Times Reports $40 Million Investment for Broadway

As I said the last time this issue came up, I’m all for rehabbing the buildings themselves, because the blighted upper stories should be part of the adaptive reuse renaissance of Broadway; however, chasing out tenants who are paying $10/sqft in order to bring in tenants who pay far less but are more palatable to the wealthy folk moving in is a questionable move. Unless the owners stand to make a lot more money inviting in tenants who will pay less–something I seriously doubt–chasing out these mercados seems like the downside of gentrification: displacing the lower class from places that they have long called home (or work) and shoving them into worse communities. Incidentally, I say this as one of the folk who moved to downtown during the boom here. I love the downtown renaissance, and I really like walking to the Edison, Pete’s, etc., but I am not so comfortable knowing that my enjoyment of my middle-class pleasures comes at the cost of tossing out people who make less than me but are still trying to make their money honestly, in the American way.

The problem with your analogy Nick is that you are not addressing the major issue facing Broadway’s future. As the article states, Broadway is losing the customer base they have relied on. Swap meets are everywhere in Southern California…along with Wall Marts and Targets. Many illegal immigrants are no longer visiting Broadway. The area was so neglected in previous years. Now there is security, cleaner streets and more of a mix of people.

Broadway needs to diversify to survive today. Every block has a residential element to it now. Change is very evident and I hope some of these interesting latino-oriented businesses get help from the city to upgrade and diversify their retail outlets and restaurants….then we all win. How many tube sock and baseball cap vendors do we need on Broadway? They all close up at night and what do we have…a street full of ugly steel doors. Hopefully “Bringing Back Broadway” will be a success.

it is a start. Would be nice to have a wide selection of retail on that street other than check cashing and camera equipment. I never understood why a location of such potential and historical significance was being left to rot.

For me this is a very difficult situation. I think its fair to say that many of the buildings (if not a majority) are rundown and look terrible (ie, tagging, dirt, grime, etc). With a bit of rehabbing, the street could look amazing. It’s not the businesses I take issue with, rather, the appearance of the physical plant (this case buildings).

Now, on the one hand I totally agree that tenants should not be evicted when they are paying absurdly high rent rates in favor of a national chain store that will pay 10% of the going rate. That to me seems unfair and unwarranted. The merchants are not responsible for the disjointed and rundown façade of Broadway (perhaps some responsibility falls of them, but if they’re paying $10/ft and business is strong why would they change?). I am uncomfortable with a situation that would baselessly evict these people.

On the other hand, Broadway is a historic street that has some of the most beautiful theatres and buildings on the west coast. It seems to me that the mercados do not directly benefit from being located in a historic building or theatre. I feel it’s impossible to recreate historical architecture and that given the ability to rehab historical buildings we should take advantage of that opportunity.

I guess the biggest dilemma for me is that the mercados just happened to create a thriving (some say its declining is recent months) business scene on one of the most historical streets in all of Los Angeles. The mercados do not cater to nor depend on the historical nature of the streets architecture. I think to do this situation justice, there will have to be compromises and the merchant perspective must be valued just as much as the new loft dwellers. But one thing I think we (those of us on this website) can agree on is that Broadway needs some cleaning up.

You’re actually getting sentimental over the possibility that landlords are going to kick out higher-paying tenants for lower-paying ones?! You assume most of those who own commercial properties on Broadway will pursue such a formula?! What planet do you live on!?

The far bigger issue is why are property owners along the street, who already are generating a pretty good rate of return on their ground-floor spaces, treating their buildings in general in such a cheap, slumlord manner?

If rental income is quite high as things stand, why don’t the landlords at least encourage their tenants to have nicer signage. Why don’t owners of buildings on Broadway at least keep them in cleaner, better shape?

I dont support kicking out the successful grimy wholesale markets just for the sake of making it look pretty. I am pretty sure that isnt the city’s goal.

The city wants broadway to be just as active from 5pm-2am as it is from 8am-5pm. It wants to utilize the best theatre district outside of NYC. Seconadarily it wants to create a nationally recognizable and iconic district. Those are its goals.

To achieve that goal, it is natural to have a “MIX” of retail that offers both high end retail/services to support night time theatre goers, the low end wholesale for daytime shoppers, and retail to support the residents in the currently underutilized upper floors. It needs all of these. Seeing as how there are 10 electronic knock of stores that sell the exact same merchandise at the exact same price, I think it is safe to say that there is ALOT of redundancy on this corridor. Seeing as how there are empty storefronts, there is a lot of space anyways. I think there is enough room for all three interests to coexist, especially if metal walls protection shuttered storefronts are replaces with less obstrusive measures, or if stores are left lit.

All in all. Wholesale can and will exist in DTLA for many years whether it remains on broadway or not. In my opinion, the gold line eastside extension is a better place for wholesale, than on broadway, but that is a different stroy.

I don’t like their focus of “abundant” and “plentiful” parking. And, they even pointed out that they’ll identify buildings to raze for parking. Can’t we be like New York, Chicago, SF, etc… other world-class cities where streets are full of traffic, plentiful of ON-STREET parking exists, and a few parking garages were people are charged RESPECTABLE CITY RATES (i.e. $15 and up). It’s a joke that downtown LA charges $3/day on weekends. No mention of the Red/Puple Line Pershing Square station?

That’s a big concern. But, my biggest concern of all is Hill Street. I fear the city will make Hill Street a parking garage capital of downtown LA. There’s going to be a complete negligence I feel on Hill, so people can park and walk over to Broadway. We need ON STREET parking!!!!

And, we need a focus on trolley & pedestrian movement, not autocentric policies (plentiful and abundant parking). What causes traffic?

I am extremely satisfied that the local government and private owners themselves are taking responsibility for a very rich project. Broadway is extremely filthy and dirty and not to mention ugly. Every time I walk by that street I feel somewhat dissapointed and cheated that such valuable history is being spit on and wasted. I attended a concert at the Orpheum theatre recently and just stepping in sent chills down my spine. This theatre has been there for decades and has sat dormant for years but is finally seeing its second chance to relive. This experience not only completely convinced me that LA has some of the most beautiful architecture but that we also lack the ability to conserve such rich pieces as our theatre history on Broadway. If the Orpheum looks like a palace inside, what do all the other theatres look like? Obviously the Orpheum has been rehabbed and has had millions of dollars pumped into its current state but all of the older theatres have sooooooooo much potential. And that is what most hurts about all of this. There is so much potential on that one street but yet it seemed no one had noticed-until now. Eventually you won’t find the wholesalers there or the check-cashers there but it was only a matter of time. They were not there when the Broadway district was the center of LA and most likely they won’t be there in the future. LA constantly changes and some changes are just inevitable. This is definitely one of them. There is plenty of space in LA to put your ugly business selling $1 jeans. It just simply is not appropriate to do that with these architectual gems.

however, chasing out tenants who are paying $10/sqft in order to bring in tenants who pay far less but are more palatable to the wealthy folk moving in is a questionable move.

$10 /sq.ft. isn’t that much when you subtract the wasted empty space above the street retail. Think about it: that’s 5 to 8 floors of residential/commercial. If converted to lofts, they could fetch at least $2 /sq.ft. and $2.50 for a Penthouse unit.

Add a new coffee shop on the street and the building can generate @ least $20 /sq.ft. rather than just $10 on the ground floor by itself.