Groundbreaking BLVD6200

Groundbreaking BLVD6200
Originally uploaded by CD-13

The curtain has risen on Hollywood’s single most ambitious privately funded, large-scale redevelopment project to date.

In today’s Hollywood, you can see the stars, frequenting nightclubs and restaurants, even buying lofts the new adaptive reuse projects. You can see the industry that supports them, too: Hollywood the business has returned to Hollywood the neighborhood, with production, post production and live entertainment in full force.
And you can see the future of Los Angeles, the blueprint for 21st –century urban development.

BLVD6200 is an organic part of that blueprint. We’re locating our housing next to our jobs. There’s been discussion recently about why Angelenos who live near transit are still taking their cars to work. I’d like to add two perspectives to those discussions.
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One, that we’re still approaching the critical mass that will get people out of their cars. Second, that replacing car commutes isn’t the only metric in the fight against congestion and pollution. Many of the residents of BLVD6200, for example, will be able to walk to work. What’s more, they’ll walk to the shops downstairs, eliminating daily car trips as they do. How many car trips do you take besides your commute? How many could be eliminated if you lived in a neighborhood with bars, restaurants, and theaters, or in a building with a dry cleaners, a video store, and a market?

This project may be called home by many of the people who work here in Hollywood. And it will feature 100 units affordable to low- and moderate-income Angelenos.

It will also help us write the blueprint for a city that moves. The developer will contribute two million dollars to the Hollywood Mobility Trust Fund. For the people who move in, the welcome wagon will include a ticket to ride: new tenants will receive MTA passes to get them using the Red Line above which they live. Parking spaces will be set aside for car share and alternative fuel vehicles. And employees here will be encouraged to get out of the cars.

BLVD6200 won immediate and vocal support from the neighborhood councils who represent Hollywood--not people who take traffic impacts lightly. They looked at it and they said that this is how they want their city to grow.

I also want to acknowledge the Nederlander family, on whose property surrounding the Pantages theater this project will sit. They're best known for putting on a great show. When the lights come down and the season ends, they have always remained a true partner in building Hollywood.