Stop University Gateway?
In the fall of 2000, I was a Planning and Development major at the University of Southern California (USC). For a class project, I developed an ambitious plan to remake a half-mile long stretch of Figueroa Street near USC's campus (see it here). Along a strip dominated by parking lots, fast food joints, and strip malls, I imagined a dense, pedestrian-oriented district of multi-family housing, offices, regional retail, and entertainment venues. Naive to the workings of "the real world," I didn't quite understand how "pie in the sky" my scheme truly was.And yet, it seems my dreams weren't that far from reality. University Gateway, a $135 million mixed-use development, has been proposed for the northwest corner of Figueroa Street and Jefferson Boulevard, adjacent to USC's campus. The eight story building will house 421 "luxury" student apartments, 83,000 square feet of retail, and 770 parking spaces in a pedestrian-friendly design. If successful, University Gateway might trigger redevelopment of other nearby sites, bringing a new sense of vitality to the "Figueroa Corridor."
The Shammas Group is leading the charge for University Gateway. Shammas operates numerous car dealerships along Figueroa Street and owns more land in the neighborhood than anyone else (except USC, of course). Shammas has begun consolidating its stable of dealerships in the so-called "Downtown Auto Mall" near the intersection of Figueroa Street and Washington Boulevard, about a mile north of USC, in order to free some of its land for redevelopment. Shammas teamed with Urban Partners, a prominent Downtown development firm, to devise a plan for three key parcels near USC. The University Gateway project will only occupy one of these parcels, and Shammas claims it no longer intends to redevelop the other two.
While supported by USC and the City of Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA), Universtiy Gateway has encountered some well-funded and well-organized opposition. The "University Park Association" has developed a Web Site, stopuniversitygateway.com, and has paid for several prominent billboard advertisements in the vicinity of the project. While "site fights" over development plans are hardly rare in Los Angeles, the battle over University Gateway has raised interesting questions. Why doesn't the "University Park Association" have its own Web Site when it obviously spent so much time and effort on stopuniversitygateway.com? And how can the "University Park Association" afford to pay for exremely expensive billboards if it is merely a coalition of local residents and small business owners?
This week the Los Angeles Downtown News revealed that the "University Park Association" is not really a "grass roots" opposition movement, but rather a stalking horse for Conquest Housing, another major land owner that owns hundreds of student apartments in the neighborhood. Its article, "The NIMBY Twist," explored the unprecedented nature of this "site fight," with one developer fighting the plans of a competitor under the guise of concern over environmental issues and community benefit. Conquest is less interested in the merits of University Gateway than the potential impact on its profitability. It's kind of like having McDonald's fight the construction of a Burger King across the street because it's "not what the neighborhood wants."
Despite its questionable tactics, Conquest and its allies have raised some valid issues. University Gateway is denser, taller, and has fewer parking spaces than current zoning regulations allow. Further south on Figueroa Street, Conquest is developing Tuscany, a similar project, but was not granted any of the variances that Shammas and Urban Partners are seeking. It isn't necessarily fair for the City to apply different standards to two similar projects in the same neighborhood. In addition, there are many issues that must be addressed in University Gateway's Environmental Impact Report (EIR). It was an unwise and disingenous move by Shammas and Urban Partners to initially determine that a project of University Gateway's magnitude didn't need an EIR.
The technical issues surrounding zoning and environmental impacts can, and should, be worked out expediently. On the whole, University Gateway is a suitable project for the area. Its surroundings are already quite dense, with numerous tall structures such as the Shrine Auditorium and several USC buildings. The Galen Center arena is under construction just steps away, and the Expo Line light rail transit project, which includes a station at Jefferson Boulevard and Flower Street, should begin construction this summer. University Gateway will not completely transform the character of the neighborhood, nor will it produce a plethora of negative impacts. Instead, this well-planned, well-designed "infill" project will enhance the community and provide new student housing directly adjacent to the USC campus.
While I feel that University Gateway is a good project, I do regret that it will serve the USC community exclusively. All of its residential units will be occupied by college students, and its commercial space will be dedicated to a bookstore and a health club owned by USC. If redevelopment of the Figueroa Corridor continues, future projects must include a wider variety of housing along with stores and services that serve the entire neighborhood. Figueroa Street has the potential to become a thriving urban district with a wide array of land uses serving diverse constituencies, so it would be a shame to see it become a "de facto" expansion of the USC campus that the rest of Los Angeles is unable to enjoy.
posted by Mitch Glaser @ 6:04 PM
5 comments
5 Comments:
I've probably already told this story, but my undergrad architecture thesis was a vertically integrated mixed-use facilty in downtown Blacksburg, Va. Not even three years after I got out of school, a remarkably simlar project popped up a block away from my proposed site. It was a hell of a coincidence.
Anyway, I echo your feelings about this Figueroa Street project. Conceptually, it's a good thing. In execution, it leaves something to be desired. It's breaking the zoning codes left and right and its vision of primarily serving USC students is too limited. It's in essence a private-owned extension of a public university, which raises all sorts of red flags in my view.
Mitch, nice post. I haven't lived in Conquest Housing, nor do I intend to. From what I've heard their already-existing buildings and services leave something to be desired.
I imagine that USC students are more likely to live in a building exclusively for students. It's an economic decision to exclude non-students. I don't know what to make of your other criticism that the commercial part of the building will discriminate against the locals; what I mean is that I think I understand what you're writing, I just don't know what to think about it.
Nice elaboration of what you said back in April here.
"It's in essence a private-owned extension of a public university, which raises all sorts of red flags in my view." Well, I guess Steve Swain can rest easy...
Good article, btw. I graduated from 'SC in 2000 and did a project on the (then newly announced) Figueroa Cooridor plan that was tied, via the Geography dept, to neighborhood groups that were worried about _anything_ USC did (I learned all about the Shammas family, and why, for example, a project like your student project was unrealistic --I even wrote a DT article about it, search "bobak" and "Figueroa" for that badly written, rambling piece ;-) ). From that experience I learned that in that 1970s and 80s, USC was a bonafide terror to its neighbors in trying to grab property --to the point that it was stopped by the city from doing anything (there are a few buildings on the west/nw side of campus that are from that era --note they look like USC buildings but are not). USC went through a period of internal change in the 1980s and emerged in the 1990s as more concerned about its neighborhood --investing it in rather than trying to exploit it to the level it did before. Needless to say, it ended up useful when the riots happened (less tension probably helped save campus from any attack). The problem is the older people in the neighborhood associations (which I met in that project) all act that USC is what is was 30 years ago. They are more than willing to after 'SC and with Conquest funds they're now "armed" better than they have been. It's really sad, since it's not as though the Felix lots were all that beneficial to the neighborhood as they are now. I feel like the people are being manipulated.
How appropriate the word 'con' is in Conquest.
feh.
Post a Comment
<< Home