Straw Poll: What's Opening First?
DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — It's a lazy Tuesday afternoon, and time for all of you to weigh in on the first of an occasional series of blogdowntown straw polls. Today's topic: Which of these projects will be up and running first? Our contestants: Lower Angels Knoll park, the Pershing Square fountain and L.A. Live.
Let's get the backstories:
Lower Angels Knoll Park: First funded in 2001, the reconstruction of Lower Angels Knoll park was slated to be complete on June 30th, but that date's come and gone, with the park still only open for the vast crowd of pigeons that befoul its new concrete.
Pershing Square Fountain: The water feature at the center of Pershing Square was intended to be back up and running before the summer concert series started in early June. Two months later, there are no visible signs on progress on work at the conversation-starting park.
L.A. Live: The $2.5 billion L.A Live is slated to open its restaurants and retail in October and November. The massive project has been moving at full speed, nailing its deadline on the Nokia Theatre and raising its 55-story hotel building at roughly one floor per week.
So what do you think? Who's getting up and running first? No true poll functionality here (maybe next time), so just drop your opinion in the comments.
William on August 12, 2008, at 02:35PM – #1
I think that L.A live is going to open up first, I pass there every afternoon and I've seen those workers working at full speed!
Chris V. on August 12, 2008, at 04:05PM – #2
Hey! First time commenting here at blogdowntown and been reading this great blog site since the beginning of the year. Although I may not be a downtown resident (live in Lincoln Heights and native of the city), I frequent downtown alot and enthusiastic of the rapid change of the area; good to see downtown get back on its feet.
I would have to say L.A. Live as well. I run by there every Sunday morning and impressed how much more detail is added per week.
Bartleight on August 12, 2008, at 04:16PM – #3
LA Live for sure. By far the largest undertaking of the three choices but it has been on a steadily progressing schedule since groundbreaking.
Norbie 7 on August 12, 2008, at 06:36PM – #4
If our city workers would just knock off with all of the doughnut breaks, either of the two smaller projects could be done first. That could give them some extra energy as well, with the weight they'd lose.
inLAonLA on August 12, 2008, at 07:02PM – #5
LA Live will for sure be up and running first.
Karin Liljegren on August 12, 2008, at 07:39PM – #6
LA Live - private developers are pushing it, no city entity.
Scott Mercer on August 12, 2008, at 08:51PM – #7
I'm going to pick a longshot and go off the board for a thousand, Alex.
I'm going to say Angel's Flight.
HA!!!
Eric Richardson (@blogdowntown) on August 12, 2008, at 09:18PM – #8
Ooh... Nicely played, Scott.
Pedantic note, presented in the hopes that it's educational: There's no apostrophe in Angels Flight. They're pretty insistent about that.
nanorich on August 13, 2008, at 06:57AM – #9
There you go again, Scott opening those wounds.
Just played with the Google...and see that is time for John H. Welborne to come out his undisclosed location to assure us that Angels Flight will be opening very, very soon.
Jan Perry...what is going to take to force you to get this man to open the books?
JM on August 13, 2008, at 11:54AM – #10
I'll go with LA Live too. That's the sad reality: construction goes on non-stop at LA Live, but public projects seem to meander for months and years.
I also think Angel's Flight should be included, and I'll keep it singular with the apostrophe until it reopens, as a form of passive protest. In my mind's eye, the other angels got tired of waiting and moved on to greener pastures...
Jasmin on August 18, 2008, at 02:50PM – #11
I would have to join the majority on LA Live, too -- since somebody is going to be making money off that, it stands to reason there'll be a greater push to get it done.
And oh I do wish this re-opening of Angel's Flight won't take as long as the last time they promised to put it back soon. 30+ years, that time, wasn't it? (I agree w/ JM: most of the Angels will have fled, if they were ever near, so I'll follow his usage of the apostrophe. I promise I'll stop it if/when the Flight reopens at last.)