If the Vision Is Well Executed, It Could Be Grand

Those questions remain unanswered after a master plan for Los Angeles' downtown core earned preliminary approval Monday from the Grand Avenue Authority, a body that includes city and county officials and was created to oversee the project.

The master plan is something of a paradox. Though privately financed, the project holds the potential not just to revitalize downtown but to reassert its very public-ness. It was unveiled at a news conference by the New York-based developer Related Cos. and the Grand Avenue Committee, a panel chaired by billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad. The plan itself was produced largely by Related and the Chicago office of architecture firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.

The $1.8-billion project proposes adding nine acres of mixed-use development, including as many as five residential towers of 25 to 50 stories each, immediately to the south and east of Walt Disney Concert Hall. It also calls for a 16-acre park -- a potentially stunning space that would sweep down the hill in a series of terraces, from the Music Center to the steps of City Hall.

More broadly, the plan aims to stitch together downtown's stand-alone architectural icons -- City Hall, Gehry's Walt Disney Concert Hall, Jose Rafael Moneo's Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels and Arata Isozaki's Museum of Contemporary Art -- with a new fabric of housing, retail and outdoor spaces. On the commercial side, it would add a boutique hotel, an upscale grocery, an art-house cinema, a health club and several restaurants to the area ringed by 1st Street, 2nd Street, Grand Avenue and Hill Street. That piece of land, just down the hill from Disney Hall, now is covered by parking lots.

The redevelopment will offer a high-profile, high-stakes test of the public-private partnerships that have grown so popular in cash-strapped cities around the country. Such partnerships require elected officials to cede substantial control of traditionally civic initiatives to developers. In this case, in exchange for fast-track approvals for the commercial component, which could bring the company a windfall, Related has agreed to build the park at no cost to taxpayers.