blogdowntown: Life in Downtown Los Angeles (Stories+Headlines)

Campaign for DTLA streetcar ramps up; needs residents' votes

Hayley Fox — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 15:42:09 -0700

A rendering of a downtown L.A. streetcar by LA Streetcar Inc. Photo by Courtesy of LA Streetcar Inc..

A campaign in support of the DTLA streetcar project is ramping up this fall with outreach and community events in an effort to garner votes for a crucial November vote, which will ask Downtown property owners to fund a portion of the the project's $125-billion budget.

“If it doesn’t pass, there’s no streetcar," said Councilman José Huizar.

Without the $62.5 million in funding from property owners, the streetcar project won't have a chance to receive matching federal funds -- leaving a huge hole in the budget and dramatically stalling the project, said Huizar.

The L.A. City Council voted in July to allow the formation of a Community Facilities District (CFD), a designated taxing district which encompasses the streetcar's four-mile route. If more than two-thirds of residents vote in favor of the tax this November, property owners would be required to pay additional taxes that would go towards the streetcar project.

If residents vote not to fund the project, the streetcar will be unable to secure grants from the Federal Transit Administration's "Small Starts" program, explained Shiraz Tangri, general counsel of L.A. Streetcar Inc. This non-profit, whose Board of Directors includes select Downtown property owners, stakeholders and community leaders, is leading the streetcar project and has been looking for federal funding that would match a local contribution.

Tangri said the benefits of having a streetcar would be "Downtown-wide."

If Downtowners vote to contribute tax money to the streetcar project, payments would vary depending on how large their property is and how close to the proposed route they are. For condo owners, payment variables include how many units are in the building, the size of each unit and proximity to the streetcar line.

Tangri said that about 70 percent of the contributions would come from commercial properties and about 30 percent from residential plots. Although streetcar supporters say the transit system would enhance all of DTLA, not just the locations in its proximity, some property owners doubt the tangible benefits the system would bring -- and don't think it's fair to pay the taxes, said Tangri.

“There's never unanimity on any project no matter how great the idea,” he explained.

Huizar added that in other cities with modern streetcars, such as Seattle, there has been an increase in property values along the transit route.

At a City Council meeting this summer, CFD opponents also said they were concerned the annual tax would affect future property owners who did not have a say in this year's vote.

"Under the current proposal... our kids are going to be paying, our grandkids are going to be paying this for the next 30 years without any representation" said DTLA property owner Diana Schwartz. "Let's slow this process down to find a more equitable way to pay for it."

Although the streetcar is a historic feature of DTLA, the modern version is expected to be modeled after the sleek designs of similar contemporary systems. Tangri said that as much as they like the nostalgia aspect of the project, the new design will be quieter, smoother and with useful amenities -- like easier access for women with strollers.

Last Thursday a promotional event called the "Taste of Streetcar" held at the Cooper Design space had more than 1,000 attendees, according to L.A. Streetcar Inc. The event combined food samples from local restaurants with streetcar visual displays and on-site voter registration.

Tangri said their organization is planning another, more family-focused outreach event that will include an outdoor movie screening, in addition to smaller sessions in individual neighborhoods.

Residents within the CFD should receive their ballots in the mail by mid-November and have until December 3 to send them in. If the streetcar is successfully funded it will run seven days a week for 18 hours a day. Its current proposed route travels down Broadway between 1st and 11th Streets, over to Figueroa, up to 7th street where it cuts over to Hill Street, then up and over to the Walt Disney Concert Hall.

By Hayley Fox.

Mooncakes and moon-gazing at Chinatown's autumn harvest festival

Hayley Fox — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 10:12:03 -0700

Chinatown will host the 74th Annual Moon Festival this weekend. Photo by Flickr via jshyun.

A 3,000-year-old Chinese festival where family and friends gather to gaze at the moon and celebrate the end of the harvest season will be celebrated this weekend at the Harvest Moon Festival in DTLA's Chinatown.

Beginning Saturday at 5 p.m. in the the Central and West Plaza, organizers say this Mid-Autumn Festival will combine "traditional ceremonies with more modern interpretations" -- including everything from kung fu artists and lion dancers, to ping pong tournaments, ghost stories and the Downtown event staple; food trucks.

But mooncakes take center stage at this event, with local bakeries providing free samples of the traditional, dense dessert, which has a pastry-like crust, often imprinted with Chinese characters, and a filling that consists of anything from red beans to Peking duck.

The Los Angeles Times described mooncakes as the "Christmas fruitcake of China," and said that because the delicacy has about 800 calories, health officials in Taiwan began to recommend people substitute the dessert with healthy alternatives such as fruit and veggies.

"Mooncakes have been a traditional part of Chinese food and celebration for centuries, there's no way we could tell people not to eat them," Liu Huali, chairman of the Beijing Nutrition Consultant Assn, told the L.A. Times. "Even though they're high in sugar, high in oil and high in calories, people won't listen to our advice."

In addition to eating the sweet treats, festival-goers can also get an up-close view of the moon through high-tech telescopes that will be provided by the Griffith Observatory.

This will be the 74th year for the Chinatown festival. Admission is free and the event goes until 11 p.m. Previous year's events have included contortionists, acrobats and the presentation of Miss Chinatown.

By Hayley Fox.

Summerland Produce delivers farmers market fruits and veggies to DTLA residents

Hayley Fox — Fri, 21 Sep 2012 11:13:04 -0700

A box of heirloom tomatoes in their new DTLA facility. Photo by Hayley Fox/blogdowntown.

An Arts District resident who began her business out of her apartment in the Molino Lofts by delivering fruits and veggies to neighbors, is now taking Summerland Produce to the next phase -- with a move into a refrigerated storage facility on 8th and Alameda.

"It's enough space for us to really grow this into a major thing," said Charlie Davis, a co-owner and one of the approximately 5-person team who's now working for Summerland.

Company owner Angelika Tesch said she has always liked entertaining; going to local markets, stocking up on goods and cooking for friends. When residents in her building began to take notice, she started delivering boxes of goodies to them as well.

Now, her company is delivering an average of 50 to 100 boxes a week, mostly to Downtown residents. Their storage space is dotted with crates of heirloom tomatoes, Golden Nugget tangerines and Jerusalem artichokes, but has plenty of room to grow. Davis expects this new space will allow them to deliver up to about 1,000 boxes a week.

Although farmers markets have exploded in popularity in recent years, Davis said many of their clients are working professionals and young couples -- with time constraints.

"As much as everyone's intentions are to get out to the farmers market every week, we all know that kind of rarely happens," he said.

So Summerland Produce aims to get people on track to healthier eating through convenience; so customers are "reaching for a pluot rather than a bag of chips," Davis said.

Although there are many of these markets on the Eastside and in Downtown, Tesch said she frequents Santa Monica's Wednesday farmers market, because it's aimed at chefs, and maintains strict rules about what can be sold and who can sell it.

"We really want people to be able to make restaurant style dishes with high-end restaurant ingredients, at home," Tesch said. "We have a lot of relationships with farmers there that work with really high-end restaurants, so through that we're able to source different items that actually aren't available at the market."

Each box is carefully built by Tesch based on what's best and what's fresh at the markets and through collaboration with a network of farmers and chefs. Davis likens Summerland to the restaurant AOC in West Hollywood -- well-curated and highly seasonal.

"Its not a build-your-own-burger place and we're kind of not that way either," he said.

Customers receive weekly, bi-weekly or monthly produce deliveries, and have six different options for what they can receive -- including different ratios of fruits and veggies. Each box comes with a few recipes that use that week's ingredients; everything from spicy zucchini fritters to artichoke and potato casserole or a blueberry walnut salad.

Boxes start at $29 and go up to $49 for the large, all-fruit box.

"We're able to pass on a lot of savings -- from not having the overhead a supermarket has -- on to our customers," said Davis, who said that despite fuel and delivery costs, their overhead is low compared to big supermarket chains that must maintain massive cooler spaces and a long roster of employees.

By Hayley Fox.

Headline: Despite growing pains, Stan Lee’s Comikaze draws tens of thousands to downtown LA in 2nd year (Video, photos)

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 15:13:46 -0700

KPCC -- It was the convention’s first year with Stan Lee’s name attached, which brought more people — and the fire marshal shutting the doors due to crowds inside.

Get on a roof should you 'endeavour' to see the space shuttle Friday

Hayley Fox — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 10:35:36 -0700

City Hall's Tom Bradley Room and Observation Deck may be a good place to see the Endeavour fly by tomorrow. Photo by Eric Richardson.

Before the 170,000-pound Endeavour space shuttle touches down at LAX Friday morning, it's taking a tour of California and making a few low swoops over L.A. landmarks -- including the California Science Center, where it will eventually go on permanent display.

The retired orbiter left Florida's Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday on the back of a 747 airplane after weather had delayed its original departure by two days. Thursday morning, the shuttle took off from Houston for the Golden State. KPCC reports that by the time the shuttle reaches Los Angeles airspace around 10 or 10:30 a.m., it will be flying approximately 1,500 feet above ground.

If you live in a Downtown apartment with roof access, you may be able to catch a glimpse of the shuttle's SoCal tour Friday morning -- or head to a nearby parking garage and make your way to the very top. City Hall's Tom Bradley Room on the 27th floor, as well as the building's Observation Deck, are open to the public and may give a close-up view of the flyover.

Other prime viewing spots may be The Standard hotel, where roof access is typically free during the week, or the Bonaventure, where the glass elevators will take you up to their outdoor patio.

In addition to its DTLA leg, the shuttle will hit many tourist hotspots including Disneyland, Universal Studios, the Griffith Observatory and the Getty Center. When it lands at LAX, it will be temporarily stored in a United Airlines hangar at the airport before it is transported through the streets of L.A. in mid-October.

"This will mark the first, last and only time a space shuttle will travel through 12 miles of urban, public streets," said California Science Center President Jeffrey Rudolph in a statement in August. "It's not only one of the biggest objects ever transported down city streets; it's an irreplaceable national treasure."

The shuttle will cross the 405 freeway, make a stop at Inglewood City Hall and head to Martin Luther King and Crenshaw boulevards for a celebration including more than 200 musicians, dancers and performers. It will then head to the California Science Center, where it will eventually go on permanent display in the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center -- a special wing of the museum. The shuttle will be posed in a vertical position, as if it were about to launch.

What do you think is the best spot to see the shuttle fly over in DTLA? If you have a suggestion of where to see it, please let us know in the comments!

By Hayley Fox.

Downtown one of four LA neighborhoods to receive bike share program

Hayley Fox — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 15:02:28 -0700

Eventually there will be 40 to 50 Bike Nation stations in downtown L.A. Photo by via Bike Nation.

A bike sharing program that aims to bring 400 to 500 bicycles to downtown L.A. will be doing a "beta launch" later this year, in which a group of city, state, county and Metro employees, along with select members of the public, will have a chance to try out the rental system for free.

Bike Nation will be installing a preliminary 10 to 15 kiosks throughout DTLA for the 90-day trial, with plans for up to 175 solar-powered kiosks on public and private land in the area in the future.

Derek Fretheim, chief operating officer at Bike Nation, said the program's initial launch will include stations located around populated areas such as Union Station, LAPD Headquarters, El Pueblo, City Hall and the Caltrans building.

When Bike Nation sets up permanent shop in Downtown, these kiosks will be open to all residents, commuters, tourists and others who want to rent a bike for a quick jaunt -- to run an errand, or get to work.

The cost to use a bike is a combination of a membership rate and rental fee. There are options to purchase a 24-hour membership which costs $6, all the way up to a year membership which is $75. There is also a range of riding fees which start at $1.50 for the first hour and go up from there. The first 30 minutes of every ride is free.

Bike Nation has their rigs custom made, and the models that will be used in Los Angeles were based on the company's specific needs, said Fretheim. These bikes have no chains and airless tires -- which Bike Nation says helps "reduce the need for on-road service." The bikes also have active GPS, which riders can use to track how many calories they're burning and how much energy they're saving per bike trip.

"One of the things we wanted to do was control all the manufacturing for our bikes," he said, adding that the new bikes will be "100 percent" made in the U.S. and constructed from recycled product.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa first announced the $16 million bike share program at a CicLAvia event in April. Although Bike Nation is working closely with City departments, the project is funded entirely by Bike Nation.

"In tough economic times like these, we knew it wasn’t feasible to start a public bike share program. But we know it’s what L.A. needs," said Villaraigosa in April, according to the LAist. "As we’ve seen with CicLAvia and 'Carmaheaven,' Angelenos are aching for a day without a car."

In addition to Downtown, Bike Nation is launching their share program in Venice, Westwood and Hollywood, said Fretheim -- areas that are fairly dense, populated and attract a lot of visitors.

Bike Nation's self-service kiosks do not provide helmets, mostly, because there hasn't been a huge demand for them, said Fretheim, and there's no law for people over 18 years old to wear them. He added that Bike Nation "always encourage people to wear helmets" and said they even have technology in the works for a helmet vending system, but there's still lingering issues with providing them -- such as hygiene.

For now, the company is working with area bike shops and retailers to facilitate the purchase of helmets for riders who need them.

Although the official opening date is a "moving target" said Fretheim, he expects to have the Downtown stations accessible by next year. In the meantime, Bike Nation is asking for community input on where to place the kiosks. Registered users can suggest a location by clicking here.

By Hayley Fox.

City officials say AEG sale won't affect the future Farmers Field

Hayley Fox — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 10:03:07 -0700

A rendering of the future Farmers Field, which city officials insist won't be affected by the sale of AEG. Photo by Gensler / ICON Venue Group / AEG.

Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG), owner of the Staples Center, L.A. Live and other sports and entertainment ventures, announced it was up for sale on Tuesday -- and city officials were quick to assure the public this wouldn't affect the future of the Farmers Field football stadium AEG was building.

Mayor Villaraigosa said he has been in communication with AEG's owner and CEO and has known about the "potential sale" for "some time."

"I have worked with both Philip Anschutz and Tim Leiweke for years to bring a football team to Los Angeles," said Mayor Villaraigosa in a statement on Tuesday. "I have the commitment from both of them that this sale will not affect plans for an NFL team to return to Los Angeles in the near future and will not affect my support for moving ahead with Farmers Field and the Convention Center site."

Since 2010, Councilwoman Jan Perry has served as the Chair of the Ad Hoc Stadium Committee and has overseen the development of Farmers Field and the modernization of the convention center. She said through a "transparent and thoughtful" process, the City has worked to ensure the projects will protect taxpayers while working to "bring world-class conventions, tourism dollars, and revenue to the city" -- in addition to more than 20,000 new jobs.

"Anyone stepping in to lead AEG will be held to the same understanding that we have established,” Perry added.

She went on to say: “To date, the City has been assured by its Counsel that we have a deal in place that will accomplish our goals and, as Chair of the Committee overseeing this transaction, I will stand behind our commitment to fully protect the City’s interests."

KPCC reports that in addition to sports teams and venues across the world, AEG's concert promotion business, AEG Live, is the second-largest promoter in the U.S. -- and has massively successful festivals like Coachella on their roster, making a company such as AEG possibly worth billions.

AEG will be working with Blackstone Advisory Partners on the sale, the same company that handled the $2 billion sale of the L.A. Dodgers.

By Hayley Fox.

Grand Park's grand finale opening party scheduled for October

Hayley Fox — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 12:16:07 -0700

Grand Park will have its final opening celebration Oct. 6. Photo by .

The final block of Downtown's 12-acre Grand Park is set to open October 6 with music, food trucks and and abundance of large-scale, choreographed dancing.) The celebration will take place throughout the four-block park and include a "vertical dance" staged outside City Hall, with people suspended hundreds of feet in the air on climbing ropes.

“The completion of Grand Park marks the beginning of a new chapter for Los Angeles County and opens the door to events and gatherings that bring the community together to share the many cultures that comprise the fabric of Los Angeles,” said Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina in a statement.

The Saturday events kick off at 11 a.m. with public dance lessons and continues throughout the day until almost 10 p.m., with concerts and an encore dance performance in the much-lauded renovated Arthur J. Will Memorial Fountain.

With the park's completion comes the release of a schedule of fall events and the announcement of a new Grand Park Director, Lucas Rivera. Rivera previously worked as the executive director of Artists and Musicians Latin America based in Philadelphia -- an organization that teaches and promotes Latin music and dance. He has helped construct the Grand Park's fall programming schedule that continues through November.

"Grand Park is already home to a public square speakers’ series presented by Zócalo and will soon host a farmers’ market, book fairs, art festivals, a poetry workshop, yoga and more,” Rivera said in a statement.

In addition to being named a new hub for the upcoming CicLAvia biking event, the park's fall highlights include Make Your Mark at the Park, a group drawing session on October 14 that's accompanied by the Grand Park Pooch Party -- which is exactly what it sounds like; an afternoon of dog parades, pooch booths and breaking in the new dog run.

On November 2, the Japanese Consulate along with L.A. County officials will dedicate the park's cherry blossom trees and then that evening, the DTLA bar La Cita is hosting a Dia de Los Muertos party with live music and art.

The Grand Park has opened in waves this summer, beginning with the late July opening of the first two blocks, which included costumed performances, dancers on stilts and a water fountain display. Then on September 11, the Community Terrace which spans from Hill to Broadway, opened with a ceremony in the flag garden and a 9/11 tribute.

By Hayley Fox.