Despite the progress downtown L.A. has made over the last decade in becoming a vibrant, day-night, mixed-use community, "block-killing blight" remains a stubborn presence in the area's landscape. Ryan Vaillancourt calls out the worst offenders.
Updating a list of the “10 Worst Eyesores in Downtown” that the Los Angeles Downtown News compiled nearly three years ago, Vaillancourt identifies the sites with the most room for improvement. "Even as a number of older dilapidated buildings have been turned into housing, a host of properties, including several that would seem to be natural candidates for renovation, sit derelict."
Among the properties he identifies are a pair of buildings ravaged by fire five years ago, a vacant art deco icon, a city-designated Historic-Cultural Monument, and a vacant century-old fire station that's on the National Register of Historic Places. For a developer with an appreciation for the benefits of adaptive reuse, it would seem that opportunities to jump into the downtown renaissance abound.
Vaillancourt also makes note of properties that seem to be heading in the right direction and success stories since the publication of the last list.
FULL STORY: A Look at Downtown's Worst Eyesores
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California Exodus: Population Drops Below 39 Million
Never mind the 40 million that demographers predicted the Golden State would reach by 2018. The state's population dipped below 39 million to 38.965 million last July, according to Census data released in March, the lowest since 2015.
Chicago to Turn High-Rise Offices into Housing
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Ohio Lawmakers Propose Incentivizing Housing Production
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Chicago Awarded $2M Reconnecting Communities Grant
Community advocates say the city’s plan may not do enough to reverse the negative impacts of a major expressway.
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