Goals are to provide economic development and business assistance; encourage historic preservation; reactivate Broadway's historic theaters and long-underutilized commercial buildings; and increase transit and development options by bringing a streetcar back to downtown Los Angeles with Broadway as the spine for the route.
[1] Under Bringing Back Broadway initiative the area has experienced a surge in new retail and restaurants and is becoming a focal point for creative office and boutique hotel development.
[4] This presented a challenge to the city government of Los Angeles, which found expression through the Bringing Back Broadway initiative, launched in 2008.
[7] The document was created through Bringing Back Broadway, with input from a wide range of stakeholders, including historians, architects and planners in cooperation with the Los Angeles Department of City Planning.
Council member José Huizar has said, “The streetscape plan boldly prioritizes people over vehicles, provides much-needed infrastructure support and major improvements to a street that has been neglected for far too long, while providing a showcase for the Downtown L.A. Streetcar and the revitalization of the Historic Broadway Theatre District.”[10] The Broadway Streetscape Master Plan is a 2 phase process.
The first phase, a $1.5 million-dollar project,[11] opened in August 2014, includes an innovative “dress rehearsal” installation of sidewalk extensions delineated from the roadway with bollards, planters, and special paving.
This groundbreaking approach allowed significant changes to be implemented in the short term in a cost-effective way, influencing future planning in Los Angeles.
[21] Los Angeles Streetcar Inc was founded in January 2009[22] with an inaugural fundraiser hosted by Eli Broad, Tim Leiweke and Rick Caruso.
Jessica Wethington Mclean, executive Director of Bringing Back Broadway said, “The streetcar is going to deliver thousands of people on the sidewalks of downtown LA, thousands of people that would otherwise be in their cars, driving by, not looking at the businesses, not stopping at the storefronts.”[23] The streetcar is projected to be running around a 3.8-mile one-way loop system, 7 days a week.
becomes closed off and transformed for the free event, offering music, games and activities for kids and adults, art installations and one-of-a-kind experiences featuring hundreds of acts, including performances on 10 stages in the street and in six of Broadway's historic theaters.
Beginning in 2008 and after 5 years of collaborating effort between the Bringing Back Broadway community, L.A Fire Department, L.A Department of Building & Safety, and a dedicated group of architects and code reviewers, led by executive director Jessica Wethington McLean with architects Karin Liljegren and Rocky Rockefeller, the Broadway Historic Commercial Reuse guidelines were announced on December 12, 2013.
On March 25, 2014,[40] grant recipients will include: Noted theatrical lighting designer Tom Ruzika, famous for his work at the Hollywood Bowl, the Los Angeles Theatre Centre, etc.
I look forward to helping bring them back into focus through this grant program.”[41] Keeping up with the standards of sustainability, each lighting equipment for the historic facades will be energy efficient, Title 24 and Cal green compliant.
The initiative has incentivized nearly $1 billion in investment, new retail, hotel and commercial development; and residential units on a previously struggling street.
The commission has been improving the major boulevards by widening sidewalks, eliminating traffic lanes, constructing new parking structures which have found expression in the arrival of all kinds of stores and restaurants.