Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has unveiled plans to turn an industrial parcel of land near downtown into "the global capital of clean technology."
"Cecilia V. Estolano, chief executive of the Community Redevelopment Agency, has led development of the CleanTech Corridor concept. She contends that Los Angeles is 'driving the technology, and we're driving demand and that is a huge calling card.'
The corridor envisioned by city planners spans 2,236 acres -- about 10% railroad-owned -- east of Alameda Street, with its borders still in flux. It begins at a swath of land straddling the L.A. River, near Los Angeles State Historic Park (the former Cornfield), that Councilman Ed Reyes hopes to transform into a neighborhood where bicycles and pedestrians would rule and carbon emissions would be cut by 35%. Then it runs south through the site of a future Department of Water and Power research center into the Artists-in-Residence district, which stretches from Alameda to the river and from 1st Street to south of 7th Street.
The vacant CleanTech Manufacturing site at Santa Fe Avenue and 15th Street, just south of the 10 Freeway, forms the corridor's southern anchor.
The jockeying for a piece of a project at the top of the mayor's agenda has already begun."
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