Rethinking Grand Avenue

Much has been said about the Frank Gehry-designed Grand Avenue project, from jaded urban commentators bemoaning the project's lack of progress on the ground and taxpayer subsidies to starry-eyed downtown boosters -- myself included, at times -- who see the giant development as a validation of the urban Angeleno lifestyle.

But with government officials overseeing the project growing increasingly concerned about the repeated delays in the beginning of construction, now expected to get underway in February, it's time to ask a larger question: Have we become too locked into one vision of this development? If cost estimates keep going up and construction is delayed again and again, shouldn't we think about backing out of part of the project in favor of some other vision?

A world-class development across the street from the iconic Walt Disney Concert Hall -- itself once plagued with cost overruns and construction delays -- and near the Music Center has been the dream of local politicians for years. There's no question that transforming a makeshift parking lot used mostly by reluctant jurors into a five-star hotel adjacent to two residential towers and an upscale shopping center would further shake the stigma of downtown as a place plagued by homelessness and blight.

The Grand Avenue project would offer other benefits as well. It would bring in much-needed tax revenue by creating living-wage jobs and stimulating retail sales downtown. And its developer, Related Cos., will finance the construction of a civic park linking City Hall and the Music Center.

But in Los Angeles, our politicians often get swept up in overly grand visions, including the leveling of Victorian homes on Bunker Hill to make way for office towers and the unfunded Los Angeles State Historic Park -- known as the "cornfield" -- north of Union Station. Mega-projects such as Grand Avenue may keep the city in the pages of architectural publications, but too often, the economic reality of them yanks our collective heads out of the clouds.

Take, for example, the unrelenting rise in the cost of construction. Because the building and infrastructure boom in China is increasing demand for steel, glass, concrete and other materials, the cost of constructing skyscrapers worldwide has soared. Cost estimates of the Grand Avenue project have increased by nearly $1 billion since planning began in 2003. The three-phased project is now projected to cost just shy of $3 billion.