MetroRiderLA

[tags]los angeles, mta, red line, orange line, san fernando valley, north hollywood, transit oriented development[/tags]

This part of land is not going to remain so empty when a billion-dollar development goes into NoHo.
Credit: FredCamino via Flickr

North Hollywood is about to get one of L.A.’s largest and most expensive transit oriented developments.

Metro approved the NoHo Art Wave, a $1 billion plan by Lowe Enterprises last week that would bring 562 new housing units, nearly 1.75 million square feet of retail and 6,200 parking spaces around the terminals of the Red and Orange lines.

L.A. political blogger Mayor Sam said the project was railroaded through — no pun intended — with minimal input from the community.

See the following links:

• Tribune properties
  • Los Angeles Times: Large transit-oriented development OKd for North Hollywood
  • KTLA-Channel 5: $1 Billion Development Proposed for North Hollywood
  • Times’s Bottleneck Blog: North Hollywood: transit hub
• Los Angeles Business Journal: Lowe Lands NoHo Art Wave Project
• San Fernando Valley Business Journal: MTA Picks Developer Lowe For NoHo Project
• Los Angeles Daily News: Mixed-use project near transit hub moves ahead
• Bloomberg.com: Lowe Selected to Develop Los Angeles Subway Project
• Curbed LA: $1 Billion North Hollywood Project Approved

[tags]los angeles, purple line, beverly hills, santa monica, los angeles times[/tags]

Credit: FredCamino

Developer Ken Kahan may have a way. He suggested to the Los Angeles Times’s Steve Hymon to use property tax increment financing which would pay for a subway construction bond. It was the second item, preceded by Los Angeles Councilman Tom Labonge’s frequent travel schedule.

Kahan, the president of California Landmark Group, suggested this method after purchasing land in West L.A., hoping to turn it into a condominium. This is currently used by redevelopment agencies, but laws would have to be changed to allow development to fund a future rail line.

It’s not easy to explain, so here’s a chunk of the article:

When those units are sold, Kahan expects the building will generate about $2 million in property taxes annually. Under his plan, the overall increase in property taxes would go to a fund, which in turn finances a bond to pay for the subway.

…

The downside is that the plan depends on continued turnover of properties along Wilshire and will likely invite critics who say it will bring too much density and redevelopment to Wilshire.

“Forget the development, it’s going to happen anyway and you might as well use the increment for what people are crying and screaming about,” Kahan said, referring to the Westside’s constipated streets.

See also:

• Bottleneck Blog: Subway to Sea: Show me the money!
• MetroRiderLA: Woo hoo

[tags]los angeles, gold line, lincoln heights, dwell magazine, transit oriented development[/tags]

Photo of the Fuller Lofts under construction.
Credit: Curbed LA

Fuller Lofts, an adaptive reuse project in Lincoln Heights, received mention in haute architecture mag Dwell. The concrete building, formerly Fuller Paints, is located a few blocks from the Lincoln Heights/Cypress Park Metro Gold Line station, and when completed in January 2008 will house 80 units. A few are to be set aside as “affordable” units, while market rate condos start in the mid-$200,000s.

The Fuller item is towards the end of the article, “The Condo Generation,” available online and in dead-tree form in the October 2007 issue. The article praises the Fuller architects, Pugh+Scarpa, for this project and an affordable-housing complex built in Santa Monica.

Curbed LA reports the drab concrete exterior has been sexied up with “a wall of colorful red, yellow and purple blocks.”

[tags]los angeles, transit oriented development, curbed la[/tags]

This condo complex replaced a large outdoor courtyard at Wilshire Boulevard and Vermont Avenue.
Credit: Andrew Hurvitz, Here in Van Nuys

Curbed LA had a plethora of links to various developments occurring on or near rail stations. Here’s a sampling:

• The skinny Sunset+Vine tower has its advertising wrap removed, and “It’s like looking at Nicole Richie disrobed … all bones.” There’s also an ad for a downtown L.A. development at the site.
• Elderly gays can look forward to living to in the award-winning Triangle Square at Ivar and Selma avenues.
• NoHo14, the huge tower next to the North Hollywood Orange Line station (and Red Line across the street), is going to be ready to be lived in. “You can almost see into parts of Los Angeles where people want to live,” said jwilliams.
• Arquitectonica issued a press release congratulating itself for building the condos above the Wilshire/Vermont subway station. The site is in Flash, and the firm, which does work predominantly in Florida, has the condo project listed in transportation.
• See the progress of Solair, the high-rise atop the Wilshire/Western Purple Line Station. It has links to an older update and construction for a shopping center across the street.
• Here’s an item that’s not situated near the subway. In Anaheim, trouble’s a’ brewin’ at Angels Stadium, where the baseball club’s owner does not want housing on the grounds of the ballpark. The stadium is also the city’s Metrolink and Amtrak station. Orange County Register has the details, along with shock and awe from the OC Keyboard Warrior light infrantry division in the comments to the article.
• Last week, KTLA-Channel 5 put up its historic Sunset-Van Ness studio up for sale. This week, it traded its number one (living) anchor to former next-door neighbor KTTV-Channel 11 for reruns of “Family Guy.” Damn, Tribune must be really hard-up for cash.

[tags]los angeles, san gabriel valley, gold line, light rail, transit oriented development[/tags]

Clicking on the map directs you to the Gold Line Foothill Extension web site.
Credit: Metro Gold Line Foothill Extension

The Metro Gold Line’s prospects of getting extended from Pasadena to Montclair have been getting dimmer. The initial segment has been plagued with poor ridership, the potential ridership along the Foothill Extension is very low, and the project fell out of favor in Congress when the Democrats took over in 2006.

The cities on the line, though, are taking no chances and putting in developments before the train arrives — if it ever arrives.

A San Gabriel Valley Tribune story cites a study saying the cities already have generated over $2 billion in development investment within a half mile of proposed stations. And the future?

The study also estimated that the Gold Line extension would spur more than $36 billion in new private development, generate up to $6.2 billion in new household spending through 2030 and add nearly $1.5 billion in property and sales tax revenue for local cities over the next 30 years.

[tags]los angeles, downtown los angeles, crown coach, school bus[/tags]

Crown Coach was a Los Angeles builder of school buses, fire trucks and other large vehicles. Its former Washington Boulevard factory in downtown L.A. might see redevelopment once the site is cleaned.
Credit: Wikipedia

Crown Coach has a storied place in Los Angeles history. It was a company that went out of business because it did its job too well. It was America’s premier school bus builder, and the buses are beloved by fleet managers, mechanics and bus drivers to this day. The solid, reliable buses still dominate school fleets in California, with many buses now transporting their third generation of students. The buses were so reliable that Crown did not have too many repeat customers, and ceased operations last decade.

The L.A. Downtown News reports the Washington Boulevard site of the former bus factory has been purchased by the Community Redevelopment Agency of Los Angeles. The site is presently owned by the state of California.

Crown itself was a fixture in Los Angeles until 1984, when it moved its factory operations to Chino. Crown itself went defunct in 1991, but the name was briefly revived by another bus manufacturer. Besides school buses, Crown also built a prolific fleet of fire engines. It originally started business as a carriage maker.