L.A. Project Restore's First Street Master Plan Proposes a Revitalized East-West River Span

What were Project Restore's goals when they approved the First Street master plan and chose an array of talented architects and landscape architects to do it?

Tim Psomas: Project Restore was formed as a public private partnership with the City of Los Angeles for our signature project, the restoration of City Hall. At the completion of that very successful project, we were looking for a way to provide context and lasting value for that work, and our president, Ed Avila, presented this idea for First Street – "Calle Primera" – to the board, and it was enthusiastically received.

The concept was very much in line with what had been happening for several years Downtown, looking at re-shuffling of property ownership among the various public sector participants and major users of space. First Street had so many exciting prospects. It is the front door to City Hall – or at least one side of City Hall – and so it seemed a natural project for Project Restore to be engaged with.

Doug, you, along with Mark Rios and Doug Campbell, were leads on this team, charged with drafting a master plan from the Civic Center through L.A.'s Historic Core, Little Tokyo, the Arts District, L.A. River, and Boyle Heights. How did the team approach this challenge?

Doug Suisman: As Tim said, the centerpiece for Project Restore has been and remains City Hall. First Street looks at the urban connections that City Hall anchors to the west up Bunker Hill to Disney Hall and to the east across the river, up in the cliffs of Boyle Heights to Mariachi Plaza. We started with the recognition that First Street spans a river valley, which is often forgotten in the same way that the river itself has been forgotten.

The revival of interest in the L.A. River also highlights the fact that Downtown is situated on the edge of a river valley and that First Street is the primary east-west connector across that valley, with the First Street bridge as the landmark structure connecting east and west sides. For us, that physical connection was resonant of a changing social and political reality in L.A. that is healing some of the historic divisions between east side and west side and connecting them in powerful new ways. We saw this project as an opportunity to strengthen that social change and improve the physical environment of the street.

The master plan lists 27 key stakeholder groups, and that is probably just the tip of the iceberg. Who had to be engaged to develop this plan appropriately?

DS: Any time you look at a two-mile line through a city, especially through its historic heart, there will be an enormous number of stakeholders. We began just with the elected officials, including everyone from Congresswoman Roybald, to members of the State Legislature, to county supervisors, and City Council members. In addition to the electeds, there is a tremendous number of community groups and interest groups along the alignment, including the three neighborhood councils. Many Downtown business interests, arts groups, historic groups – a tremendous number of people are affected and connected in some way by the First Street corridor.

In the January TPR, Playa Vista President Steve Soboroff said Playa Vista isn't so much a real estate development as it is a "public policy project." Could the same be said of the First Street master plan – is it more of a public policy project than a design project?

TP: I think that's an elegant way to say it. We believe we have a great concept that has been very well developed, beautifully articulated and graphically illustrated, and we think that it makes a public policy statement that is compelling to the property owners both public and private. We hope they will adopt the concepts and implement the plan.

What are some of the design elements that give life to the programmatic aspects of the plan?

DS: I'll be happy to, but I'd just like to add one note to what Tim said about the property owners: We've spent some time talking about why First Street is important, and we'd like to emphasize why it's important now. We estimate that more than $2.5 billion in public and private investment is currently being expended along the corridor. So this plan isn't an abstract exercise, it's a very real plan tied to very real projects that are either recently completed, under way, or about to start. We recognize the exceptional dynamism of economic activity along the corridor, and the plan tries to focus on short-term achievements as well as long-term goals.

Within those short-term achievements, the plan identifies some focus areas that we're very excited about. Perhaps first and foremost is the First Street Bridge, which is going to be widened to accommodate the Gold Line. In the course of that project, the plan recommends taking advantage of some very considerable square footage underneath the bridge on both sides of the river that could be used for public benefit – parks, plazas, community centers, gyms, arts centers, retail – to help spur the revitalization of both Boyle Heights and the Arts District.

So the bridge is the centerpiece of the project, and a logical counterpart to City Hall. Project Restore started out focusing on the loving restoration of an important civic monument, and we feel that the First Street Bridge is a very worthy next project. The top of the bridge has been beautifully restored by the Bureau of Engineering, but the undersides of the bridge and the adjacent streets remain real opportunities.

What's special about First Street? Why is this street/corridor important from a civic perspective?

Much is changing in the neighborhood around City Hall, notably the new CalTrans building, and the new police headquarters about to go up. I think the photographs of the immigration demonstrations over the weekend of March 25 demonstrate the importance of the front of City Hall as a gathering place for all Angelenos when important issues are to be discussed and debated. It really is the civic space where Angelenos come together in political freedom to debate the future of our society-our version of the ancient Greek agora.

We think that civic space, which right now is centered on the park adjacent to City Hall, could be upgraded to become a true civic square, not just during political demonstrations or political inaugurations, but in the everyday life of downtown. We've put forth suggestions for how that space could be upgraded with relatively modest investment.

Doug, I want to take you back across the river to Boyle Heights, where, as you say, a lot of public and private investment is going on – Metro rail, Aliso-Pico housing, a new high school, NSBN's work on a community center. How do you use a master plan to tie these investments together?

DS: I think the Gold Line will spur a dramatic transformation, which has already begun with Vista del Sol housing project and the significant amount of investment activity around the two planned Gold Line stations, where there will be new housing, shops, and public facilities. In terms of tying these investments together, we felt that on the east side of the river it was most important to focus on small details that can make a difference.

Some important large projects are going in, but in some cases the planned public environment – even just the width of the sidewalk – is inadequate to provide a really vibrant street environment. So we suggest widening sidewalks, planting trees, improving lighting, and making sure that all of this investment doesn't add up to a string of disconnected projects. We want the whole to be bigger than the sum of its parts – a beautiful gateway to Boyle Heights, and a vibrant public boulevard from the Los Angeles River up to Mariachi Plaza.

Tim, the city of L.A. has been known for decades as a city that has not valued planning. It valued negotiations and entitlements, but it didn't value planning as such. Relate Project Restore's master plan to the mayor's vision and his hiring of new general managers for transportation, planning, and the CRA. How might each use this master plan to create elegant density on First Street?

TP: We would hope that through the political process and through project improvements that they will use this master plan to encourage the expenditure of money that would implement the plan. We think this is a terrific example of how planning should precede major investment and how it can be increase values and improve these properties over the long term. First Street can unify the varying types of architecture and uses of the properties along this corridor and in the adjoining neighborhoods.Doug, speaking for Bob Hale, Doug Campbell, and the architecture community, what would you recommend for the new planning and transportation directors about the need for a connection between land use, transportation, sidewalks, and architecture?

DS: You've already said it well: transportation, land use planning, and urban design must be integrated. Certainly the First Street plan is built on a very close knitting of all forms of movement -- whether it's riding on the new Gold Line light rail, a bus, car, bike, or walking-and tying all those forms of movement to the fixed physical environment that makes up the city – the streets, sidewalks, buildings, gardens, parks, etc. In all of the cities that we love and think are wonderful, those elements work together.

Too often in L.A., transportation has been planned in one arena, the physical design of public space buildings has been done separately, and the result has often been less than successful. It's one of the reasons that people still complain that Downtown doesn't yet have the vibrancy that it can and should. This presents an opportunity to do it right from the beginning.

As a matter of tactic, we've been really pleased by the response from our fellow architects who are working on the individual projects and who often don't have the brief or the fee or the opportunity to look at how their individual building is going to fit in to a larger picture That was our charge from Project Restore, and we found great openness and willingness from our colleagues to make modifications to individual building projects so that they link up in a more successful way, both linking one project to another and linking the projects to the movement systems along the public right of way.

I think it's potentially a very good model for how to plan our public environments. As Tim said, though, you need to have the overall plan before all the individual development takes place. Otherwise, too often things are set in stone and its too late to change them by the time the plan is done.

A lot of the investment along First Street involves entities that rarely collaborate. The LAUSD rarely collaborates with the city, and Metro rarely collaborates with the city and vice-versa. What lessons about the planning of First Street can be applied to future efforts?

TP: The most important lesson from this effort was that it was a collaborative effort. The design team did an excellent job engaging the parties, bringing them in at the right time, and building bridges between what might have been individual, unrelated, interesting – but not really as fulfilling as the projects will be.

Collaborating is a very exciting process, which has been well executed by our design team, and hopefully we can take this lesson to other neighborhoods as we proceed with the restoration of Los Angeles and take pride in our great city.

Doug, I'm going to push you a little on how the team dealt with the Gold Line project and even with the new high school on First Street. Have you forged relationships and had conversations?

DS: Yes, we have had conversations with LAUSD. I guess I would say that it's always easier not to collaborate than to collaborate. I think we all know that the demands of our individual projects often mean we don't have the time to have those extra conversations, but we all owe it to the public and our various constituencies to make the extra effort. When we proposed this, there was no resistance. We met with everyone, and I think every agency we met with was very positive in principle about collaborating. But we had varying degrees of success in getting changes made to projects we thought were important.

In the new high school, we remain concerned that security considerations and LAUSD and state education regulations may end up creating a school that in some ways turns its back on a very important segment of First Street by orienting to the other side of the campus and which, because of a very long fence and some other details, will create a sidewalk and community space that is under-scaled, uncomfortable, and even dangerous because of the traffic next to the sidewalk. We've had limited success to-date in moving that conversation forward, so that's the one area where we hope to see more collaboration and improvements.

And the Gold Line?

DS: The MTA has been very supportive. Its actually been one of the prime movers in the First Street project as a whole. I think it's really commendable that the MTA now recognizes that they don't just move people, they help create urban places, and to do that you can't just jam a rail line or bus line through a community. You have to knit the transit system to community life, and they have supported our efforts.

What are the next steps now that the first phase of the master plan has been produced? What's next for Project Restore?

TP: Project Restore is looking forward to meeting with the various constituents and potential investors and working with them to make the master plan a reality. When we started this project, we referred to it as "Calle Primera." We now call it, "First Street Now," and there's a sense of urgency so we don't miss out on this great opportunity to build something more than just a number of interesting but unrelated projects.

Editor's note: The two other principals on the First Street project, Doug Campbell and Mark Rios, were not available for this interview due to scheduling constraints.