Missing the Target

If you've been keeping up with the real estate development headlines lately, you might have noticed that every big, ambitious LA development plan includes a Target as its desired anchor tenant. Projects at various phases of development in Mid-City, Crenshaw, Hollywood, Westwood, and Downtown all tout Target as their crowning retail centerpieces. Some actually have the stated support of the Target Corp., while others merely crave the discount store's shiny urban appeal or its supposed potential to spur surrounding retail growth. The CRA has been lusting after Target for years in its attempt to turn a stretch of Washington Blvd south of Downtown into a dense big box haven. Oxymoron?

But why target Target? Perhaps developers point to the success of the West Hollywood Gateway, a project that has seen enormous traffic for its own tenants but has done little to turn around that languishing stretch of Santa Monica Blvd in eastern WeHo. Or perhaps they see Target much in the way the rest of us see it: as the hipper, cleaner alternative to those other trashy discounters we are loathe to visit. But the truth is that as a company, Target is in no position to expand its retail locations as aggressively as these developers might like. Neither is the Los Angeles customer base large enough or desirable enough to support a wealth of new stores.

Wal-Mart on the other hand, may take the cake on both these fronts. It is Wal-Mart, not its snooty rival, that has benefitted most from the recession, as many consumers seek deep discounts on their purchases rather than cut them out altogether. Secondly, Wal-Mart is aggressively studying a plan to roll out a new retail format that is much smaller than its traditional supercenter, and better fitted for urban real estate and the urban consumer. With Wal-Mart's small town and suburban locations built out, and no signs of slowed growth, that company is turning to a new potential demographic - a smart move considering the increasing costs of suburban living and the languishing retail opportunities there. Furthermore, Wal-Mart has but one location in our city limits (albeit a successful location), housed in a stately multi-story Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Mall location that was once home to a Sears. Should their new urban shop implementation work, I see no better place for a roster of mini Wal-Marts than Los Angeles. And as long as our developers are scrambling to attract their treasured Target, Wal-Mart is sure to score some good rental deals.

Subway-to-the... VA Hospital?

According to Metro's latest round of community update meetings, the so-called Subway-to-the-Sea rail extension to Santa Monica is simply "out of the realm of funding feasibility," as is the spur joining Hollywood and Highland to the Wilshire route via Santa Monica Blvd. We knew Villaraigosa's 30-10 initiative was too good to be true. But look at the bright side, thanks to Measure R spending, construction on the subway line could begin as soon as the end of 2011.

Initially, construction of the first phase would terminate at a station in Westwood near Wilshire Blvd. But after suggestions by locals, project planners found that a 1-stop extension beyond the 405 to the Veterans Administration campus would indeed return higher ridership and decrease traffic congestion under the freeway. Beyond the VA however, ridership estimates decrease with every successive station, meaning dwindled fiscal feasibility. While Subway-to-the-Sea certainly has a nice ring to it, there simply isn't enough demand in the Santa Monica area to warrant an expensive underground rail construction, especially considering that the Expo phase 2 light rail extension to Santa Monica is already approved and will be completed far sooner than any phase on the Wilshire route. The UCLA area is home to the city's second largest job center outside of Downtown and will benefit enormously from the traffic relief and increased mobility brought by a more expedient subway extension.

As for the Santa Monica Blvd spur, the connection between Hollywood and Beverly Hills will make sense in the future, but right now that stretch also doesn't support the critical building density that would make a subway line pencil out. But as long as the City of West Hollywood continues its hungry, authoritarian concessions to big name developers, the Santa Monica Blvd corridor may well get its subway.

Best of Dwell on Design

Interior designers, interior decorators, architects, buyers, set designers and home remodelling freaks descended on the LA Convention Center this weekend for Dwell on Design, the west coast's largest design convention. That the event was held here rather than Dwell Magazine's home base of San Francisco is a testament to LA's growing weight in the design industry (if not the fact that there are more decor shops per capita here than you would think financially sustainable). In addition to a handful of seminars ranging from the LA River to local microbreweries, there were of course the multitudes of designer stands, hawking goods and pushing new ideas. The word of the day was green, but the irrational exuberance of yesteryear was present as well. Conspicuously absent from the displays was any aggresive pursuit of technology. But there were still some pretty cool products. Here are my faves:

5. REFLECT Showerhead - Its non-condensing reflective metal face lets you guys get a close shave without risking any Psycho-esque shower cuts.

4. Vapur Anti Bottle - The foldable, rollable, reusable, washable water bottle is the bottled water replacement for those on-the-go types.

3. Dyson Air Multiplier - This sleek, bladeless room fan mimics the hyper-efficient design of Dyson's vacuum cleaners, while seaking to replace the wasteful air conditioner.

2. Woollypocket - The felt-like bags are made from recycled water bottles and can be hung alone as indoor decoration or strung together en masse to form grand outdoor living walls.

1. Nook Pebble crib mattress - Made from organic eucalyptus fibers, the hypoallergenic, water-repellant infant mattress uses pebble-like bumps to optimize nighttime air flow.

The Art of Advertising

Last week the MAK Center for Art and Architecture celebrated the conclusion of its seminal public arts project, “How Many Billboards? Art In Stead.” In an attempt to infuse art into an urban context where it is least expected, and draw attention to the conspicuousness of outdoor advertising in Los Angeles, the Center commissioned 21 artists to create large works that would occupy billboards across the city. From Silver Lake to West LA, drivers were greeted with surprising, sometimes subversive visual messages in place of the banal movie posters to which they were so accustomed. Supplementing the short-lived outdoor exhibition were a number of panel discussions organized by the Center around the often conflicting roles of public art and outdoor advertising. Unfortunately the session I attended seemed to be more of a town hall protest against the greedy lawlessness of the media companies rather than an academic discussion of art and commerce in the city. I have long believed that, with its year-round sunshine, car-obsessed sprawl, and of course its playing host to the film industry, LA is a city suited perfectly to—and in part developed from—a culture of spectacle. Our greatest landmark originated as an advertisement for a housing development, and the two biggest additions to our skyline in recent memory (LA Live and the Hollywood W) have paid painstaking attention to the inclusion of paid signage and outdoor media. The city’s main excuse for opposing big new outdoor advertisements is the fact that, unlike observers in Times Square or Tokyo’s Shibuya, LA’s eyes remain defiantly behind steel and glass cages hurtling by at speeds not suited to even temporary distraction. We are a city obsessed with and defined by our visual culture. This is a reality that makes a temporary citywide art show just as interesting as the capitalist establishment it seeks to question.

Click here to see photos and descriptions of the billboards.

Hollywood Freeway cap park inches forward

US Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Los Angeles) has agreed to request the $5.85m necessary to begin prelimary studies and planning for the park. Though this is a tiny droplet in comparison to the estimated $950m necessary to build the park, supporters say it is a crucial step. The park, thought by many to be a pipe dream since its conception in 2006, would comprise 44 acres of parkland on a "cap" constructed over the freeway between Hollywood and Santa Monica Blvds. The park is seen as a much-needed addition of open space to an area of the city that has only .005 acres of parkland per resident. Friends of the Hollywood Central Park, the non-profit founded to get the project off the ground, says the majority of the money will come from private foundations. It is one of 2 cap parks planned for the Hollywood Freeway.

Source: Los Angeles Business Journal

SFO pokes at drab LAX to woo travelers from Down Under

The City of San Francisco released the above video as part of a campaign to attract US-bound travelers from Australia and New Zealand to connect in San Francisco International Airport. While the "bad airport" featured in the cheesy video isn't directly referred to as LAX, our humble international terminal is the only other one with direct flights to Sydney and Aukland. OK, OK, we know LAX isn't the most pleasant airport to travel through, but it's getting an expensive upgrade! And besides, could the production quality of that video been any lower (c'mon, Gavin Newsom as a cab queue attendant)?

Source: LA Times

Korean Air chairman frustrated with state of downtown development

At the annual Town Hall Los Angeles meeting held last month, the chairman of Korean Air and owner of the Wilshire Grand hotel spoke of the urgency of jumpstarting his ambitious $1b redevelopment of that prime Wilshire Blvd spot. Since the economy soured, construction lending has largely frozen citywide. Downtown properties have been particularly insolvent, struck by an aftermath of an overspeculative pre-bust boom. Perhaps in a last ditch attempt to attract supporters, investors, and lenders, chairman Yang-Ho Cho promised 8,000 construction jobs and 4,000 permanent jobs to result from the project. Plans call for 560 hotel rooms and a 65-story office tower. Whether downtown's hotel and office market is built out remains to be seen.

Source: Korean Air

Long-vacant church gets religious owner of a different order

The historic Second Church of Christ, Scientist building on Adams Blvd near USC was just bought by the Art of Living Foundation, after sitting vacant for a number of years. The 100 year old building has become somewhat of a landmark in the North University Park neighborhood, and is notable for its wide-span oxidized copper dome and its soaring Corinthian columns. It was built in 1910 as the West Coast sister to Boston's First Church of Christ, Scientist, and has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1986. The Art of Living Foundation, a 30 year old local spiritual group dedicated to yoga and meditaion, paid an estimated $10m for the property. A new-age Eastern religion taking the reigns from an older new-age Western religion? How LA.

Source: LA Times

City, Universal launch 2 websites intended to boost tourism

The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce and the Los Angles Convention and Visitors Bureau have teamed up with Universal Studios Hollywood to offer 2 new websites aimed at attracting tourists to Hollywood and Los Angeles. The first, discoverLosAngeles.com, offers quick and easy activity, accommodation, and dining advice in a good-looking format. The newer experienceHollywood.com focuses on attractions in the Hollywood area, duly anchored by less than subtle links to Universal's own site. Long known as a grungy, crime-ridden section of Los Angeles, Hollywood has experienced an immense renaissance in less than a decade, and organizers hope to capitalize on this headway. Or in their words:

"like a glamorous starlet, Hollywood has made a major comeback and is living like a newly discovered ingénue everybody is talking about."

City rejects supergraphics/Cahuenga peak compromise

Two of the city's most heated land use controversies collided this week when a prominent manufacturer of vinyl "supergraphics" offered to contribute to the Save the Cahuenga Peak fund, but only if their signs were allowed to remain. SkyTag, based in Beverly Hills, is best known for their massive "murals" defending free speech, identifiable by the close-up abstraction of Lady Liberty's face. The posters, which at one time could be seen flanking skyscrapers across the city, were deemed illegal by the city council in a fiery standoff in which councilman Eric Garcetti authorized arrest warrants for the building owners who installed the posters.

But in an interesting turn of events, SkyTag has offered to pay the remaining $12.5m required to secure the land above the Hollywood sign named Cahuenga Peak from the Chicago developer who plans to build multimillion dollar homes there. The company, desperate to secure the future of its most profitable business segment, is well aware of the impending deadline set for the Cahuenga Peak buyout funds to materialize. Several interest groups and private citizens have publicized the cause and raised roughly $9.5m. CBS Corp., NBC Universal, the Walt Disney Company, Sony Pictures, Warner Brothers, and Twentieth Century Fox, as well as Hollywood heavyweights Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg, number among the donors to the cause. But Fox River Financial has given the Trust for Public Land until April 14 to secure the full $22m purchase.

Attractive proposal, right? Wrong. The city council is not biting. "We're not going to trade off beautification in one place for visual decay in another," said Hollywood area councilman Eric Garcetti. The problem with that argument is that supergraphics are temporary, and there legality can be debated indefinitely; but once the Cahuenga developer builds those houses, the Hollywood sign vista will be marred forever. SkyTag's plea comes soon after a federal appelate judge ruled in December that the city's ban on so-called supergraphics was unconstitutional. Twenty of the signs remain. Ironically, the iconic and jealously guarded Hollywood sign was itself a 200x50 ft advertisement when it was installed in 1923 to promote a housing development.

Source: LA Times