SAH Members to speak at Cornell's CSUD 2013

The 2013 Case Studies in Urban Development (CSUD) will treat the development known as the Grand Avenue Project in downtown Los Angeles. The project is the latest, and perhaps grandest, effort to create vital downtown business, civic, and cultural venues for Los Angeles. These endeavors date back to the 1950s when the City of Los Angeles condemned and cleared Victorian homes and regraded Bunker Hill. Beyond enhancing the physical design and cultural vitality of downtown, the project is intended to attract residents, stimulate job creation, and generate tax revenue for local government. Early in 2007, the Los Angeles City Council and the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors endorsed an extensive public-private undertaking to transform the civic core of Los Angeles. The much heralded Grand Avenue master plan by Frank Gehry was anchored by such cultural institutions as the Disney Theater, the Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, and included housing, parks, and extensive mixed-use development along Grand Avenue. The 2008 financial crisis delayed implementation and compelled the developers, Related California, to revise the scope of the original conception. Nonetheless, the project currently encompasses a new museum by architects Diller, Scofidio and Renfro that is now under construction; a 16-acre park by landscape architects Rios Clementi Hale Studios, that opened in July 2012; and a housing tower by architects Arquitectonica.