Kent Smith, Darrel Malamut, Debbie Welsch, and Steve Hirsh

Mejdeh Avodian, Peklar Pilavjian, Jose Huizar, Darrel Malamut, and Kent Smith

The LA Fashion District BID held its annual meeting on Thursday, April 16th at the California Market Center.  The theme of the meeting was "Residential Construction Resumes in the Fashion District". Councilmember Jose Huizar spoke about downtown and the growth in the Fashion District. The new projects and initiatives like the Bringing Back Broadway project will attract many more people to live, walk, shop and dine in the area. The activity on our streets and the 24/7 nature of more residential is a great boost for the district and downtown as a whole.

Debbie Welsch of Capital Foresight Development gave a presentation on two adaptive reuse projects: the Maxfield Building at 819 S. Santee Street and the Garment Capitol Building at 217 E. Eight Street. They will bring 173 residential units and ground floor retail to the area. Darrel Malamut of G.H. Palmer Associates gave a presentation on their new construction project. It is the first ground-up residential construction project, of this size, in the district in the last 20 years. Broadway Palace at 928 and 1026 S. Broadway will include 649 units and 53,000 square feet of ground floor retail. It will include over 1,400 parking spaces and a paseo adjacent to the existing Banksy mural, allowing for viewing.

To sum up, Kent Smith, Executive Director of the Fashion District BID presented the 2014 state of the BID which included statistics on the BID's programs. Items of note from the presentation include:

Clean Team Stats:

• BID is collecting over 6 tons of trash per day
• 4,778,1999 sq. ft. of sidewalk is cleaned annually
• 14,192 graffiti tags were removed in 2014

Safe Team Stats:

• 44,431 location checks for crime in 2014
• 29,715 contacts with merchants and the public in 2014
• 29 arrests in 2014

Marketing Stats:

• New website launched in April 2014
• 58,000 visitors to the website in March 2015
• #1 Prom link on Google Search for "prom dresses in Los Angeles"

Key Economic Development Points:

• Ace Hotel been catalytic for retail in our district, especially on Broadway.  We've seen a number of new stores, coffee shops and restaurants open.
• In addition to the G.H. Palmer and Capital Foresight Projects, City Market is about to announce the first tenants for Phase 1 and Barry Shy is renovating the building next to Ace Hotel for lofts.
• The Broadway streetscape plan will be installed as part of the G.H. Palmer project.  It includes Broadway from 8th Street to 11th Street.

Key Financial Points:

• While the trend of expenses continues to raise due in part to CA state increases in the minimum wage and cost of living increases, the BID's assessment rates have decreased by 2.4% in 2014.
• Assessments rates have increased by only 0.6% since 1999 compared to inflation, which has increased by nearly 47%.