Ill-Famed Lot Across From LA City Hall Could See Interim Homeless Housing
By Greg Cornfield August 17, 2023 2:45 pm
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Los Angeles officials are working on a new plan for an empty lot across the street from City Hall.
As the county faces a seemingly endless homelessness crisis, the City Council’s Housing and Homelessness Committee on Wednesday voted to support a plan to build interim housing on the 2-acre city-owned plot at 217 West First Street. This comes after previous plans to build a park with a public plaza, a two-story restaurant and other features became too costly and failed to materialize.
According to previous media reports, the lot has been empty for more than 50 years, after an earthquake destroyed a state government building that was razed and removed in 1970. The city acquired the property in 2013 and planned to build the park with a 19,200-square-foot restaurant and cafe with rooftop garden. But since then, and for the past decade, the property remained vacant, only seeing a sign that reads, “Good things are coming!” rise along the sidewalk in reference to the abandoned project.
“As the project progressed, it became clear that the cost to build the project as designed dramatically outpaced the funding available to construct it,” according to the motion that was approved by the committee on Wednesday to design a temporary housing plan.
Also in that time, the homeless population in Los Angeles has grown significantly. In Downtown L.A. alone, nearly 7,000 people are currently experiencing homelessness, and more temporary housing units “are still urgently needed to bring people inside as soon as possible,” the motion reads.
Gregory Cornfield can be reached at gcornfield@commercialobserver.com.
