Federal Plans, Cautious Optimism

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES - Excitement buzzed through Downtown Los Angeles last month when officials in Washington, D.C., announced that they are looking to construct a federal office building on the pit at First Street and Broadway. The news from the East Coast took most Downtowners by surprise.

There were two reasons for the reaction: First, almost no one knew there were any dreams of erecting a federal office building on the site. Second, civic watchers had only learned less than a year ago that a $400 million courthouse is supposed to rise on the property by 2016.

This is all good news, right? Possibly. We don’t want to look a federal gift horse in the mouth, but a few things about the proposal prevent us from believing that a new day has dawned for one of Downtown’s most prominent eyesores.

At this point we can’t bring ourselves to be any more than cautiously optimistic that the second building will materialize. Our enthusiasm is tempered by history, along with some questionable elements of the new proposal. Hopefully the feds will show some serious indications that the project can move forward.

Part of the reason for the cautious approach is the state of the property. The land, directly west of the Los Angeles Times building, has been empty and fenced off for years, and the federal government gave no indication to the local community that things would change. Although plans about a decade ago called for a courthouse to rise there, the project died when costs soared to $1.1 billion. It all sounded squishy and potentially politically motivated — we could never figure out how a courthouse, of all things, could cost that much (was there a retractable roof we didn’t know about?). There were also suggestions that, during the Bush administration, the federal government didn’t want to send major projects to heavily Democratic Los Angeles.

Whatever the situation, things changed in January with the sudden announcement that a scaled-back courthouse would rise on the property. It’s a good fit, and it makes sense to locate more government services in the Civic Center.

However, there are questionable aspects to the new proposal. Plans don’t call for a second structure just to rise. Instead, a developer must agree to construct an up-to 175,000-square-foot building on the site, after which said developer would take over a 1938 courthouse at 312 N. Spring St. The federal General Services Administration estimates an upgrade and retrofitting of the aged building would cost $250 million.

That’s an awful lot of money, and some local real estate players have questioned whether it makes financial sense. Historic buildings can be notorious money pits.

This does not mean the project cannot happen. Perhaps we’re at an opening stage, with the feds testing the market. Maybe the deal needs to be reshaped, with incentives added.

We like the idea of a second building on the site and a more active and populated Civic Center. But at this point, the best we can manage is, as we say, cautious optimism.

© Los Angeles Downtown News 2012