Architect Frank Gehry unveils designs for long-delayed Grand Avenue project
Visitors who come at all hours every day to marvel at architect Frank Gehry's gleaming Walt Disney Concert Hall routinely turn their backs on the eyesore across Grand Avenue in downtown Los Angeles.
The shabby open-air parking structure known as "the Tinker Toy garage" has been a public embarrassment for decades. Now, its days are numbered.
"We will be fully under construction in early fall," said Ken Himmel, president of Related Cos.' mixed-use development division. The company got the contract to build the sprawling Grand Avenue Project in 2004 but repeatedly postponed work on the key parcel across the street from the concert hall on Grand at 1st Street as the recession and doubts about its viability slowed progress.
The delay helped improve the project, Himmel insisted. Five years ago, there was a "disconnect" between what Gehry wanted to build and what Related could pay for, he said. "The budget wasn't in line."
Since then, Gehry has found ways to reconcile his vision with costs, Himmel said, and the prolonged burst of downtown development including housing, hotel and entertainment projects has attracted upscale restaurateurs and retailers who can afford to pay top rents.
"All that translates to higher revenues" for Related, Himmel said, "which allows us to build a better project."
For his part, Gehry said he can now "live within the constraints" of Related's budget and believes the Grand will stand out from other big mixed-use developments downtown.
"They look like everywhere else," Gehry said, without identifying specific projects he regards as uninspired. "You see them everywhere."
The Grand will have a mix of shops and restaurants spread among a series of landscaped open terraces, along with an approximately 450-seat cinema complex on the east side above Olive Street. There will be a 20-story Equinox hotel with 314 rooms and a 39-story residential tower with 113 condos and 323 apartments. Related will offer subsidized rents to low-income tenants for 20% of the apartments.
And it will blend with Disney Hall through shapes, colors and materials, Gehry said, so that the new complex is "not antithetical" to the distinctive hall or "in your face."
That's not to say it won't be bold, with off-center angles, multiple terraces and an open core designed to attract people into one big plaza between the concert hall and the Grand, especially when the street is closed for special events.