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| Feature |
Urban Champions
Elizabeth Harris and Emily DeNitto
05/01/2007
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Grand Avenue cuts through the Bunker Hill area, the city’s core
where City Hall, U.S. District Court and the Civic Center stand within blocks of
each other. The neighborhood has come a long way from its seedier period in the
1950s, when once-grand Victorian homes stood in disrepair. Broad has been one
of many to support cultural growth in this area. He chaired the capital campaign
to build the Walt Disney Concert Hall, which opened in 2003, and contributed $18
million of his own money. Still, as he saw it, the area needed more attractions,
along with housing and retail to create the kind of mixed-use development urban
planners prize.
So Broad gathered area officials and constituent groups,
including representatives from the Music Center and the Catholic Archdiocese,
and formed the Grand Avenue Committee, which he funded with $200,000. The group
became the starting place to build support among politicians and community
activists. The first challenge was to get the county and city to cooperate and
create a joint-powers authority to oversee the project.
"It’s a known fact that the city and county do not get along,"
Broad says. In multiple lunches and meetings, facilitated in part through the
committee, Broad convinced three mayors and numerous county supervisors and city
council members of the plan’s merit. While they initially showed reluctance,
Broad says that he believes the politicians were willing to consider his ideas
because he had local credibility.
"I’ve been in this city now for 40 years—they know that I don’t
hound them for commercial purposes. They know I have a history of doing good, so
to speak, whether it’s in education or the arts," Broad says. "They know I’m
generous, they know I’ve helped them to modest degrees during their political
campaigns, so I have access, and they’ll listen."
Still, at times the project seemed on the verge of collapse. At
one point, county and city politicians argued over who would approve it. Broad
stepped in to broker a deal that called for simultaneous votes. On February 13,
the county board of supervisors and the city council officially approved the
project, granting a 99-year lease to the development firm Related Companies. In
early March, Broad stepped down as chairman of the Grand Avenue Committee to
focus on other projects.
When completed (construction will take place in three phases
over an estimated four years), the $2 billion Grand Avenue project will include
400,000 square feet of retail shops, 2,600 housing units, a five-star Mandarin
Oriental Hotel and a park. Five hundred of the housing units will be set aside
for moderate-income residents. Related Companies, headed by New York housing
magnate and philanthropist Stephen M. Ross, will bear the financial cost of the
construction. Broad’s personal contributions have primarily been organizational.
He is considering, however, contributing to the park, and hopes that others will
follow.
Broad is pleased that the endeavor is backed by 21 civic
groups. "We’ve never seen such community support for a project," he says. Along
the way, however, critics have attacked both the plan and Broad. Some groups
questioned whether the development would benefit only the wealthy. Others
pointed out an irony that Broad profited from building moderately priced houses
throughout the West, contributing to urban flight, yet the Grand Avenue project
celebrates the opposite: civic renewal.
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