Last month, we got a brief glimpse of the river-lovin' "creative campus" bringing 40 live/work units to just-starting-to-gentrify Frogtown. Now, we're getting a more detailed tour of the place, which will be combining new construction with the adaptive reuse of a 1947 bow-truss building that stands between the site and the river path, turning it into a connector and allowing people to move freely between the river and the new buildings, says KCET.
The complex will include eight affordable housing units (previous reports had said three) and three levels of underground parking. The eco-friendly development is also set to incorporate "a storm water recycling system with a giant cistern at the basement [that] would ... help capture, treat and re-use the water" after rains. Retail space will take up 15,500 square feet on the ground floor and, because of tax credits, developers Terra River LLC are opening the space up with discounted rates for nonprofits and community-owned businesses. "We're trying to build for the future but respect what's already here," the cofounder of Terra River says.
But many neighbors still aren't sold on the development. No one mentions gentrification by name here, focusing instead on the development's comparative size (the 56-foot-tall building designed by Killefer Flammang will be fairly tall for the area), and fears that the new mixed-user might bring in more cars than the neighborhood can handle.
· Riverfront 'Creative Campus' Coming to Elysian Valley [KCET]
· Frogtown's First Big Gentrification Meteor Could Be About to Hit [Curbed LA]
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