"News that Gehry Partners is at work on a new master plan of the Los Angeles River took Angelenos by surprise late last week. While some had heard rumors for weeks, others were caught off guard by the somewhat strange combination. As the few details of the arrangement between Gehry and his team, Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti, and the nonprofit L.A. River Revitalization Corp. came in, fresh questions arouse: Why such a “cone of silence” around the partnership (as one well-known local landscape architect put it)? And how might this new plan impact hard-won funding and approvals from the Army Corps of Engineers for Alternative 20? And of course: How could the mayor compare the famed architect to legendary landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted? AN reached out to local designers and developers for comment...
"Paul Habibi, Faculty at the UCLA Ziman Center for Real Estate, Habibi penned the report LA’s Next Frontier: Capturing Opportunities for New Housing, Economic Growth, and Sustainable Development in LA River Communities, which was commissioned by the Los Angeles Business Council Institute. The report links revitalization efforts with building sustainable and equitable communities.
'“There has been a lot of anxiety about the announcement because it seems like a top-down approach. This was not your traditional RFP where constituencies get to weigh in. The LA River, however, is already a patchwork of different initiatives. This just adds to the tapestry of many players. The thing that makes it so interesting is the thing that makes it so hard to coordinate. The river is 51 miles long; it snakes through different neighborhoods and council areas. There’s not a lot of homogeneity on plans, initiatives, and government agencies. In terms of development and architecture, my gut sense it that this is additive. Regardless of the process, if you look at it holistically, Gehry’s involvement has a gravitational pull to other developers.”'
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