The L.A. Times' Architecture Review Bashes the Staples Center and L.A.Live

The L.A. Times' architecture critic, Christopher Hawthorne, wrote a piece last week criticizing the second phase of L.A.Live--the companion to the Staples Center that was part of the CBA--for being just one more placeless enclave within the city. "When you get right down to it," Hawthorne says, "[the buildings'] architecture is fundamentally not really architecture at all but an extensive series of armatures on which the developer and its tenants can hang logos, video screens and a sophisticated range of lighting effects."

Marlton Square CBA

The Los Angeles developer of Marlton Square, a retail and housing redevelopment project entered into a CBA in 2002. The deal in that case included provisions relating to the creation of community spaces, a first source hiring policy and a commitment to reaching a seventy percent living wage goal. Although the project was approved and received subsidies in 2002, it has had a number of false starts and has had difficulty attracting retail tenants. Some housing has been built, but as of late 2007, the bulk of the project was still “delayed” and it is unclear whether any of the CBA’s provisions have been fulfilled.

Text of the Marlton Square CBA is available here.

NoHo Commons CBA

A 2001 deal in relation to a large mixed-use development in North Hollywood secured affordable housing, living wage and first source hiring promises for the community. The developer, in return, got about $44 million in city subsidies, a figure that was increased from the city’s original plan to award $31 million in funds. The CBA may also have helped to secure the unanimous approval the project received from the city council.

The NoHo Commons project includes residential, retail and office space, as well as a food market, a school and a child care center. LAANE, which also helped to negotaite the Staples Center CBA, organized a coalition to work with the developer, J.H. Snyder Co., on a CBA. The end result seems to have been positive for everyone. LAANE has reported that eighty percent of the tenants have chosen to use the first source hiring system set up by the developer, and tenants willing to pay living wages have been found. If anything, the project may have been too successful, with developments popping up all over North Hollywood and threatening gentrification.

Text of the NoHo Commons CBA is available here.

SunQuest industrial park

In 2001 an agreement was reached for the redevelopment of an environmentally contaminated industrial site in Los Angeles. The city agreed to provide environmental remediation, and the developer committed to such terms as paying living wages, hiring local residents and setting up a neighborhood improvement fund. Unfortunately, plans for the SunQuest industrial park project were tabled after the developer went bankrupt, and the foreclosure cancelled the CBA. As of early 2008, it is unclear exactly how the property will be developed.

Links & News

• SunQuest CBA
• Jason Takenouchi, Sun Valley Industrial Park on Tap, Los Angeles Daily News, Jan. 14, 2000
  
• Gregory J. Wilcox, Nonprofit, Investors Set to Reclaim Blighted Cityscape, Los Angeles Daily News, Jul. 21, 2002
• Gregory J. Wilcox, Turning Ex-Dump Into Jobs, Los Angeles Daily News, Feb. 9, 2003
• Shelly Garcia, Four bidders emerge for troubled Sun Valley property: former Branford landfill parcel part of bankruptcy, San Fernando Valley Business Journal, May 14, 2007
  
• Kerry Cavanaugh, New Hope for Former Dumpsite: Latest Owner is Resurrecting Plans to Develop Landfill After False Starts, Los Angeles Daily News, Jan. 2, 2008
• Los Angeles Department of City Planning, Recommendation Report, Dec. 18, 2008
  

LAX airport CBA

The LAX airport expansion CBA demonstrates the flexibility and adaptability of this method of negotiating. In December, 2004, the Los Angeles City Council approved the agreement reached between Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA), the public administrator of LAX, and a coalition of twenty-two community groups concerning an $11 billion airport expansion. Among the coalition’s members were two local school districts and organizations representing community, religious, environmental and labor interests.

In addition to provisions covering job training, first-source hiring and living-wage requirements, the CBA also devoted substantial resources toward mitigating the environmental impacts of the airport. The airport thus contracted to provide more than $8.5 million annually for the soundproofing of local schools, city buildings, places of worship and homes, and it agreed to fund studies on air quality and community health. Further, the CBA required LAX to implement a number of environmental controls, including the electrification of passenger gates and cargo areas (to reduce the need for engine idling), emissions reductions and the conversion of airport vehicles to alternative fuels. The CBA also clearly required LAWA to incorporate CBA provisions into all airport contracts, lease agreements, and licensing or permitting agreements, thus ensuring the translation of the requirements to the airport’s contractors and tenants.

A few useful documents:

• cooperation agreement
• CBA
• 2007 annual progress report

Other documents relating to the LAX CBA are available here.

Staples Center CBA

The success of the Hollywood and Highland CBA was followed in 2001 by the completion of the first full-fledged CBA. This CBA concerned L.A.Live, a sports and entertainment complex located adjacent to the Staples Center sports arena (home to the Los Angeles Lakers). Community residents had suffered a blow when the developer failed to provide orally promised benefits after the completion of the project’s first phase. The community hoped that a CBA would ensure that the developer would follow through with promises made in relation to the project’s second phase—the construction of an entertainment complex complete with two hotels, a theater, a 250,000 square foot expansion of the convention center, two apartment buildings and a retail complex. Negotiations were held between the developer and the Figueroa Corridor Coalition for Economic Justice, which represented more than thirty community organizations, including environmental groups, religious groups, health organizations and immigrants’ and tenants’ rights supporters. Strategic Action for a Just Economy (SAJE) and LAANE were also involved in the negotiating process, which lasted over nine months, providing organizational and political support to the coalition and community members.

The spectre of broad community opposition to the project, which required significant land use variances and city subsidies, provided the community with the necessary leverage to negotiate one of the most comprehensive CBAs made to date. The completed agreement states that its purposes are to “provide publicly accessible park space, open space, and recreational facilities; target employment opportunities to residents in the vicinity of the Figueroa Corridor; provide permanent affordable housing; provide basic services needed by the Figueroa Corridor community; and address issues of traffic, parking, and public safety.” The CBA included reporting requirements and established a committee to monitor and enforce the agreement and to maintain a dialogue between the developer and the coalition. The CBA was also incorporated into the development agreement between the developer and the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency, making it enforceable by the city as well as by the contracting community groups. Several aspects of the CBA were implemented shortly after its completion, including the establishment of a residential parking permit program and the distribution of seed money for the construction of affordable housing.

Some of the provisions included in the Staples Center CBA:

·       $1,000,000 for the creation or improvement of parks and recreational facilities

·       $25,000 per year for a term of five years for the creation of a residential parking permit program

·       an agreement to comply with the city’s living wage ordinance and to make all reasonable efforts to reach the goal of ensuring that 70% of the jobs created by the project pay a living wage;

·       an agreement to give priority hiring to persons displaced by the project and to low income individuals residing within three miles of the project

·       job training programs to be coordinated with community groups

·       $100,000 in seed money for a first source (i.e. local) hiring program

·       a requirement that 20% of the residential units in the project be affordable

·       $650,000 in interest-free loans to non-profit housing developers for the creation of additional affordable housing

·       an agreement to cooperate with the coalition to establish an advisory committee to assist with the implementation and enforcement of the agreement.

Since 2001, a number of provisions of the Staples Center CBA have been implemented. Funds were distributed for parks and open space, the parking permit program was put into place and the revolving loan fund has revolved several times. SAJE has monitored the implementation of the CBA, and they have worked to set up a community land trust for affordable housing. 

 For text of the Staples Center agreement, click here.