We received some form of an answer to most questions posed this week. Thank you to those of you that commented and/or left an email in our e-slot. For next week, please give us your question before Tuesday. If you have digital pictures illustrating your question, it would help us greatly. Feel free to email us at la@curbed.com. Thank you.
[Broadway Hollywood Building, adaptive reuse, by Kor. Rendering via Killefer Flammang]
1) Hollywood: Commenter jp wants you to know the following, "broadway/ hollywood is finishing up and doing their final punch list now. should be complete very, very soon....and yes, B/H has been under construction for a long time."
2) Los Angeles: We get several responses regarding Housing Inspectors. From the comments, LA CityNerd and anonymous (aren't they the same person) provide a list of probable violations that may be cited: faulty locks, water heaters not being strapped properly, missing or damaged screens, cracked or peeling paint, structural issues, missing smoke detectors, missing doors, leaking plumbing, etc. And from an emailer: "Starting a few years ago, the City of LA began conducting regular inspections of rental properties. All of the properties in a given area are scheduled for inspections in the same time period. I think they are always "making the rounds." LA is just so big that it takes a few years for them to get around to each part of the City.
Those of us who own rental properties pay a fee every year for these inspections. If the tenant-correspondent is unaware of this program, it may be because his/her landlord has not passed the cost to tenants as a rent surcharge, which would indeed suggest that the landlord is pretty decent."
3) Echo Park: A reader asks about the sale of Jensen Rec Center to Prana Investments of San Francisco. No news on what's planned for the building, but Prana's reputation is not good, as evidenced by this article from The Real Deal in October 2006:
"Prana, which is based in San Francisco, is described by investment adviser Kochis Fitz in their newsletter as a company that "looks for opportunistic investments in inefficient markets that are generally characterized by unsophisticated, capital-constrained buyers and sellers, significant government regulation (primarily rent control), and a large variance in rents for similar units." ... In San Francisco, Prana has gained a reputation for "systematic evictions" of tenants of buildings it acquired, according to tenants and lawyers who represented them. There are other articles detailing Prana's business strategies all over the internets. 4) Hollywood: The Acapulco Restaurant at Sunset and Fuller is getting upgraded, says commenter Carter, quoting Eater LA. "According to eaterLA.com, the Acapulco on Sunset will become The Happy Ending, brought to you by the Quintessential Gp, featuring Mario Gudemi, Salvatore Aurora, and executive chef Matt Gladstone." Opening scheduled for Mid-July.
5) Echo Park: Echo Park and its lake are being fenced off for the annual Lotus Festival. Via our email: "The fences around Echo Park Lake are for the Lotus Festival and will be taken down shortly after the weekend. The Prop O construction, on the other hand, will start sometime around 2010. The two are not related.
The Prop O project that the writer refers to will dramatically improve Echo Park Lake from water quality to landscaping, but the boathouse and the boat operation aren't going anywhere. There will be a long public process before executing any of the procedures detailed in the concept report, which can be read online at http://www.lapropo.org/sitefiles/lariver.htm. (Draining the lake is one of the proposed steps. There will probably be no paddle-boating while the lake is drained.)"
Thank you to everyone for writing in, and pray that Prana doesn't take over your building.