The proposed Pershing Square Renew/Agence Ter design with the shade structure at the rear.

At about the same time I went to work for Bryant Park Restoration Corporation (BPRC) in 1991 a similar project was underway on the West Coast. Pershing Square, the oldest public space in Los Angeles, was also the subject of a major downtown revitalization effort. In 1992, Pershing Square was closed for a $14.5 million re-design and renovation by Mexican architect Ricardo Legorreta and Philadelphia-based Hanna Olin Design. Hanna Olin was also the landscape design firm engaged for Bryant Park. The “new” Pershing Square opened in 1994. Shortly after it was completed, I visited Pershing Square and found it to be hot, dusty and deserted – essentially the roof of the parking garage located under the park. Over the past two decades, while Bryant Park had become New York’s “town square” and the stimulus to billions of dollars in redevelopment, mostly inert Pershing Square has been a drag on efforts to revitalize Downtown LA. The square sits between the glass and steel office center of modern LA and the rapidly changing original LA downtown of loft buildings of brick, limestone and terracotta. It’s fascinating to see how much positive activity is happening one or two blocks away from the square – without it as anchor.

The original square. The still extant gracious Biltmore Hotel is on the left.

More recently, Pershing Square has again become the focus of redevelopment efforts – led by not-for-profit Pershing Square Renew. Renew has focused its work on a design competition for a new plan for the Square (http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/la-et-cm-pershing-square-winner-20160512-snap-story.html). That competition produced a plan by Agence Ter with a price tag north of $150 million. The principal feature of the proposed design is a shade structure – which addresses one of the current park’s obvious problems – the harsh effect on park users of the otherwise delightful bright southern California sun upon the park’s extensive open hardscape. The 1992 design featured a very large fountain and pool which provided some cooling – but the water feature no longer operates. Renew is now in the process of raising the required funds for the capital improvements, working out its relationship with LA city government’s Department of Recreation and Parks and creating park programming – in that order of priority. And therein lies the pressing issue of concern.

Every public space revitalization project seems to start with the commissioning of a design, followed by the extensive fundraising required for the execution of that design. Even at Bryant Park, despite the central involvement of Holly Whyte from the outset, during BPRC’s first twelve years its focus was on hiring consultants and generating funds to execute their plans. Much was kept on hold until the construction was complete. But everything we have learned about placemaking practice in the last thirty years has taught us that the most successful element of public space improvement is programming – and that even poorly designed public spaces can be radically upgraded by an easily implemented program of “lighter, quicker, cheaper” improvements. To its credit, thanks to the generous and enlightened support of Southwest Airlines, Renew is implementing a limited schedule of creative programming.

The 1994 design

There is something about the bright and shiny prospect of major capital improvements that attracts community leaders and elected officials. Part of this may be that in recent decades municipal capital dollars have been easier to secure than on going operating funds. Today, the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) is relatively awash in capital dollars, with insufficient operating revenue to maintain its existing inventory of spaces. Forget about programming, given its resources, DPR struggles valiantly to pick up the trash and cut its lawns. New public spaces, Hudson River Park, Governor’s Island and Brooklyn Bridge Park all have yet to hit on sustainable operating models. Attention is certainly more easily focused on a great new design then on the every-day reality of trash pickup, horticultural maintenance and park programming. In Bryant Park, the opening of the newly renovated park was the kick-off for the implementation of an extensive schedule of high-quality programming (without even the commencement of construction of the park restaurant originally thought to be essential to the project’s success). But in my judgment, in retrospect, both the activities and the horticultural improvements could have brought about the Park’s effective revitalization – without the capital improvements. For example, we could have put out movable chairs (as we did on the New York Public Library’s front terrace while the Park was under construction) without the capital project. But that is 20/20 hindsight, which we only now know.

The 1994 design — the raised platform for the park due to the parking garage presents a challenge.

Pershing Square faces some of the usual problems of public space revitalization efforts and one interesting, difficult unique one. Parks departments tend to regard themselves as empires – in fact, former NYC DPR Commissioner Henry Stern referred to his realm as the “emerald empire.” As empires they are loath to cede territory. As political creatures they also do not want to concede that they are anything other than excellent at everything within their brief. (This is something of a change from the 1970’s and 80’s when government recognized that non-governmental organizations could assist government in advancing its mission by providing the prospect of flexibility and lower costs. Those days appear to be gone). As I understand it, the expectation of LA Rec and Parks is for not-for-profit Renew to raise the money for the proposed capital improvements, and for Rec and Parks to build-out the capital project, and operate and maintain the Park. The problem with this model is that I am not aware of it being used for the successful restoration of a downtown park anywhere in the US in the last fifty years.

Two things are true in my experience. Most importantly, city parks departments, as agencies of democratic governments, are unable to expend the additional resources required to maintain and program downtown parks because of the intensity of their use as a result of the density around them. Parks departments must treat all parks equally, less they be charged with favoring downtown at the expense of the neighborhoods. But because of their high level of use, downtown parks need more care and feeding – and not-for-profit entities – beginning with the Central Park Conservancy – have proven to be useful vehicles for generating or holding the additional revenue required to run downtown parks. Parks departments also generally don’t have the internal capacity to focus on the heavy programming required by a single downtown park (Grand Park in LA is a good example of this). They, by necessity, must do programs that can be implemented in multiple locations.

Also, while only municipalities have the resources to perform major infrastructure improvements, for a whole range of reasons they tend to be less than ideal vehicles for the execution of the aesthetic details of public improvement projects. In Bryant Park it was city dollars related to the library stack extension (a project managed by the library) that paid for the major construction work. BPRC paid for the amenities – lighting, horticulture and concession structures. Even the well-funded Central Park Conservancy relies on city capital dollars as the backbone of its infrastructure work – which is difficult to raise private funds for.

Getting a reliable income stream to support park programming and operations is a great challenge everywhere. BPRC created a business improvement district to provide it with a continuing source of funding. It makes sense to have adjacent downtown property owners bear the burden of downtown public space maintenance – as they are the principal economic beneficiaries of the public space’s success. Unusually those benefits are orders of magnitude greater than the cost to property owners – millions of current dollars against billions of dollars in capital appreciation. But in downtown LA there are four BIDs, one of which includes the four block fronts facing the Square – and none of which apparently sees the Square’s improvement as part of its mission. If the renewal of Pershing Square is going to be a success, it is going to need its own unique stream of funds for programming. Ultimately, as in Bryant Park, this may be generated from commercial activity within the space (and Parks and Rec is going to need to allow those funds [as well as those now already being generated by the Square’s underground garage] to be spent in the Square, rather than be spent citywide, if that is going to happen), but initially money is going to need to come from those with the most at stake – and that is nearby property owners. Renew or Parks and Rec can go door-to-door with a tin cup asking for support – which works for the Conservancy. But BID funds are more consistent and negate the inevitable “free rider” problem.

Grand Central Market, L.A.

Pershing Square presents a fabulous opportunity for LA. Great things are already happening all around it. For example, the Grand Central Market is a creatively managed privately owned public space that is fantastic asset and a great success (http://www.eggslut.com/, anyone?) and is just two blocks from the Square. Pershing Square is poised right on the edge of capturing that energy and tipping Downtown LA into a uniquely southern California vibrant, walkable, mixed-use mixed-income district. I suggest that the horse needs to be put in front of that cart.