Grand Avenue can be called one of the main streets of Los Angeles, where a kind of "city center" has already begun to take shape: there appeared the Arata Isozaki Museum of Contemporary Art, the Cathedral of Our Lady of Raphael Moneo, then the Disney Concert Hall designed by Frank Gehry and others notable structures. Gradually, there are fewer and fewer empty plots, in parallel the avenue is being turned into a public space.
However, the Gehry mixed-use project on Grand Avenue is still struggling to enter the implementation stage. The architect took over the site in front of his concert hall back in the mid-2000s, but since then the project by the developer Related Companies has been postponed for various reasons, and this year Gehry's contract was not even renewed. Instead, architects Gensler and R. A. Stern, but their project was rejected by the Grand Avenue Authority in charge of the development of the avenue (it was formed by the authorities of the city and county of Los Angeles) as "not of any architectural interest", and a key member of this council, Gloria Molina, in an interview with the media, recommended the developer to contact Gehry again …
And now Gehry's new project has been submitted for approval to officials: it is more restrained than its previous versions, curvilinear volumes have been replaced by rectangular blocks, which, as the customers note, will significantly reduce the cost of its implementation. The complex "reacts" to the concert hall located across the street: right in front of it there will be a square surrounded by shops and restaurants, and two towers - with a 300-room SLS hotel and ordinary and "affordable" apartments, respectively, will be built along the edges of the site.
The possibility of complementing the complex with a small auditorium is being considered. In addition, Frank Gehry wants to move the cafe from the Disney room to the square in front of him, as well as redo the pavement around the building.
The project budget will amount to $ 650 - $ 700 million, and it is planned to implement it in 2015–2019.
