In Westside Los Angeles, a Rail Line Stirs a Revival

Los Angeles - Slowly, mass transit is taking hold in a city synonymous with the car. By: TERRY PRISTIN: The New York Times
Now a light-rail line is finally coming to the affluent and traffic-choked Westside after years of local resistance, and at least some urban-style development is likely to follow.

Derek Jones, chief operating officer of the Legado Company, said a mixed-use development would appeal to people who worked downtown.

When the $2.4 billion Exposition Line, currently under construction on an unused freight rail right-of-way, is completed, by 2015, its electric cars will travel all the way to Santa Monica, a few blocks from the Pacific Ocean.

The 8.6-mile first phase of the project, now about two-thirds finished, extends west from the University of Southern California, at the eastern end, to Culver City, the home of Sony Studios. Concrete columns that will support elevated train stops have sprouted near the busiest intersections along the route. (The two stops closest to the university will be underground and then will link to existing rail lines downtown.)

In addition to removing tens of thousands of cars from the road — 64,000 daily riders by 2030, according to transit authorities — the 15.6-mile Expo Line is expected to spawn a variety of mixed-use real estate projects, as some of the city’s previous rail lines have done. A project including more than 500 units of housing and a 300-room W hotel was recently completed at Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street, and a rental and retail complex was built at Wilshire Boulevard and Vermont Avenue in 2007.

The Expo route has spurred development proposals from major companies, including Hines, an international firm based in Houston, and Casden Properties, a leading Los Angeles developer of multifamily properties. In Santa Monica, Eileen P. Fogarty, the city planning director, said there was tremendous demand for any site that was located no more than a quarter-mile from a station. “People will comfortably walk a quarter of a mile,” she said.

Since entertainment companies began migrating in large numbers to the Westside in the mid-1990s, residents have complained bitterly about the ever-worsening gridlock. Yet many fear that high-density development near transit stops will result in even more congestion and spoil the low-rise character of their communities. “Some of this is cultural,” said Mark Ridley-Thomas, a Los Angeles County supervisor whose sprawling district includes the Expo Line. “Space is important to the way Angelenos live and breathe. But you can’t do a rail line absent a certain level of density.” The projects are needed to drive ridership and make the rail line cost-effective, he said.

Much of the new line will run south of the Santa Monica Freeway, several miles from the densest population centers. But rail transit is expected eventually to have “huge economic development implications” that would bring jobs and badly needed services to people living in the Crenshaw district, a largely African-American neighborhood around the midpoint of the Expo Line, Mr. Ridley-Thomas said. Another light-rail line is planned from Exposition Boulevard south to Los Angeles International Airport along Crenshaw Boulevard.

Many proposed projects along the Expo Line, at Crenshaw and elsewhere, are still in the early stages. But farther to the west, Samitaur, a Los Angeles developer of innovative buildings, has won approval and $11 million in subsidies to build a 12-story office tower near the Expo station at La Cienega and Jefferson Boulevards, just outside Culver City, said John E. Molloy, the project manager. The building, designed by Eric Owen Moss, will offer ceiling heights up to 24 feet and an entrance that will be flush with the elevated train station. Despite its proximity to the station, the project will include a separate parking structure for 700 cars.

Samitaur, which has yet to break ground on the project because of the slow real estate market, is attracting interest from the types of entertainment-related tenants that have been flocking to Culver City in search of cheaper rents than they can find in Santa Monica, Mr. Molloy said. Another local developer, Jonathan Genton, recently transformed a group of industrial buildings along La Cienega Boulevard, about a quarter-mile north of the Expo Line (and within Los Angeles city limits), into Blackwelder, a stylish office park for media and postproduction companies.

Prospective Blackwelder tenants have made a point of asking about bicycle storage, but so far they have not paid a premium to be within walking distance of the rail station, Mr. Genton said. Mr. Molloy expressed confidence, however, that once the train is operating, “being right next to the station will be a big draw.”

The size of the Samitaur project did not prove an obstacle because it was located in an industrial neighborhood, Mr. Molloy said.

But scale is a big issue at the next station to the west, at Venice and Robertson Boulevards, which is also in an industrial neighborhood but is under the jurisdiction of Culver City, not Los Angeles. (Culver City’s newly rejuvenated pedestrian-friendly downtown is about half a mile away and not on the Expo Line.) Culver City has spent $23 million to assemble a 4.5-acre site at the station, which it intends to sell to private developers. But the city has decided to limit building heights on the site to five stories and require that the project include a park and a transit plaza. “The key would be to make this fitting for the neighborhood,” said Sol Blumenfeld, the community development director.

Roger Moliere, chief of Real Property Management and Development for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, said Culver City’s plan was not dense enough to be practical, given the cost of the land. “They are going to find out they are not talking about something that works as a private development,” he said.

Further along in the pipeline is a mixed-use development planned by the Legado Companies of Beverly Hills, which owns land cater-corner to Culver City’s site. Legado’s project will include 115 residential units and a public plaza and will have an open look, “bringing eyes in from the street,” said Derek Jones, the chief operating officer. Mr. Jones said the development would appeal to people who worked in downtown Los Angeles but did not find it “green enough or clean enough” to live in.

For developers, it is the second phase of the Expo Line, which was approved in February but was not yet under way, that provides the juiciest opportunities. Santa Monica is reviewing a variety of proposals, including one from Hines, which owns a Papermate warehouse on Olympic Boulevard across from the 26th Street station and is seeking to build 970,000 square feet of office space and residential units on 7.5 acres. The city also owns land at Expo stations but has not yet decided what to do with it.

In Santa Monica, new development along the Expo Line will be limited to six or seven stories, Ms. Fogarty said. To compensate for the height, the city has tightened height restrictions in areas that are closer to the residential neighborhoods.

Too much bulk has also been an issue in West Los Angeles, where Casden Properties is seeking approval to replace a cement plant adjacent to the Sepulveda Boulevard station with one of the biggest developments on the Westside. The project would consist of four eight-story buildings containing 538 residential units and about 266,800 square feet of retail space, including a Target store. Despite opposition from some neighborhood residents, Alan I. Casden, the chief executive, said greater density was inevitable.

“Los Angeles is going to go vertical,” he said. “That’s the only way you can go. There’s no more land.”