Mass transit driving LA development

Written by jrood

Slowly, mass transit is taking hold in a city synonymous with the car. Now a light-rail line is finally coming to the affluent and traffic-choked Westside after years of local resistance, and at least some urban-style development is likely to follow, the New York Times reports.

When the $2.4-billion
Exposition Line, currently under construction on an unused freight rail
right-of-way, is completed, by 2015, its electric cars will travel all the way
to Santa Monica, a few blocks from the Pacific Ocean.

The 8.6-mile first phase of
the project, now about two-thirds finished, extends west from the University of
Southern California, at the eastern end, to Culver City, the home of Sony
Studios. Concrete columns that will support elevated train stops have sprouted
near the busiest intersections along the route. (The two stops closest to the
university will be underground and then will link to existing rail lines
downtown.)

In addition to removing
tens of thousands of cars from the road – 64,000 daily riders by 2030,
according to transit authorities – the 15.6-mile Expo Line is expected to spawn
a variety of mixed-use real estate projects, as some of the city’s previous
rail lines have done. A project including more than 500 units of housing and a
300-room W hotel was recently completed at Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street,
and a rental and retail complex was built at Wilshire Boulevard and Vermont
Avenue in 2007.

The Expo route has spurred
development proposals from major companies, including Hines, an international
firm based in Houston, and Casden Properties, a leading Los Angeles developer
of multifamily properties. In Santa Monica, Eileen P. Fogarty, the city
planning director, said there was tremendous demand for any site that was
located no more than a quarter-mile from a station. "People will comfortably
walk a quarter of a mile," she said.

Since entertainment
companies began migrating in large numbers to the Westside in the mid-1990s,
residents have complained bitterly about the ever-worsening gridlock. Yet many
fear that high-density development near transit stops will result in even more
congestion and spoil the low-rise character of their communities. "Some of this
is cultural," said Mark Ridley-Thomas, a Los Angeles County supervisor whose
sprawling district includes the Expo Line. "Space is important to the way
Angelenos live and breathe. But you can’t do a rail line absent a certain level
of density." The projects are needed to drive ridership and make the rail line cost-effective,
he said.

Much of the new line will
run south of the Santa Monica Freeway, several miles from the densest
population centers. But rail transit is expected eventually to have "huge
economic development implications" that would bring jobs and badly needed
services to people living in the Crenshaw district, a largely African-American
neighborhood around the midpoint of the Expo Line, Ridley-Thomas said. Another
light-rail line is planned from Exposition Boulevard south to Los Angeles
International Airport along Crenshaw Boulevard.

Many proposed projects
along the Expo Line, at Crenshaw and elsewhere, are still in the early stages.
But farther to the west, Samitaur, a Los Angeles developer of innovative
buildings, has won approval and $11 million in subsidies to build a 12-story
office tower near the Expo station at La Cienega and Jefferson Boulevards, just
outside Culver City, said John E. Molloy, the project manager. The building,
designed by Eric Owen Moss, will offer ceiling heights up to 24 feet and an
entrance that will be flush with the elevated train station. Despite its
proximity to the station, the project will include a separate parking structure
for 700 cars.

Samitaur, which has yet to
break ground on the project because of the slow real estate market, is attracting
interest from the types of entertainment-related tenants that have been
flocking to Culver City in search of cheaper rents than they can find in Santa
Monica, Mr. Molloy said. Another local developer, Jonathan Genton, recently
transformed a group of industrial buildings along La Cienega Boulevard, about a
quarter-mile north of the Expo Line (and within Los Angeles city limits), into
Blackwelder, a stylish office park for media and postproduction companies.

Prospective Blackwelder
tenants have made a point of asking about bicycle storage, but so far they have
not paid a premium to be within walking distance of the rail station, Mr.
Genton said. Mr. Molloy expressed confidence, however, that once the train is
operating, "being right next to the station will be a big draw."

The size of the Samitaur
project did not prove an obstacle because it was located in an industrial
neighborhood, Mr. Molloy said.

But scale is a big issue at
the next station to the west, at Venice and Robertson Boulevards, which is also
in an industrial neighborhood but is under the jurisdiction of Culver City, not
Los Angeles. (Culver City’s newly rejuvenated pedestrian-friendly downtown is
about half a mile away and not on the Expo Line.) Culver City has spent $23
million to assemble a 4.5-acre site at the station, which it intends to sell to
private developers. But the city has decided to limit building heights on the
site to five stories and require that the project include a park and a transit
plaza. "The key would be to make this fitting for the neighborhood," said Sol
Blumenfeld, the community development director.

Roger Moliere, chief of
Real Property Management and Development for the Metropolitan Transportation
Authority, said Culver City’s plan was not dense enough to be practical, given
the cost of the land. "They are going to find out they are not talking about
something that works as a private development," he said.

Further along in the
pipeline is a mixed-use development planned by the Legado Companies of Beverly
Hills, which owns land cater-corner to Culver City’s site.

For developers, it is the
second phase of the Expo Line, which was approved in February but was not yet
under way, that provides the juiciest opportunities. Santa Monica is reviewing
a variety of proposals, including one from Hines, which owns a Papermate
warehouse on Olympic Boulevard across from the 26th Street station and is seeking
to build 970,000 square feet of office space and residential units on 7.5
acres. The city also owns land at Expo stations but has not yet decided what to
do with it.

In Santa Monica, new
development along the Expo Line will be limited to six or seven stories, Fogarty
said. To compensate for the height, the city has tightened height restrictions
in areas that are closer to the residential neighborhoods.

Too much bulk has also been
an issue in West Los Angeles, where Casden Properties is seeking approval to
replace a cement plant adjacent to the Sepulveda Boulevard station with one of
the biggest developments on the Westside. The project would consist of four
eight-story buildings containing 538 residential units and about 266,800 square
feet of retail space, including a Target store. Despite opposition from some
neighborhood residents, Alan I. Casden, the chief executive, said greater
density was inevitable.

"Los Angeles is going to go
vertical," he said. "That’s the only way you can go. There’s no more land."

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