tom

Bradley, it helped spark 9 million square feet of new office space, 500,000 square feet of retail space, 2,500

rooms in three hotels, 3,000 apartment units and soon, five cultural facilities. While tempered by the current

economic slowdown and predicted nationwide recession, CRA officials say they still hope to make a sizeable

impact on Downtown.

"When you adopt a redevelopment plan," said CRA deputy administrator Don Spivack, "you have to remember

that there is a 30-year horizon on it and that any recession will have a short-term impact. These are cyclical

economic conditions that will resolve themselves."

Spivack stressed the importance of Downtown to the entire city, citing statistics that show that for every job in

Downtown, two more in Los Angeles are created. "So if Downtown shrinks, it has an impact on jobs elsewhere,"

he said.

While the 1975 redevelopment plan accomplished a lot, more remains to be done, Spivack said. "There are a lot

of vacant and underutilized historic buildings. We need to provide housing, and there's a large homeless

population. This is a potential way of addressing that."

In the next six to eight months, the CRA will pore over the districts to find "slum and blighted" neighborhoods and

determine if public intervention is needed. "These blighted conditions could be buildings that are physically

dangerous for people to live and work in, areas with high levels of commercial vacancy, residential overcrowding,

high local unemployment and low-income, inadequate streets and sidewalks or even a detrimental situation where

residential and industrial uses abut," Spivack said.

Just how much money will be invested is not yet known. Spivack said a fiscal analysis will be conducted to

determine how much it will cost to correct these conditions and identify potential public and private funding

sources.

A Project Area Committee, basically an advisory board made up of residents , businesses and local community

groups, will be elected Dec. 4, with an informational meeting taking place Oct. 30.