Today's Los Angeles Times covers the LA Conservancy's doomed fight to save the Wilshire Savings building, and while there's not a lot of new information in the story, this paragraph--which explains why some locals don't like developer BRE's proposed apartment building (seen above in a new rendering)---stands out. "In a letter to the city planning department, resident Susan Baker objected to what she called "the Manhattanization" of her neighborhood, and she worried that the Wilshire-La Brea project would bring more traffic and noise pollution." Oh, NIMBYs. You need some help in organizing to fight the good fight. This building represents not the Manhattanization, but the suburbanization of LA.
Just look down Wilshire Blvd, which now boasts Avalon Wilshire and the 5600 Wilshire project, and the empty Park Wilshire condo project, which is one giant peach of a suburban house.
If BRE's project was built as planned (facing pressure from the community, the developer dropped from 17 stories), you could maybe make an argument about a Manhattan affect from a density point of view, but in the end, what Wilshire Boulevard is getting is yet another apartment building that's neither urban nor sophisticated-looking. Which is fine. People gotta live somewhere, and not every building has to be knock-out.
But if Wilshire Boulevard is going to be transformed, and old buildings are going to be razed for structures that look like they could easily fit in an office park, NIMBYs in the area should at least know what they're fighting against, which is banality, not Manhattan-like urbanization. Meanwhile, more evidence that this thing will likely pass through the City Council. From the Times: "At a hearing of the Los Angeles City Council's Planning and Land Use Management Committee on Tuesday, Councilman Dennis Zine called the project "well worth it for the community."
· Plan to demolish building on Wilshire Boulevard is opposed by L.A. Conservancy [LA Times]
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