South Group's Streetscape Continues Getting Kudos

By Eric Richardson
Published: Monday, June 23, 2008, at 05:09PM

Eric Richardson

Streetscape on Hope street, next to Luma. The metal cage is designed to enclose news racks and hide them from street view.

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — The streetscape design around the South Group’s trio of projects in South Park just keeps getting recognized. Last week the Los Angeles Business Council honored the project in its 38th Los Angeles Architectural Awards. While Luma was awarded for best built green building, the streetscape got its win in the category of Residential Landscape Architecture.

The South Group's designs for plantings and wide sidewalks took council action to come into being. City rules would have required street widening around new construction, even in Downtown. Councilwoman Jan Perry passed a motion in July of 2005 asking that those rules be re-examined.

It took another in March of 2006 to allow South Group to put widening funds in an account while the city wheels slowly turned on deciding whether they could go toward pedestrian improvements instead of widening. Today the built out streetscape is a favorite model for the Urban Design Studio's Downtown Design Guidelines.

Also winning for Downtown were AEG with the LA Live Hotel and Residences (Mixed Use Award Design Concept) and Biscuit Company Lofts (Residential Renovated Buildings Award).

SEE: Bustler: Winners of 38th Annual Architectural Awards

Comments

Rich Alossi writes:

What's the purpose of hiding bikes from the street?

# on Jun.23.2008 AT 07:25 PM

Eric Richardson writes:

The cage is for news racks, not bikes? The corner by the Starbucks has two racks in a similar setup (USA Today and the LA Times, I believe).

# on Jun.23.2008 AT 07:40 PM

Rich Alossi writes:

Oh, my bad. I read "new bike racks" rather than "news racks." Wow, I even read it twice this morning and still saw "new bike racks."

Nothin' to see here...

# on Jun.24.2008 AT 08:19 AM

tornadoes28 writes:

Directly on the other side of the street below those hideous ficus trees, the sidwalk is in terrible condition with pices of sidewalk jutting up in a cracks and jagged fashion.

While the city replaces barely cracked sidewalks in front of my house in the San Fernando Valley, they leave these terrible sidewalks for years without doing anything.

# on Jun.24.2008 AT 09:01 AM

Rich Alossi writes:

tornadoes: I went to school in Westlake (MacArthur Park area) and the sidewalks were so buckled that tree roots pushed some of the concrete up two feet high.

Of course the city came and "repaired" them with asphalt filling -- a total joke for those trying to pass in a wheelchair, which was fairly common because of HiFi's large elderly Filipino population.

# on Jun.24.2008 AT 09:27 AM

Eric Richardson writes:

As of 2004, the City had a 4,600 mile waiting list of damaged sidewalks. Most sidewalk repair you see being done today is under programs to have the property owner pay half or more of the cost. Downtown sidewalks are more expensive, so that's likely a tougher sell.

# on Jun.24.2008 AT 10:06 AM

tornadoes28 writes:

Whatever the reason, it is not a good system. Replacing relatively good sidewalks in some parts of the city while other parts of the city have jagged pieces of sidewalk protruding a foot or more up into the air makes no sense. I've seen parking meters still attached to these pieces of sidewalk leaning at something like a 25 or 30 degree angle.

# on Jun.24.2008 AT 12:38 PM

Rich Alossi writes:

Tornadoes, that's the thing about the Valley. If the city replaced sidewalks -- or streets or schools or anything -- based on need, the Valley secession movement would begin anew.

There was an article in the Daily News about the terrible state of the Valley's sidewalks... and the image they used was what I would consider a "normal" sidewalk, but slightly wavy.

Further, it was in a typical Valley suburban housing development where most people don't walk anyway!

# on Jun.24.2008 AT 04:51 PM