Downtown Down to One Crane
DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — During the residential boom of recent years, Downtown boosters liked to joke that the crane was the area's official bird.
That bird's become endangered.
Today the construction crane at Concerto is stepping itself down, leaving Downtown with just one remaining crane at L.A. Live's Ritz Carlton tower.
Of course, that's not exactly a bad thing. The cranes come down as construction projects complete, and their dwindling numbers simply mean that the projects started during the recent boom are nearing their opening dates.
In the summer of 2007, one could look from L.A. Live and see a half-dozen of cranes within just a few blocks. Two were on the L.A. Live project, one was at South Group's Evo, one was over Hanover's 717 W. Olympic, one high above work at Meruelo's 717 W. 9th. The final one went up on the site of Astani's Concerto project in July.
The sole remaining crane, positioned above the Ritz Carlton tower, will likely not last many more months. Glass installation on the project has less than a dozen floors to go, at which time the crane's work will be complete.
It will likely be a while before Downtown's next crane appears. A pair of large proposals have appeared in recent months and the Park Fifth and Grand Avenue projects are still slowly moving forward, but all need to secure financing and approvals before construction begins.
Concerto's sales center opened last week at the corner of Figueroa and 9th.
benjamin on April 08, 2009, at 05:11PM – #1
lol i have seem tons of pigons at Angeles flight. poop everywhere
Ginny-Marie Case on April 08, 2009, at 10:27PM – #2
I was Just thinking about this over the weekend. I'm going to sincerely miss those days when I'd come back from something on the Westside, and before I hit the 110 seeing all those cranes.
For those of us who have lived through so much of this construction (and I don't think we've seen all of it yet), I hope that I'm not the only one who has this thankful feeling.
Watching (and being a part of) the rebirth of downtown has been fun. (and very interesting at times)
Jasmin on April 08, 2009, at 11:10PM – #3
My 10 y.o. son, looking up from his book as we turned down Flower Street last year, "Ah yes. The everlasting cranes."
No more, I guess ;D
djm on April 09, 2009, at 01:26PM – #4
what about concerto's second tower?
JDRCRASH on April 09, 2009, at 01:32PM – #5
djm, that isn't scheduled to break ground until 2010 at the earliest due to financing difficulties.
tckr on April 10, 2009, at 08:07PM – #6
There's a crane up for the Medallion project at 4th/Main
Eric Richardson (@blogdowntown) on April 10, 2009, at 09:53PM – #7
tckr: I'm pretty sure Medallion has just used big portable cranes, not a real assembled crane.