A Prius With Your Loft at Dogtown Station

By Adam Christian | Published: December 1, 2009

In mid-June, when Curbed LA reported on a price chop at Dogtown Station, a 35-unit loft development at 700 Main Street in Venice, 17 units were still available. Today, that number has dropped to 12, an absorption rate of approximately one unit per month, which seems fairly typical for the market and product type.

But apparently not quick enough, because in the last week, the entry price has been lowered to $819,000 for a second-story flat of 1,383 sq. ft. (or $592 PSF).

I actually interviewed with the developer, Bob D’Elia, back in January 2008, as an internship-seeking graduate student. At the time, I had produced a mock pro forma for Dogtown Station, estimating its construction costs, revenue from condo sales, IRR, and presented it at the interview.

D’Elia was impressed by the accuracy of my estimate for sales revenues, $41.3 million, which took into account both pre-sales and the planned release of remaining units at escalating price points. With the development totaling 57,869 sellable sq. ft. (excluding common and outdoor areas), that translated into an average sale price of approximately $714 PSF. D’Elia would not verify the accuracy of my cost estimates but boasted of a project IRR in excess of 20%.

Overall, this newest price point, $819,000, represents a 17% decrease (on a PSF basis) from the early 2008 peak average…without counting the additional incentive of a 36-month lease on a new 2010 Toyota Prius with the purchase of any unit (valid until December 31st).

Dogtown Station has lowered its price and and is offering an additional buyer's incentive.

Dogtown Station has lowered its price and and is offering an additional buyer's incentive.

Assuming a 2010 Prius base sticker price of $23,370 with monthly  lease payments of $341, this incentive is worth around $13,000 by my calculations, meaning that the effective price PSF is closer to $583, or about 19% off the original ask. This percentage drop is, perhaps not coincidentally, in the zone of the developer’s originally projected IRR, which means that Dogtown Station may have hit rock bottom in terms of the price decreases its investors can absorb before erasing profit margins entirely.

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Congestion Pricing: Will Southern Californians Warm Up to HOT Lanes?

By Adam Christian | Published: November 19, 2009

At the November meeting of SCAG’s newly-formed Steering Committee* on Regional Congestion Pricing, transportation firm HNTB outlined its preliminary research for a crowd of planners, businesspeople, and community advocates, mainly summarizing existing practices in other cities around the globe. Against the resistance of some local politicians and even its own Board members, SCAG recently committed $4 million to a feasibility study on congestion pricing in preparation for its 2012 update of the Regional Transportation Plan (RTP).

With Southern California slated to convert existing carpool lanes to HOT (High Occupancy Toll) lanes on stretches of the 210 10 and 110 as soon as next year, the committee gathered to debate whether the application of road pricing strategies should be broadened across the region to manage anticipated increases in VMT.

HNTB was mostly preaching to the choir as it outlined the positive benefits – economic and environmental – that have been reaped from the implementation of congestion pricing policies elsewhere. Representatives from the trucking/goods movement industries were a tad more skeptical, but most everyone agreed that the success of congestion pricing in Southern California will ride on the rollout of the concept to the public, particularly how the revenues from any user-based fees are subsequently allocated.

One of the most interesting findings from HNTB’s research was that, even in other cities less enamored of the automobile than Los Angeles, public support for congestion pricing increased after implementation, but still barely passed the 50% mark. The graph below tracks the opinion of Stockholm residents before and after the city started charging cars to enter its central district. The poll further distinguishes between residents in the inner-city (ie. within the congestion pricing zone) and the outer region/periphery.

% of Stockholm residents in favor of congestion pricing, before and after implementation, by location (Source: Stephen Glaister, Imperial College, UK, via HNTB)

% of Stockholm residents in favor of congestion pricing, before and after implementation, by location (Source: Stephen Glaister, Imperial College, UK, via HNTB)

Two caveats: 1) Public support may have increased further since Spring 2006, as residents have presumably adjusted to the policy and perhaps shifted their places of work/residence accordingly. 2) Southern California is not Stockholm. It is a famously polynucleated region without a dominant urban core. But the longstanding disparity between job-rich coastal counties and the more affordable but primarily housing-driven Inland Empire could pose similar challenges to Southern California policymakers in garnering broad majority support here. Indeed, there are still so many variables that it is hard to gauge who the probable winners and losers would be (more on that in a future post). But congestion pricing may be part of the long-term solution to our traffic woes.

*Of which I am a member, representing UC Irvine’s Center for Urban Infrastructure.

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Urban Freeway Farming for LA?

By Adam Christian | Published: November 16, 2009

Other New Urbanisms, a symposium held this past weekend at Sci-Arc in downtown Los Angeles, showcased one of the more interesting and perhaps utopic schemes to emerge from the recent  ”New Infrastructure: Innovative Transit Solutions for LA” design competition.

The Fletcher Studio, which won second place, proposed urban agricultural villages that would convert freeway embankments into terraced hillsides. Affiliated bungalow housing would be built alongside. These developments would be a new source of “green” jobs, employing farmers on a rotating, seasonal basis. Fletcher calculated that along LA’s 527 miles of freeway, there are approximately 960 acres of largely unused land that could be reclaimed as a productive landscape.

Freeway embankments: reclaimed space for urban agriculture?

Freeway embankments: reclaimed space for urban agriculture?

Panelists responding to Fletcher’s presentation debated whether Caltrans, the state agency with regulatory authority over freeway-adjacent land, would ever “yield a square inch” of its terrain (both literal and figurative). Landscape architect Mia Lehrer, also a participant in the symposium, highlighted the importance of working within entrenched bureaucracies to make change happen. Not every project is going to be “sexy” or transformative on a regional scale, Lehrer stated, but if it has the potential to improve environmental or community health outcomes, design professionals should not shy away from the political challenges of implementation.

Judging from the pessimistic mood of the panel, it is clear that designers are suffering from an acute sense of disempowerment in the current economic environment, with its renewed focus on pragmatic, “shovel-ready” infrastructure projects, at the expense of more radical, paradigm-shifting proposals. On the other hand, the glass can be seen as half full: current approaches to issues of growth and mobility in Southern California have failed, so there may be a growing receptivity to systemic change. A small dose of unconventional thinking may be necessary to get the city unstuck, as it were.

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The New Westfield Culver City: Off Target

By Adam Christian | Published: November 13, 2009

Shopping centers in Southern California have become a pretty fascinating bellwether of contemporary trends in architecture and urbanism. Developer Rick Caruso’s The Grove, for instance, made a splash when it opened in 2000 by modeling itself after a traditional European village with a purely ornamental trolley line, in many ways echoing the New Urbanist call for transit-oriented, walkable places. The Americana at Brand in Glendale, also by Caruso, added to this concept a mixed-use component (rental apartments) and a more generous public realm. Granted, these shopping centers paid lip service to New Urbanist ideas, more than implementing them in earnest.

In this context, the recently renovated Westfield Culver City off the 405 represents its own leap into the future of architecture. Inside, vaulted ceilings and slices of skylight create an airy, vertical sense of space, a cathedral-like effect. The interior is more or less gutted, with walkways around the perimeter. Diagonal ramps straddle and crisscross this spatial void at non-perpendicular, irregular angles. The ground plane feels tenuous. From virtually any given point in the mall, the consumer enjoys panoramic, unobstructed views of the retail frontage on multiple levels. Paradoxically, however, it is nearly impossible to identify the shortest way from Point A to Point B, if you actually see somewhere you want to go. The developer of Westfield Century City wanted to “blur the boundaries between exterior and interior spaces,” and by this measure succeeded, but the effect is disorienting.

What does this mall say about trends in American urbanism? Well, the Westfield Culver City actually seems much closer to the grands magasins, the great department stores of early 20th-century Paris than the nostalgic village concept so successfully exploited at The Grove.

[svgallery name="off-target"]

With its generous use of glass and open-air quality, the architecture is undeniably complicit in a sense of voyeurism. There is nothing new about places of commerce serving as a showcase for social spectacle and celebrity. Indeed, the Parisian upper classes would frequently go to these luxe Art Deco retail palaces to see and be seen. During my visit, the TV phenomenon “So You Think You Can Dance” was hosting auditions on the main plaza, amid a 360º ring of onlookers.

Overall, this design concept is thoughtful and contextually appropriate. Westfield Culver City is located not only at the intersection of the 405 and 90 freeways, but of ethnically diverse communities who might otherwise find few opportunities or excuses to patronize the same places. Because the architecture makes voyeurism acceptable, it in turn allows people to gawk at cultural differences and feel comfortable doing so.

In its quest to be modern and cutting-edge, however, the mall overlooks features that might make the experience more user-friendly. The parking system is disorganized. None of the innovative traffic management strategies used at other Westfield locations, such as the red/green lights installed above parking spaces to signal occupancy/vacancy, are imported here. Directional signage is inconsistent at entrances and exits.

Despite high hopes, especially for a Target both nearby and easily accessible via freeway, the new Westfield Culver City mall misses the bullseye in terms of convenience.

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American Beauty in the Suburbs

By Adam Christian | Published: November 3, 2009

This past weekend I had the opportunity to see a fascinating photography exhibit at LACMA, New Topographics, the re-creation of a 1975 exhibit originally held at the International Museum of Photography, George Eastman House. Misunderstood and critically underappreciated at the time, it documents seemingly banal subjects such as tract homes in nondescript suburbs, commercial strips, parking lots, and other “everyday” objects of the postwar built environment. The work of these photographers is no less captivating today, even as the terrain it covers is more familiar to the viewing public.

Suburbs often lend themselves to various moralizing statements (about a spiritual void in American culture or about our unsustainable consumption of land and resources, for instance), but these photographs generally avoid value-laden judgments on the inhabitants of these arguably “ugly” buildings and aesthetically-minimalist landscapes. Nor do they read, more than thirty years later, as an anthropological time capsule, a window into shifting modes of architecture and living. Instead, intentionally or not, much of the work feels redemptive of the uniquely American visual vernacular that are today’s first-generation suburbs. Robert Adams, whose photographic series The New West receives prominent placement in the LACMA exhibit, would probably disagree strongly with my interpretation, as he makes his own contempt for suburbia well-known in the accompanying text to his book. But such is the nature of art–its visual meaning sometimes escapes the author’s control and becomes something quite opposite of the original intention.  The show is definitely worth seeing before it closes in January 2010.

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L.A.’s TOD Fiction

By Adam Christian | Published: October 6, 2009

Solair Wilshire, a 22-story mixed-use development featuring 186 for-sale residential units and 50,000 square feet of retail space, is in many ways the embodiment of  ”transit-oriented development” (TOD), currently in vogue among urban planners and developers alike. It literally towers about the MTA’s Wilshire/Western Purple Line Station in Koreatown. The design of the tower is so seamlessly integrated with the subway entrance that the 70 residents who have put down non-refundable deposits on those units must have a hard time finding an excuse not to take mass transit.

Towering above an MTA station, Solair is the quintessence of TOD.

Towering above an MTA station, Solair is the quintessence of TOD.

Countless polemics have been raised over TOD, particularly in Los Angeles, none more vociferous than an L.A. Weekly exposé several months back characterizing it as a sort of Trojan’s Horse, a pretext for density foisted on unwilling or unsuspecting neighborhoods, contrary to the very DNA of the city.

Its viability in the marketplace aside, and even putting aside for the moment any discussion of whether it actually encourages transit (a June 2007 L.A. Times study sadly indicates that it doesn’t), TOD seems to have escaped criticism on the more basic level of urban design. Using Solair as an example,  the much-touted “walkability” promoted by TOD  ends up being something of an illusion, a fiction that extends no more than a city block in either direction. Because if you walk around the block, north toward Sixth Street from Wilshire, the seamy underbelly of high-rise density becomes apparent in both the massive above-grade parking structure and surface lots necessary to comply with already-relaxed parking requirements and service entrances for the retail component. There is a massive, intrusive ramp leading from the sidewalk up to the second story of the building, with prominent banners and flags advertising “Solair Sales Center,” the irony being of course that the realtors for the project clearly expect prospective customers to arrive by car. So much for a self-selecting, transit-conscientious pool of buyers in Los Angeles. (Additional site photos to be posted shortly).

This side street (Oxford Avenue) becomes a classic “dead zone,” mere steps away from the bustling Wilshire corridor, utterly uninviting for a pedestrian to casually explore. So much for a contiguous street wall, or any of the other urban design principles thought to be necessary for activating street life. The groundfloor storefronts at Solair seem like the façades on a movie set – hollow when viewed from the rear.

KOAR, the well-intentioned developer behind Solair, is probably doing the best it can, given both site constraints and market demand for parking. Solair could not succeed without it, and subway infrastructure beneath the building most likely prevents more than one subterranean level from being built to tuck more of the parking out of sight. But the fact remains, even the posterchild for TOD is still the visible product of a car-centric regulatory regime and culture.

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Which Way UCLA and the VA?

By Adam Christian | Published: September 19, 2009
View of the VA Campus from Wilshire high-rise.
View of the VA Campus from Wilshire Blvd. high-rise.

As the largest institutional landowners on the Westside,  the Veteran’s Administration (VA) and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) are, at 388 and 419 acres respectively, the most influential players when it comes to real estate development, traffic congestion, and the provision of open space in this part of town. To that end, the Westside Urban Forum invited prominent panelists from both institutions for its monthly event. Also in attendance was County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, whose jurisdiction includes the VA and UCLA (even though both properties are technically exempt from local zoning controls).

The panel was supposed to discuss long-range planning efforts, but most of the official statements sounded like a defense of the status quo. Ronald B. Norby, Network Director for the VA Desert Pacific Healthcare Network, vowed to uphold the VA’s core institutional mission and put himself on record as opposing any changes in land use, either for commercial development or  ”anything that is not veteran-focused” (read: a public park).

Yaroslavsky, fielding hostile comments from local residents about insufficient public access to the VA grounds, defended current policy, explaining that “the pastoral nature of the campus is very therapeutic…healing time with the environment is crucial to patients suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.” When Brentwood resident Michael Cohn complained about the lack of a continuous boulevard or bicycle lanes through the property, Norby responded, “the last thing that relatives want when they’re visiting their loved one [in the cemetary] is to be disrupted by a noisy car or bicycle riding by.”

Chancellor Gene Block of UCLA was there mainly to trumpet the university’s virtues. He briefly outlined plans for more residential infill on campus, mainly dormitory and affordable housing for junior faculty. Asked about the university’s responsibility to help revitalize the struggling Westwood commercial district, Block compared it to Telegraph Avenue, the main commercial corridor near UC Berkeley, and declared that Westwood’s downtown looked pretty good by comparison!

Transportation planners in the audience wondered whether the planned Westside subway extension was influencing either institution’s long-range planning considerations. Yaroslavsky intervened with a pointed remark on 7 members of  the MTA Commission who are allegedly colluding on a “heist” of Measure R funds for the Gold Line Extension to Montclair in the San Gabriel Valley, at the expense of the Wilshire subway line. This internal feud over countywide transit funding is “about to become very public,” he warned. Meanwhile, Block focused on the university’s success in congestion management, noting that its commuter vans and ridershare programs have kept the number of daily vehicle trips to the campus steady since 1995, even as the university’s size has significantly expanded. Currently, 50% of trips involve carpooling, well above the citywide average.

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Street Talk: A Design Review

By Adam Christian | Published: September 13, 2009

As the city installs Pay Here stations in favor of individual parking meters along busy commercial corridors, any good urbanist might wonder to do with the vestigial metal “stumps” left embedded in the sidewalk as the old-style meters are decommissioned.  The Dept. of Transportation has come up with a remarkably elegant and logical solution by converting those stumps into bike racks. Even the design of the rack itself is pretty sleek.  This picture is taken on Main Street in Venice, where the racks are well-utilized at rush hour by environmentally-minded cyclists attending yoga classes at the Center for Sacred Movement.

A smart reuse of street space.

A smart reuse of street space.

Grade: A

The DPW needs to rethink the design of its latest receptacles.

The DPW needs to rethink the design of its latest receptacles.

Meanwhile, just around the corner, the Dept. of Public Work‘s Resource Program receives lower marks for its recent installation of clunky recycle and trash bins. Not only are they dingy and cheap-looking, they are strangely movable, sliding anywhere from one end of the block to the other over the course of the week. The outsized bins compete for space with newstands, trees, and other street furniture, encumbering the path for pedestrians. Plus the recycle bin is distinguished only by color and not by design, which almost undoubtedly results in a lower user awareness of their distinctive purposes. The openings to the recycle bin should be restricted to a slit (for newspapers) and a round hole (for cans and bottles).

Overall: Well-intentioned concept, but let’s improve the design and implementation before this innovation goes citywide. Grade: C+

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Shoupistas Take Santa Monica

By Adam Christian | Published: September 11, 2009
Parking rates are going up in Santa Monica.

Parking rates are going up in Santa Monica.

The City of Santa Monica just voted to raise parking fees at its public garages along the Promenade, after a  study concluded that “extra revenue is secondary to the money that City Hall and property owners would save if they don’t have to acquire land and build new garages. Instead, they need to better manage what exists,” according to the Santa Monica Daily Press.

This conclusion sounds practically ripped from the pages of Donald Shoup’s 800+ page tome, The High Cost of Free Parking. A professor of urban planning at UCLA, Shoup has inspired legions of fellowers, who have evidently invaded the ranks of city planning departments, particularly on the West Coast.

If you do not have the time to read Shoup’s book, simply memorize his most oft-repeated recommendation: to price public parking competitively with the hourly cost of private garages such that at any given time, 15% of the spaces are vacant and available for those most willing to pay.

Santa Monica’s decision to boost parking rates, rather than interpret its lack of peak-hour parking as a mandate to build additional garages, may be just the latest evidence of Shoup’s growing influence, at least in progressive circles.

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Whither Redevelopment?

By Adam Christian | Published: August 31, 2009

Last week I attended ULI’s brownbag lunch on “Market Outlook Implications for Cities and Redevelopment Agencies,” moderated by Bob Gardner of RCLCO.

Representatives from the CRA in Los Angeles put on their best game face and talked up the $180 million in committed funds that are still on the table (despite the contested money grab by Schwarzenegger), while a city employee from Lancaster admitted that the downturn is “an opportunity to update the city’s general plan.”

There was much discussion about what the “new normal” would look like once the current market has bottomed out and self-corrected. One of the most interesting remarks came from Ellen Michiel of RBF who predicted that immigrants would lead the way in economic growth, via an explosion in small businesses, entrepreneurship…and that mainstream financial institutions would do well to support this burgeoning demographic group through increased micro-lending.

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