The proposal by Anschutz Entertainment Group to install the equivalent of a football field in signs and lighted billboards in front of the LA Live development near the Los Angeles Convention Center is a glaringly bad idea. AEG's proposal is over-reaching and garish.

According to the Los Angeles Times, views of the city from the newest wing of the LA Convention Center would be partially blocked. And the acre of signs would likely create a wall of intense, intrusive light that floods the picture windows of hundreds of apartment and condo-dwellers, especially those who will live in any of the half-dozen high-rises planned within a few blocks of 18-acre sports-entertainment-hospitality-condo-retail extravaganza.

Los Angeles has outlawed large outdoor signs in many parts of the city, and placed restrictions on those that remain—as if it mattered.
 
Watch closely as Phil Anschutz gets what he wants.

As the builder of the 54-story convention center hotel, the developer already enjoys favorite-son status. The city used bond financing to acquire the hotel site, just north of the convention center and the Anschutz-built Staples Center sports arena. The city also cheerfully amended the city plan, allowing the developer to take over several downtown streets and create an inward-looking island of development. With a 7,000-seat Nokia Theater, themed night clubs, and a large-scale courtyard lit up by Jumbotrons, the complex has been brilliantly designed to capture the attention—and discretionary spending dollars—of both out-of-town conventioneers and local basketball and hockey fans.

It is bad enough that the city chose to subsidize LA Live, which, in my opinion. subverts several goals of downtown planning, such as promoting pedestrian movement  along Figueroa Boulevard. LA Live is an inward-looking fantasy environment, not entirely dissimilar from the echt-urban retail playgrounds developed by Rick Caruso (such as Americana at Brand in Glendale and The Grove at Farmers Market near Hollywood.)

At LA Live, a wall blocks the project frontage along Figueroa Boulevard.
Message to public: We're having a private party, and you're not invited. The views admittedly are much better from 11th Street, with the convention center hotel on the north  and the Jumbotron courtyard on the south. By that point, however, you're already inside the belly of the beast—an entirely privatized environment, except for the asphalt on the street.

One sign that the developer is ready to deal is the initial proposal to devote 25% of signage to promote the Convention Center—a give-away that the city's tourism and hospitality bureau will probably support, to the detriment of the convention center itself.

Despite its prosperity, Los Angeles seems perpetually afraid of saying no to developers, especially those who undertake risky redevelopment projects like the convention center hotel. The policy in both the city and its redevelopment agency has been to "give the developer whatever he wants, as long as we get what we want."

Sacrificing both public policy and urban design so the city can obtain some tourism-and-hospitality benefits, however, is a cut-off-your-nose strategy the city should have abandoned long ago. The role of government, in my view, is to identify goals for both public policy and urban design, and let the private sector figure out how to make viable projects that fit those goals. The current policy, however, is the opposite: Let the private sector do whatever it wants, mitigate the worst effects, and tack on some public interest (such as a few affordable housing units or public art or open space) as an afterthought.

So, get out your popcorn. Phil Anschutz, the largest owner of cinema screens in the country, is about to give us a virtuoso performance in massaging LA City Hall. I predict some big lights are coming to the skies of downtown Los Angeles. For those people who live within a mile or so of LA Live, I recommend some extra-heavy window drapes.

– Morris Newman