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And Then There Were Two
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| A general rendering of what Grand Avenue could look like when it is redeveloped into a $1.2 billion promenade. Rendering courtesy of AC Martin Partners. |
Gehry Team Passed Over in Grand Avenue Competition
by Sam Hall Kaplan
Two teams were selected last Monday in the protracted public-private and very political process to develop the crown of Bunker Hill into an estimated $1.2 billion complex to lend Downtown a distinctive center.
Think of the process not as a design competition, but as a playoff much like the one taking place these days on the southern edge of Downtown. Similar to the NBA extravaganza, the emphasis here is on the teams, not individual stars.
The finalists are the consultant-encrusted design and financial teams headed by The Related Companies and Forest City Development. They were recommended by the Grand Avenue Committee and accepted by its parent joint city-county authority following several months of intensive, internal reviews.
The next hurdle involves additional financial and design studies by the teams and extended negotiations with the committee chaired by developer James Thomas and philanthropist Eli Broad, and directed by Martha Welborne.
The Related team includes the design firms of: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill; Morphosis; Elkus/Manfredi; Gustafson Guthrie Nichol; Levin & Associates; and Suisman Urban Design. The Forest City team includes AC Martin Partners; Calthorpe Associates; Thomas P. Cox Architects; Civitas; and the Project for Public Spaces.
As the selection process wends its way to a final decision, possibly by the authority's July 19 meeting, but probably by summer's end, expect more details and debate on the pluses and minuses, and personalities and politics, of the respective teams. And with no trade deadlines, there is the possibility that teams searching for new fans and financing might take on new players.
With tens of millions in fees and other rewards at stake, the project no doubt will be a subject for extended debate over the benefits of such public-private endeavors. It should also continue to make good grist for the popular and professional media mills.
To the surprise of design buffs - but not the planning and development communities - the latest round eliminated the team headed by Fifield and Weintraub Financial Services that included a hand-picked Frank Gehry all-world architecture consortium, notably Iraq-born Zaha Hadid, Briton Norman Foster, Frenchman Jean Nouvel and Harry Cobb.
The crafting of the team of renowned architects generated much media attention, following as it did the consecration and celebration of the Gehry-designed Walt Disney Concert Hall. The hall is seen as the pricey centerpiece in the development of Grand Avenue as an urbane residential, commercial and entertainment project - L.A.'s new millennium equivalent of New York's Rockefeller Center.
But as the Grand Avenue Committee repeatedly emphasized, the selection process to date was not a design competition; no plans, models or renderings were called for, only a simple site analysis. More critical were the teams' proven experiences in large-scale mixed-use projects, their development strategies and financial ability to take the ambitious concept to completion.
Among the many projects in Related's portfolio is the recently completed Time-Warner headquarters in New York City, which mixes commercial and retail in an iconic mid-Manhattan tower. Forest City has also been involved in a variety of complex developments across the country, including the $2 billion Central Station project in Chicago containing high-rise residential as well as offices and a hotel.
These projects are impressive, especially when compared to the portfolios of the lead developers of the two teams that were rejected, the J.H. Snyder Company and Fifield and Weintraub. For the record, Snyder's design team included the accomplished firms of Johnson Fain Partners and the Jerde Partnership that have been involved in numerous noteworthy large-scale projects here and abroad.
As for Gehry, it was noted by those monitoring the selection process that the much honored architect has limited experience when dabbling beyond individual standalone institutional buildings funded by deep-pocketed donors. Though it was recognized that the selection of Gehry and his team undoubtedly would generate publicity, there was concern about too many chefs in the kitchen, and the fear that somewhere in the design process the star architect would balk at the inevitable constraints of a commercial project and put on the cloak of an injured artist, as he has in the past.
In addition, the committee only offered a vague outline of the project's program - the total square footage of the varying uses and their requirement and relationships - making any design attempted at this time pure guesswork, if not fantasy. What exactly is going to be built on Grand Avenue remains to be determined by a projected market analysis and financial finagling.
In reviewing the selection criterion, committee chair Thomas talked of the need for the project to secure "patient capital" to see it through the expected protracted development process.
Patience obviously will be needed for those who are looking for a design that will distinguish Grand Avenue and create an attractive cityscape that at long last mends Bunker Hill.
Meanwhile, the teams selected for the Grand Avenue development playoffs deserve an opportunity to display their talent and feed the public's curiosity, mine included.
Kaplan is an Emmy Award-winning reporter for FOX 11 News and the author of L.A. Lost and Found.
page 1, 5/31/04
© Los Angeles Downtown News. Reprinting items retrieved from the archives are for personal use only. They may not be reproduced or retransmitted without permission of the Los Angeles Downtown News. If you would like to re-distribute anything from the Los Angeles Downtown News Archives, please call our permissions department at (213) 481-1448.
Think of the process not as a design competition, but as a playoff much like the one taking place these days on the southern edge of Downtown. Similar to the NBA extravaganza, the emphasis here is on the teams, not individual stars.
The finalists are the consultant-encrusted design and financial teams headed by The Related Companies and Forest City Development. They were recommended by the Grand Avenue Committee and accepted by its parent joint city-county authority following several months of intensive, internal reviews.
The next hurdle involves additional financial and design studies by the teams and extended negotiations with the committee chaired by developer James Thomas and philanthropist Eli Broad, and directed by Martha Welborne.
The Related team includes the design firms of: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill; Morphosis; Elkus/Manfredi; Gustafson Guthrie Nichol; Levin & Associates; and Suisman Urban Design. The Forest City team includes AC Martin Partners; Calthorpe Associates; Thomas P. Cox Architects; Civitas; and the Project for Public Spaces.
As the selection process wends its way to a final decision, possibly by the authority's July 19 meeting, but probably by summer's end, expect more details and debate on the pluses and minuses, and personalities and politics, of the respective teams. And with no trade deadlines, there is the possibility that teams searching for new fans and financing might take on new players.
With tens of millions in fees and other rewards at stake, the project no doubt will be a subject for extended debate over the benefits of such public-private endeavors. It should also continue to make good grist for the popular and professional media mills.
To the surprise of design buffs - but not the planning and development communities - the latest round eliminated the team headed by Fifield and Weintraub Financial Services that included a hand-picked Frank Gehry all-world architecture consortium, notably Iraq-born Zaha Hadid, Briton Norman Foster, Frenchman Jean Nouvel and Harry Cobb.
The crafting of the team of renowned architects generated much media attention, following as it did the consecration and celebration of the Gehry-designed Walt Disney Concert Hall. The hall is seen as the pricey centerpiece in the development of Grand Avenue as an urbane residential, commercial and entertainment project - L.A.'s new millennium equivalent of New York's Rockefeller Center.
But as the Grand Avenue Committee repeatedly emphasized, the selection process to date was not a design competition; no plans, models or renderings were called for, only a simple site analysis. More critical were the teams' proven experiences in large-scale mixed-use projects, their development strategies and financial ability to take the ambitious concept to completion.
Among the many projects in Related's portfolio is the recently completed Time-Warner headquarters in New York City, which mixes commercial and retail in an iconic mid-Manhattan tower. Forest City has also been involved in a variety of complex developments across the country, including the $2 billion Central Station project in Chicago containing high-rise residential as well as offices and a hotel.
These projects are impressive, especially when compared to the portfolios of the lead developers of the two teams that were rejected, the J.H. Snyder Company and Fifield and Weintraub. For the record, Snyder's design team included the accomplished firms of Johnson Fain Partners and the Jerde Partnership that have been involved in numerous noteworthy large-scale projects here and abroad.
As for Gehry, it was noted by those monitoring the selection process that the much honored architect has limited experience when dabbling beyond individual standalone institutional buildings funded by deep-pocketed donors. Though it was recognized that the selection of Gehry and his team undoubtedly would generate publicity, there was concern about too many chefs in the kitchen, and the fear that somewhere in the design process the star architect would balk at the inevitable constraints of a commercial project and put on the cloak of an injured artist, as he has in the past.
In addition, the committee only offered a vague outline of the project's program - the total square footage of the varying uses and their requirement and relationships - making any design attempted at this time pure guesswork, if not fantasy. What exactly is going to be built on Grand Avenue remains to be determined by a projected market analysis and financial finagling.
In reviewing the selection criterion, committee chair Thomas talked of the need for the project to secure "patient capital" to see it through the expected protracted development process.
Patience obviously will be needed for those who are looking for a design that will distinguish Grand Avenue and create an attractive cityscape that at long last mends Bunker Hill.
Meanwhile, the teams selected for the Grand Avenue development playoffs deserve an opportunity to display their talent and feed the public's curiosity, mine included.
Kaplan is an Emmy Award-winning reporter for FOX 11 News and the author of L.A. Lost and Found.
page 1, 5/31/04
© Los Angeles Downtown News. Reprinting items retrieved from the archives are for personal use only. They may not be reproduced or retransmitted without permission of the Los Angeles Downtown News. If you would like to re-distribute anything from the Los Angeles Downtown News Archives, please call our permissions department at (213) 481-1448.
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