The 6.4 square mile "Central City Area" is generally bounded by Alameda Street on the east, Washington Boulevard on the south, Alvarado and Union Streets on the west and the Hollywood Freeway on the north.

The "Downtown Sector" (as defined by the Traffic Department) includes the 470-acre area bordered by Figueroa Street on the west, Olympic Boulevard on the south, Los Angeles Street on the east, and Second Street on the north. Downtown as defined by the City Planning Department excludes Bunker Hill; this 400-acre area has approximately the same distribution of employment, parking, and trip destinations as the "Downtown Sector." The Civic Center, fringe, industrial, and residential areas surround the downtown sector.

Total downtown net rentable floor space and ground area (1960) approximates 40 million square feet, exclusive of streets and alleys.46 Approximately 30 per cent of this space is devoted to offices. Retail establishments occupy about 14 per cent, and hotels, motels, and rooming houses about 13 per cent. Approximately six per cent is devoted to parking in interior buildings, and nine per cent open lot parking. Thus, parking occupies about 15 per cent of the total floor space more than either hotel or retail uses.

Economic and Historical Development Influences

Existing central business district land-use patterns are no accident. They are an outgrowth of a series of associated economic and historical antecedents

46 A detailed discussion of land use and related CBD characteristics is contained in Los Angeles Centropolis, 1980-Volume 1, Economic Survey, a Joint Report by the Los Angeles Central City Committee and Los Angeles City Planning Department, 1962.

LOS ANGELES CENTRAL BUSINESS DISTRICT, 1930

Vacant land was common in downtown Los Angeles by 1930. Many parcels were not occupied by buildings due to (1) surplus land available elsewhere, (2) zoning actions which permitted excess commercial land, (3) apparent assessment of downtown properties out of proportion to earnings, and (4) multiple land ownership. Source: C. Reeves and Los Angeles Bureau of Municipal Research, The Valuation of Business Lots in Downtown Los Angeles, 1931.

57-450 O-66-23

LAND DEVELOPMENT DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES

Trends in gross building area lucidly portray the stabilization of downtown Los

Angeles. Gross building area increased between 1895 and 1930, then remained relatively constant to about 1950; since 1950, it has increased gradually. Expressed on a per capita basis, gross downtown building area shows that prior to 1920 downtown expanded proportionally to increases in city (or county) population. Since 1920, creases in downtown have not been proportional with over-all population growth. Source: H. A. Babcock, Report of the Economic Phases of the Bunker Hill Renewal Project, 1956.

in

and reflect a cumulative interplay among dynamic growth factors, public policy decisions, and technological innovations.

Changes in Location of Activity - Downtown's focus, partially in response to the westward shift of the city's population, has gravitated southerly and westerly over the past 30 years. Peak land values are currently found at the Broadway-Seventh intersection.

Floor Space Trends in net floor space, by type of use, are shown in Table 20. Between 1930 and 1960, there was a 2.1 per cent increase in net floor area - 9.7 per cent when surface parking is included. Floor space devoted to hotel, institutional, manufacturing, wholesale, retail, and service purposes declined, while government, quasi-public, office, and parking uses increased.

As shown in Table 21, downtown floor and ground space devoted to offstreet parking increased from 7.6 per cent in 1930 to 12.3 per cent in 1953 and to 14.7 per cent in 1960. Nearly one fifth of the 3.7 million square feet of net floor area added since 1930 was within parking structures.

Retail Sales - CBD retail sales decreased from $451 million in 1948 to $421 million in 1954, and further declined to $400 million in 1958, while total sales within the city increased from $2.3 billion in 1948 to $3.1 billion in 1954 and to $4.3 billion in 1960.

TABLE 20