Park Fifth

Park Fifth Receives Final Approvals, Construction Loan

By Eric Richardson — June 26, 2008 — 11 Comments

Dave Bullock

Downtown mega-development Park Fifth sent an excited email out to its mailing list today to say that all necessary city approvals were now final, having passed their appeal periods. The project is now fully entitled. — Continued Inside...

Park Fifth Public Benefits Approved, but TFAR Process Raises Questions

By Eric Richardson — April 24, 2008 — 10 Comments

Dave Bullock

Friday morning the board of the Community Redevelopment Agency approved the Public Benefits package for the Park Fifth project, a $17.7 million package that includes money for Pershing Square redevelopment, streetscape improvements, and $2.5 million each to the Downtown Women's Center and Skid Row Housing Trust.

While the room on Friday was filled with speakers in support of the project, several questions were raised as to how the recipients of this funding were chosen. — Continued Inside...

Park Fifth Quietly Moves Forward

By Eric Richardson — April 02, 2008 — 8 Comments

Dave Bullock

While quiet lately, the massive Park Fifth development slated to rise north of Pershing Square continues to make forward progress. The project submitted its Supplemental Final Environmental Impact Report (EIR) to the Community Redevelopment Agency on March 31st.

A certified EIR would be a major milestone in the process of accumulating the approvals needed to commence construction. Two weeks previous the project also filed Vesting Tentative Tract and Zone Variance applications with the city's Planning Department. — Continued Inside...

A Peek Inside the Park Fifth Sales Center

By Dave Bullock and Eric Richardson — November 29, 2007 — 17 Comments

Dave Bullock

The Park Fifth project is hosting a sneak peak tonight for its new sales center in the Gas Company Tower (it runs until 7pm if you're in the neighborhood). Though the office will be open by appointments only until the spring, most of the finishing touches are already in place. Even at 95% complete the sales center is a sight to behold.

Downtowners will be most interested in the model room, which houses a 14-foot tall scale model of the project. The piece was built by a Canadian company and brought down to L.A. by truck in four pieces. Note the pedestrian walkway that cuts from Olive to Hill on the model's back side. That's a nice urban touch, and brings the possibility of outward-facing retail in Metro 417.

Park Fifth Responds to Curbed's Reports of Its (Funding) Demise

By Eric Richardson — November 02, 2007 — 19 Comments

Yesterday Curbed posted a rumor that the Park Fifth project had lost its main investor and fired its sales staff and marketing director. While aspects of the post were true -- the project is restructuring some of its financing -- the fundamentals were simply incorrect. Park Fifth Project Director Rich Marr sent a reply over to Curbed rebutting their information and attempting to instill a little accuracy in what's out there. A copy of that response found its way into the blogdowntown mailbox as well.

I try not to mix work and this site, but Cartifact is providing an interactive map kiosk in the Park Fifth sales center (which I might add is really impressive). Last week I was over with VP of Marketing Erika Nelson doing some final testing. I can assure you that she's still gainfully employed and about to be moving her office into the sales center.

Bottom-line: The project's construction schedule remains unaltered and there's lots of interest in both buying and in investing.

Rich Marr's full response after the jump... — Continued Inside...

Times Finds Out About Park Fifth

By Eric Richardson — May 07, 2007 — 17 Comments

The Downtown News was talking about the Park Fifth project two and a half weeks ago (and so were we), but the Times just got the story out today. It's mostly the same information, but take a look at the included render. I certainly don't recognize that tree-covered spot where Pershing Square should be.

Update (Tuesday): A friend just pointed out a bit I had passed by when I first read this article:

The project is drawing its doubters from people who wonder whether there is a market for another huge housing complex downtown.

Adding downtown housing is a risk, market observers said. "There is a huge supply that far exceeds demand" at the moment, said real estate broker Stephen May of Downtown Residential Real Estate, who estimates that more than 400 units are for sale.

That's why so many of these buildings keep selling out, right? Seems to me that great buildings are selling fast and the ones with issues are going a bit slower, just like they should in any market.

When One Floor Doesn't Always Equal Another

By Eric Richardson — April 20, 2007 — 21 Comments

In their just-released issue the Downtown News talks up the big plans for Park Fifth, a massive development slated for the parking lot south of Metro 417. The project would contain close to 1,000 condos and an upscale hotel. In the article they speculate that the taller tower, at possibly 76 stories, could top out higher than Library Tower's 72 floors.

At first glance it's a simple math problem. 76 is greater than 72, right? When it comes to building heights, though, it's not that simple.

In order to compare two skyscrapers you need to look at floor-to-floor height. Residential buildings typically have smaller numbers here, with less infrastructure sitting between the floors.

Library Tower has a floor-to-floor height on 13.8 or 13.9 feet. That gives it its height of just over 1000 feet. A residential tower is more likely to have a floor-to-floor of 12 feet or so, meaning you'd need 84 floors to break the 1,000 mark.

So while it's possible developer David Houk tops Library Tower's story count, it's pretty certain his building won't actually be taller.