Los Angeles city and community leaders are pushing for an urgent recovery plan to bring businesses back and restore confidence in the downtown LA area.
Downtown LA business owners gathered at Grand Central Market Thursday as they continue to grapple with a slow growing crisis: the downtown heart of Los Angeles is in a state of decay following years of compounding problems.
“The pandemic, immigration raids, tariffs, curfews, ongoing homelessness – these have hit downtown Los Angeles harder than anyone else,’ said Nella McOsker, president of the Central City Association.
Downtown may represent just 1% of the land mass of the city but it represents a third of its business, parking and hotel tax base.
But office towers on Bunker Hill have seen a dramatic drop in value due to continued high vacancy rates, resulting in closures of some of the city’s most-established restaurants.
Graffiti, often viewed as a symbol of bourbon decline, has also taken over the neighborhood, including an abandoned, high-rise construction site in the South Park area across from the LA Live Entertainment district.
“It’s ugly, and it makes downtown look dirty and forgotten,” said podcast Evan Lovett, who chronicles LA’s monuments and historic events on his popular podcast “LA in a Minute.”
The Central City Association is calling for 90 focused calls to action, increased police foot patrols to stop crime and stepped up homeless intervention.
The group is also calling on the city to invest in turning unused office towers into badly needed housing, both market rate and affordable.
“You’d have that benefit of people being here all the time. We are rebuilding the city’s framework after COVID,” Blair Beston from the Downtown Historic Core Business Improvement District said.
The latest announcement from the city to inject $2.62 billion in expansion of the Convention Center ahead of the 2028 LA Olympics is also giving hopes to downtown LA advocates.
“We are going to see a lot more investments of the heart,” Beston said. “This is a special place to invest in. And they are showing that now.”
