Stadium Notes: Strahan and Leiweke Headline Friday State Senate Session
Gensler
Rendering of Farmers Field, AEG's proposed $1.2-billion stadium project
DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — Seven-time Pro Bowler Michael Strahan and AEG CEO Tim Leiweke headline a six-panel lineup at Friday's state senate hearing on AEG's plans to bring football back to Los Angeles.
The session of the Select Committee on Sports and Entertainment is scheduled to run from 10am to 1pm in the auditorium of the Ronald Reagan State Building at 300 S. Spring.
All About the Environment: Panel five, "Examining Land Use and Environmental Concerns," offers the most interesting subject matter from a political perspective. AEG wants to get protection from the potential delays of a lawsuit brought under California's Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). An executive for AEG told the L.A. Times earlier today that the company hopes to see the state act quickly:
“If we don’t succeed in getting something this session, that will be a significant blow to the project and we would have to reevaluate the path forward from here,’’ said Ted Fikre, chief legal and development officer for Anschutz Entertainment Group.
AEG's argument is that it is fully willing to do a full environmental process—which Fikre says will cost around $50 million—but that it wants to have confidence in the timetable in front of it. The company would like to see any challenges resolved in a three month period via arbitration or limited judicial review.
Opponents argue that such a sped up challenge period would allow developers to cut corners in their environmental, knowing that they can steamroll opposition that won't have time to bring a thorough challenge.
Stadium or not, the issue is a big one for California. Business groups pushed for similar CEQA reform earlier this year, saying that the lawsuits have kept California's economy from bouncing back with new development.
Downtown, one needs only to look at the empty hole where housing was supposed to rise behind the Herald Examiner building to see the effects of a frivolous CEQA suit on proposed development.
Keep an Eye on Pico Union: It wouldn't be a surprise to see panel number six, "Balancing the Event Center and Community Needs," include a heavy dose of talk about Pico-Union, the neighborhood just west of L.A. Live and the proposed stadium.
While the word "gentrification" has been thrown around during Downtown's rebirth—usually incorrectly—the next few years could see it applied much more convincingly to the blocks stretching west on Olympic Boulevard. The harsh dividing line of the 110 freeway has so far acted as a barrier to keep development to the east, but don't expect that to last.
Convention Business: The prospect of stadium construction has claimed its first convention victim, as the Society of Critical Care Medicine has opted to move its 2014 convention away from L.A. The group's CEO tells the Associated Press that there were just too many unknowns, though it does intend to return in 2021.
Yes on Jobs: Care to guess what the answer will be to “Will Farmers Field Create Jobs?," the topic of Friday's fourth panel? Speaking are an unemployed ironworker and representatives of the L.A./O.C. Building Trades Council, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 11 and the Painters & Allied Trades District Council 36.
William Crandell on August 28, 2011, at 08:50PM – #1
No matter how bad and unimaginative an architectural solution that is realized, the clap-happy Downtown boosters will only assure the lesser long term payback. A rudimentary solution for the West Hall replacement, spanning Pico and stuffed behind the existing Pei/Cobb/Freed entry looks to be a turkey destined to be stuffed down the throats of city council members, stuffed down all of our throats.
The whole question regarding the project, or rather, its foremost aim had ought to be the matter of creating DEMAND. Puff mongering can only go so far (yes, even in the puff capital of the world). So the primary element in the creation of DEMAND revolves around design quality.
What about the customers, sports enthusiasts, convention exhibitors and conventioneers? What if after their first attendance in the new facilities, that their opinion is "been there, done that" or "I'm not going back there ever again!" or "That facility is so mixed up that our organization is never to back for another convention in L.A."
What I particularly like about one of the initial designs was that it wipes out the Pei/Cobb/Freed entry pavilion. But with what isn't all that clear. (Harry Cobb must have thought that L.A. needed a set of space ships. Any other ideas out there regarding this???)
So, what if the northern space ship were to be torn down and a new image be presented to the Figueroa Corridor? Position it closer to the street. Use some of that wind swept plaza. And by that image, create an indelible and more intimate and far more inviting entry - for both functions. A fabulous new entry and entrance hall could very much serve to replace Disney Hall as the civic symbol. After all, isn't classical music simply a rarefied pass time for the upper echelons? And the entrance hall could fulfill Frank Gehry intent with his initial design for Disney Hall - a figurative living room, a democratic place for the entire city/metropolis.
Yes, there would be more cost and who would cover it? The mayor could simply call up Mister Geffen and say "Just do it, David!" If Geffen could cough up who knows how many hundreds of millions of bucks so that the Reagan Medical Center could be built at UCLA (which was really all about tossing dog sh*t in the face of someone else in the entertainment business), he ought to be willing to really come through for the city of L.A. which far more than New York, helped him make a name for himself. Yes, David: stun the crap out of everyone and city officials in every other metropolis would drool in envy. The payback could be incalculable.