Expo Park is so not ready for its close up

Earlier this fall, photographer Monica Nouwens and I spent some time roaming Expo Park. The park is receiving $352 million in state funding, as I reported back in August, so Monica and I spent the day surveying its current state, poking behind construction fences, and searching for more of the 1984 benches that I will never shut up about. It's not a pretty picture. As I wrote in this month's Architect's Newspaper: "The 160-acre South LA park that should evoke the city’s enduring Olympic spirit is instead filled with unrealized plans and deferred maintenance — crumbling walls, dead vegetation, and acres of cracked pavement for parking cars instead of actual park space."

Zoomed out, there are a lot of good things happening here. That's thanks to Expo Park's dynamo executive director Andrea Ambriz, the work being done by the park's various advisory groups, and the four cultural institutions all getting major glow-ups ahead of 2028. There's the under-construction Lucas Museum I wrote about for the Los Angeles Review of Architecture, ZGF's thoughtful expansion of the California Science Center, the renovation of the quietly spectacular California African American Museum, and Fred Fisher's work to peel open the Natural History Museum with its before-the-paywall Commons. This is probably the most exciting new addition as it drops a bustling cafe in the interior of the park.

But all the headlines that trumpet a "$350 million makeover" for Expo Park ahead of 2028 are flat-out misleading.

Alissa Walker and Monica Nouwens visit a storied Olympic site in Los Angeles to see how preparations are going for 2028

In less than four years, Los Angeles’s Exposition Park will become the only site in the world to host events during three different Summer Olympics. A number of projects are on their way to be finished ahead of the 2028 games.

The Architect’s NewspaperAlissa Walker

In 2020, a new master plan was approved for Expo Park, a state park that includes both city and county properties. When I talked to Neal Payton, who led the master plan work as senior principal at Torti Gallas + Partners, just hearing him describe the conflicts between the various lot lines and lease agreements made me understand why the park looks the way it does. To avoid jurisdictional challenges, the master plan has been, quite ingeniously, carved up into chunks that can be funded and executed one component at a time. The $352 million is for one of those chunks: to turn 11 acres of surface parking lots near BMO Stadium along MLK Jr. Boulevard into six acres of new green space.

Wait — only six acres? While some of the $352 million is a going towards a new park headquarters building, including new public bathrooms we very much need, what California taxpayers are really funding here is a very expensive underground parking structure that's capped with artificial turf. I will entertain theories in a future story as to whether or not this even qualifies as green space, but this will be the third underground parking structure in the park, which means a large portion of the park and its perimeter remains devoted to helping vehicles navigate to a subterranean lair. We can't keep burying parking instead of funding real solutions to reduce car use IN A PARK WITH TWO METRO STATIONS. After all the conversations we've had about traffic and stadiums!

There are still eight more components of the master plan that need money — which is why Ambriz is hustling to attract both public and private investment ahead of 2028. She will need more help than that. Even with six fewer acres of surface parking, the park is going to remain a jumble of garage ramps, turning lanes, and concrete barriers; something Monica really captured in her photos. And without a major intervention, all the shiny new museum expansions opening will make the spaces between them feel even more grim. 🔥

All aboard

The Olympic wage has passed! In a major victory for tourism workers, LA city will raise the tourism minimum wage to $30 by 2028 after a raucous 12-3 vote where councilmembers openly accused each other of making backroom deals. As a city report noted, and as reiterated several times by economic policy modeler David Roland-Holst as he was grilled by councilmembers, raising the minimum wage for tourism workers is a "potent catalyst for economic growth" where the benefits to the region are "three times the cost." Wages will increase immediately to $22.50/hour in 2025. That puts LA just behind Long Beach's highest-in-the-nation minimum wage, where hospitality workers left out of the deal are fighting for inclusion.

James Butts has new secret ideas to fix Inglewood traffic. With the people mover dead, the mayor has confirmed that Inglewood is "looking at three alternatives" to address stadium disruptions reaching crisis level in the city. However, "I'm not going to tell you what they are right now," Butts tells KCRW's Megan Jamerson. "We can't just put it out in the air." Yes, by all means, keep those public transit ideas hidden from the public. Meanwhile, transit-watcher Nick Andert's excellent end-of-year Metro project roundup comes with an extremely good list of action items, including sending letters to Metro board members encouraging them to re-allocate the Inglewood people mover money to a BRT project.

Our "Olympics czar" is officially in charge. After being honored in a splashy bash in Studio City on the night before he left council, Paul Krekorian started Monday as the city's newly named executive director of the Office of Major Events. (It really should have been the Office of Major Games, or OMG.) Krekorian told the Los Angeles Times his new salary is a "little more" than he made at his previous job — LA councilmembers are the highest-paid elected officials in the country — but we don't have details yet on the staff size or structure. The LA Times notes that a similar Paris department had 100 people. One thing I keep thinking about: we were told, by the city, the cavalry is not coming. Is Krekorian the cavalry?

But seriously, are we actually getting it together? Perhaps it's true that nobody can convene LA, but LA County is certainly trying. As part of its megaevent economic analysis motion, the county kicked off the first of six focus groups last week to highlight risks and opportunities. A new motion calls for the county to lead a regional planning approach named "88 by 28" with even more convenings. And as I reported last month, Metro is working on a transportation-focused summit to bring together all the players in the region. Listen, all we're asking for here is a breakdown of what concrete benefits LA residents can expect to derive from all this hosting, a clearly outlined set of common goals, and a plan for how our governments are planning to protect us from any negative impacts. Something a little bit like the thoughtful strategy document Brisbane has already published for 2032.

LA's hottest new clubs are hospitality houses, where countries activate a home base for parties and events during the Olympics and Paralympics — and some are already being announced 3.5 years out. Councilmember Tim McOsker struck a deal for Croatia's to be located in San Pedro (although I don't see a specific location yet), and Pride House, sponsored by the Out Athlete Fund, will be at The Abbey in West Hollywood. That announcement also says Pride House will be activated for the World Cup as well. While I'm loving the idea of activations spanning multiple years, it'd be a shame if these are all just SXSW-style temporarily branded bars. Let's get these countries to build or renovate something — a community center, a bike-parking facility — and make permanent investments in our neighborhoods!

Caltrans is going to close the Vincent Thomas Bridge for 16 months for repairs and the neighbors are very upset. Last year, the state proposed a less impactful partial-closure plan but now there's a rush to finish the job before 2028, forcing alllllllll that truck traffic onto local streets. Councilmember Tim McOsker wants to name it "Harbor-geddon" to raise awareness and encourage people to stay away. That might have worked for a few weekends on the 405 but 16 months at the port? Meanwhile, at the Van Nuys Airport, the city approved a helicopter company license that will induce more air traffic, despite outrage from residents, citing 2028. It's exactly what Gustavo Lopes dos Santos and I discussed in this week's Torched Talks (the video is up now!). I'd expect to see more stories like this over the next few years.

Now a word from our sponsors

While the IOC leadership has promised everyone they are "confident and relaxed" about working with the new Trump administration, the sponsorship teams have got to be freaking out just a bit. Panasonic is ending its sponsorship at the end of the year, Bridgestone has departed, and Toyota is bailing as well. As Metro board member Holly Mitchell noted at the last ad hoc meeting, the loss of Toyota is an issue because the automaker supplied smaller transit vehicles for previous games that LA needs more than ever now. Just before the election, former Nike exec John Slusher was named as CEO of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Properties to juice the licensing and merchandising deals.

How are we doing locally? Just one year ago, LA28 claimed it had 65 percent of its sponsorship dollars secured, but then Salesforce departed as a top sponsor in April. Other partnership deals have since been announced with Cisco and Lilly, but they're not on the same tier as remaining marquee sponsors Comcast and Delta. There's also talk that LA28 is likely to land a transportation sponsor like Uber, Lyft, or Waymo — I believe this is the reason that the shift in language from "car-free" games to "transit-first" games occurred. And we may have gotten a hint of what's to come at the California Transit Association's Fall Expo last month, where gold medalist swimmer Summer Sanders gave a keynote with a slide entitled "the 2028 Olympic games will be magical." Her keynote was sponsored by UberTransit.

What Torched subscribers are reading

It's been quite a few weeks for local journalism and all I can say is that it's becoming more and more clear that tiny local outlets with a point of view are going to be critical for covering what's about to unfold in our city and in our world. Thanks for sticking with me. Now please read these stories...

• "For a contrast between what is and what could be, nothing beats LA." Henry Grabar went to CicLAvia and saw LA's future
• Inside Long Beach's ambitious plans to host eight Olympic events and make major improvements to the city leading up to the games
• A beautiful profile of Melanie Winter, staunch protector of the LA River, who has a lot of questions about how 2028 is going to impact the Sepulveda Basin
• Things got weird when the city cited itself for an illegal fence in downtown. It's pretty telling that none of the officials' first reactions were that the fence was blocking the bus stop! As always, LA Taco's Lexis-Olivier Ray is putting out the best shoe-leather reporting in the city
• Jules Boykoff and Dave Zirin on "Stopping Trump From Using the LA Olympics to Burnish His Strongman Image"
• Investing in Place's report on Angelenos' favorite public spaces
• "In my career I have believed strongly in commitments of intensity, not of duration." Robert Fitzpatrick, director of the 1984 Olympic Arts Festival, has died at age 84
• A tree study in South LA reveals deep mistrust in city planting efforts. But look at LA County's amazing new tree plan. Could the county take over all urban forest management as a public health measure?
• I love that LA's new wildlife crossing will also repair the damage of the original freeway by restoring the ground displaced for construction: "Much will come from the north side of the crossing, where fill dirt was deposited from the 101 expansion in the 1950s and 1960s"
• Fairs are the art world's biggest source of emissions. What's the sustainability plan for the Cultural Olympiad? Wait, what's the plan for the Cultural Olympiad, period?
• KCRW's Jack Ross on how LA's broken sidewalks and big liability payouts squanders the money the city could be using to make improvements
• Hayes Davenport survived three years inside City Hall and has emerged with a newsletter! I really liked "How one corner of Hollywood could change, and why it won't," on how LA's councilmembers say they support building more housing but most of them will not vote for it this week when given the chance
• Hayes also joined me, Rachel Reyes, Mike Bonin, and David Levitus on the latest LA Podcast episode where we discussed election results
• And a general reminder that I've got a list of Torched-recommended books up at Bookshop (where I earn a small commission if you buy one). The latest additions are The Architecture of Disability: Buildings, Cities, and Landscapes Beyond Access by David Gissen, Electric Moons: A Social History of Street Lighting in Los Angeles by India Mandelkern, and Played: The Games of the 1936 Berlin Olympics by Glenn Allen and Richard Kaufman, for no particular reason

ATSAC recap

Last month 25 intrepid Torched subscribers joined me for a tour of one of the best-known legacies of the 1984 Summer Olympics, the Advanced Transportation System and Coordination center known as ATSAC! We zoomed in on our favorite scramble intersections, watched E line trains receive signal prioritization, and saw how the city can now monitor bike lanes the same way we monitor car lanes. The best part was when we realized we could turn the cameras on ourselves high up on the 10th floor of the Caltrans building for the ultimate selfie! LADOT said tours generally last 45 minutes but can stretch to 90 minutes with good questions — Torched subscribers were there for TWO HOURS which I hope is some kind of record. Pretty sure we're going to have to do this one again. Be sure to become a paid subscriber to Torched to get exclusive access to more tours just like this — those signed up at the 🔥🔥 level got first dibs.