DCBID in the News

Contrary to dire predictions of the demise of urban centers in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, Downtown Los Angeles has weathered the storms of 2020 and 2021 with characteristic grit and passion.

Downtown Center Business Improvement District launched the “DTLA is Open” marketing campaign to increase the return of visitors to Downtown Los Angeles, encouraging them to get reacquainted with the restaurants, bars, arts and entertainment venues.

Downtown’s residential market is showing signs of a pandemic recovery. Rental rates for the first quarter were up 1.7% to $2,514 compared to the fourth quarter, while the occupancy rate reached 85.9%, up 1.6% over the same period, according to a study by the Downtown Center Business Improvement District.

Downtown Los Angeles is market of great resiliency, according to the Downtown Center Business Improvement District. While major metro areas around the country saw residents and business owners alike move out, Downtown L.A. is in active recovery mode.

As Downtown’s real estate leaders work through a pandemic that’s forced them online, community, business and technology experts at the Downtown Center Business Improvement District (DCBID) launched a platform for virtual development tours.

The discussion kicked off with a presentation by Elan Shore, director of research and special projects at Downtown Center Business Improvement District (DCBID). He gave a preview of the DTLA Virtual: Development Tour, an online tour that offers a bird’s-eye view of Downtown’s continuing transformation through interactive technology, digital mapping, high-definition photography and drone video footage with in-depth market stats and project specs.

In its fourth quarter and year-end 2020 report, the Los Angeles Downtown Center Business Improvement District said that even novel coronavirus victims like the retail sector were making a comeback and that work marches on for the large projects that, to a large degree, have been driving the transformation of downtown into a thriving urban center. Perhaps most important, the report said, those committed to life in downtown Los Angeles haven't abandoned it during the unprecedented challenges of the COVID-19 crisis.

COVID-19 hammered the nation’s economy in 2020, but downtown Los Angeles still saw significant construction activity and the 10 largest projects underway have a combined value of more than $3 billion, according to a year-end report from the Downtown Center Business Improvement District. “Downtown over the last 20 years, and in particular over the past two years, has become a world-class city center,” said Nick Griffin, the organization’s executive director. “It was originally more of an office center, but the residential community has grown significantly.”

The drop-off in office workers has had the biggest impact on Downtown businesses, DCBID Executive Director Nick Griffin said. Nearly 500,000 people work in Downtown, according to a 2019 report from the DCBID, which covers the Financial District, Bunker Hill, the Historic Core and the Jewelry District.

The sale will encourage a struggling L.A. office market haunted by coronavirus shutdowns. The Downtown L.A. submarket has a 15.7 percent vacancy rate and an average rent of $3.91 per square foot for Class A office space, according to the Downtown Center Business Improvement District’s third quarter report.

While physical offices and multifamily will bear the brunt of the impact, reduced commuter traffic could have a positive effect on urban centers. The DCBID is looking closely at the effect of reduced commuter traffic and how it could change the dynamic and culture of the urban core—potentially for the better.

The pandemic will permanently change the office sector, and companies have increasingly announced plans to adopt remote work standards permanently. For the urban core, remote work is a major challenge, particularly for markets that have embraced live-work-play lifestyles. The DCBID says that this change could also present new opportunity.

“In Q2, the market was understandably paralyzed by uncertainty, which was clearly reflected in our Q2 DTLA Market Report,” Nick Griffin, executive director of the DCBID. “By Q3, there was growing recognition that we were not looking at collapse, and that while there will certainly be changes in the market, the fundamental appeal of the city center is still strong, and Downtown is still a solid market and good investment.”

The DCBID just released its Q3 2020 DTLA Market Report revealing that while the L.A. submarket remains in the grips of the COVID-19 pandemic, ongoing deals and development demonstrate continued investor interest in the area. While the report also shows inconsistent results across various market sectors, there remains a bright light on the horizon, with many real estate deals and projects that got underway or continued through the quarter.

The long-term impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic on the economy are still uncertain, but evidence of how government ordered lockdowns are affecting specific markets and activities is becoming clearer. Data from the first Downtown Center Business Improvement District Recovery Compass Report shows steady, yet cautious optimism among those in Downtown Los Angeles.

The DCBID recently released the results of its DTLA 2020 Survey, which has been conducted since 2005 to chronicle and quantify the characters, attitudes and behaviors of DTLA’s growing population. This year’s report explored new key segments of the population, which included office workers, residents with children, and arts and culture patrons.

Downtown Los Angeles could be uniquely exposed to the economic impacts of the pandemic due to its high concentration of boutique retailers and mom-and-pop restaurants. These independent retailers are most exposed to the economic pressures brought on by the pandemic, which include mandated closures, limited capacity and health and safety guidelines. However, Nick Griffin of the DCBID says that independent retailers are also better able to adjust to new market conditions than large chains.

The Downtown Center Business Improvement District has launched DTLA Recovery Compass, a new program to aid in the recovery efforts and collect data for local businesses. DTLA Recovery Compass is a survey conducted every two weeks with residents, workers and visitors to collect data on sentiment and activity that can help businesses make decisions that will guide the recovery.

The Downtown Center Business Improvement District (DCBID) released the results of its 7th biennial Downtown LA Survey. The 2020 report showed out of more than 3,600 respondents who participated, 80% of residents are passionate about Downtown LA and 70% feel connected to their community. Respondents say priorities include having a sense of community; of living close to where they work; and being part of a diverse, walkable neighborhood.

Experts say the price likely made the deal enticing. "There are a few reasons why Silverstein got a great deal," said Nick Griffin, the executive director at the Downtown Center Business Improvement District. "We were near the end of the cycle and then the pandemic set it in, and there's a great deal of uncertainty. That's when smart players make big moves."

“To celebrate Downtown LA’s grand reopening of businesses, we want to provide Angelenos with a fun and safe way to get out the house and relax away from the stresses of daily life,” said Suzanne Holley, president and CEO of DCBID. “The DTLA Grand Giveaway provides an opportunity to be pampered and spoiled and a chance to recharge and rediscover all that DTLA has to offer.”

County officials said L.A. businesses may borrow up to $2 million in a U.S. Small Business Administration, known as SBA, program if they were affected directly by events such as looting and vandalism. "Efforts like these loans are extremely helpful," said Suzanne Holley, CEO of the DCBID, who told CoStar News she had been on the phone with Mayor Eric Garcetti to discuss efforts to help small businesses recover.

Suzanne Holley, president and CEO of the Downtown Center Business Improvement District, said it's too early to know how many buildings were damaged. "As you can imagine, the impact from the weekend's events will be severe for some, will be difficult for others, and will delay opening for even more," she said.

South Park, the area of downtown near L.A. Live and the Convention Center, is home to some of the most ambitious projects in L.A. There are 996 multifamily units under construction and an additional 6,752 units proposed in the area, according to data from the Downtown Center Business Improvement District.

With the recent mandate to shut down businesses as a result of COVID-19, Sauli Danpour’s first order of business was to provide support for his tenants and employees. “My immediate concern was to try and help the small-business tenants,” Danpour said. “Being a small-business owner myself, I’m somewhat sensitive to some of the issues that they are facing when the economy turned sour.”

With major tenants moving in, residential and other developments are picking up. There are more than 30 projects either in construction or proposed in the area, according to research from the Downtown Center Business Improvement District.

Next year is going to be a big year for the city of Los Angeles. The city’s planning commission recently unveiled a draft of the Downtown Community Plan, which gets rid of parking requirements for future multifamily developments, rezones several areas within Downtown Los Angeles and creates more transportation mobility and connectivity.

Those cranes that have become a fixture of the downtown skyline aren’t going away anytime soon. The area has delivered more than 50% of L.A.’s new rental units since 2018, and that pace is expected to continue in 2020. At the same time, average rents in the area have increased a mere 1% compared with an 8% increase citywide, according to the Downtown Center Business Improvement District.

Who knew, or could even guess, just what the impact could be when Phil Anschutz and Ed Roski first talked about building a new arena in downtown L.A. The negotiating, between the owners of the Kings and the Los Angeles City Council over what was planned, who was paying for it and what the city’s liability would be, began in earnest early in 1997.

The newest residential buildings opening downtown have one thing in common: They’re really tall. So far this year, three developments over 20 stories have opened in the area: Holland Residential’s 28-story Alina; Mack Real Estate Development’s 38-story Aven; and the behemoth 53-story 825 S. Hill by developer Onni Group of Cos. Ltd. Five more developments, between 24 and 58 stories high, are scheduled to open before the end of 2019.

Downtown Los Angeles’ newest residential communities are spread throughout the burgeoning metropolis, delivering nearly 2,300 new apartments and condos in five separate districts in the first quarter alone, according to the Downtown Center Business Improvement District’s (DCBID) Q1 2019 Downtown Los Angeles (DTLA) Market Report.

Los Angeles’s downtown was little more than a sleepy office district not too long ago, where tens of thousands of suburbanites would clear out by the end of the workday and scores of classic Beaux-Arts and Art Deco buildings sat vacant or underutilized....Today, cranes dot the skyline and construction routinely diverts traffic as Downtown Los Angeles — a neighborhood known as DTLA — undergoes the biggest development boom since the Roaring Twenties, when the area was then the center of the entertainment industry.

Last September, Carol Schatz stepped down as the president and CEO of the Downtown Center Business Improvement District. She had helmed Downtown’s biggest BID since it was founded in 1998 and had a reputation as one of the community’s fiercest and most effective advocates and lobbyists (she also ran the Central City Association for more than two decades).

Earlier this month, anyone walking past the corner of Olive and Seventh in the downtown Historic Core may have noticed a new mural along the lengthy storefront façades of the building anchored by the Los Angeles Athletic Club

One of the first things Anthony Nguyen sees when he wakes up, and one of the last things he sees at night, is the harsh reality he tried 10 years to escape: L.A.’s knotted freeways. Nine months ago, he was one of those drivers, creeping along the 110 Freeway. His law office was in Santa Monica. Courthouse downtown. The 15-mile drive between them sometimes took more than an hour.

Carol Schatz, who led a renaissance of downtown Los Angeles as head of the Downtown Center Business Improvement District and Central City Association for nearly three decades, will retire this month, the district announced Sept. 12. The chief executive of the property owners association and former head of the city business advocacy group had become synonymous with downtown renewal.

In an effort to help with the growing homeless population, Downtown property owners, through the Downtown Center BID, have contracted local non-profits, PATH (People Assisting the Homeless) and Chrysalis, to engage with the Downtown LA homeless population and connect them to services, including employment and housing.