Where in the Silicon Valley should have a main Skyscraper District? (Los Angeles: neighborhoods, construction)

[Dave Coe]

I know Downtown has height limits because of the airport. What other areas have potential? South San Jose? El Camino Real?

[artillery77]

Berryessa by the proposed BART station

[BayAreaHillbilly]

El Camino is an interesting idea. I could see it becoming our Wilshire. Currently it's more like Ventura Blvd (apropos given both are "Historic US-101").

[jbunniii]

Why do we need one?

[jbunniii]

Originally Posted by BayAreaHillbilly

El Camino is an interesting idea. I could see it becoming our Wilshire. Currently it's more like Ventura Blvd (apropos given both are "Historic US-101").

I always thought Wilshire was a strange, anomalous corridor in Los Angeles, where some city department arbitrarily decided to put a dense(ish) corridor of office buildings along a long, narrow 15 mile stretch even though it's surrounded by single-story residential neighborhoods.

The density doesn't feel organic or necessary, and for the most part, there are none of the amenities that you would normally associate with a high-rise district, e.g. hardly any restaurants and other services for people working in the offices, just a few sporadic strip malls with low-end fast food eateries. Even the few retail businesses that are there, often don't have entrances on Wilshire, but can only be accessed from the parking lots behind the buildings. If you worked in a high-rise on Wilshire, you would probably be inclined to get in your car and drive elsewhere for lunch or errands. Even downtown L.A. before the renaissance of the past 15 years, was always much livelier than that (during daytime hours, at least).

I agree that if you were to put up a bunch of high-rise buildings on ECR, it would probably look a lot like Wilshire. I'm not sure that would be an improvement. But admittedly it would be hard to make it much worse than it currently is.

[darkeconomist]

Originally Posted by jbunniii

Why do we need one?

Having a high-rise district outside of the height limits imposed by SJC--this document shows a map on effective page 33--would allow developers to pad their bottom lines with additional floors. One problem DTSJ faces is that buildings can't get tall enough to really capitalize on the benefits of steel construction, but still are tall enough to need steel construction.

[Dave Coe]

Originally Posted by darkeconomist

Having a high-rise district outside of the height limits imposed by SJC--this document shows a map on effective page 33--would allow developers to pad their bottom lines with additional floors. One problem DTSJ faces is that buildings can't get tall enough to really capitalize on the benefits of steel construction, but still are tall enough to need steel construction.

I think NIMBY's exploit the Airport issue. Both San Diego and Las Vegas have highrises near their airports.

[DabOnEm]

Originally Posted by jbunniii

I always thought Wilshire was a strange, anomalous corridor in Los Angeles, where some city department arbitrarily decided to put a dense(ish) corridor of office buildings along a long, narrow 15 mile stretch even though it's surrounded by single-story residential neighborhoods.

The density doesn't feel organic or necessary, and for the most part, there are none of the amenities that you would normally associate with a high-rise district, e.g. hardly any restaurants and other services for people working in the offices, just a few sporadic strip malls with low-end fast food eateries. Even the few retail businesses that are there, often don't have entrances on Wilshire, but can only be accessed from the parking lots behind the buildings. If you worked in a high-rise on Wilshire, you would probably be inclined to get in your car and drive elsewhere for lunch or errands. Even downtown L.A. before the renaissance of the past 15 years, was always much livelier than that (during daytime hours, at least).

I agree that if you were to put up a bunch of high-rise buildings on ECR, it would probably look a lot like Wilshire. I'm not sure that would be an improvement. But admittedly it would be hard to make it much worse than it currently is.

I work on Wilshire and have no idea what you're talking about. At lunch there are many groups walking to various eateries. Getting in the car would be a hassle.

[Dave Coe]

Originally Posted by DabOnEm

I work on Wilshire and have no idea what you're talking about. At lunch there are many groups walking to various eateries. Getting in the car would be a hassle.

I've lived in LA. It depends on the area but much of Wilshire is very walkable such as as Miracle Mile, Korea Town, Beverly Hills, and Westwood.

[ketch89]

Moffet Field should be built into an international airport, and SJC should become 200k housing units. That would also mean that the height limit on downtown disappears.