Los Angeles Business Journal

While working and waiting along with the rest of Los Angeles for the Westside subway, I needed something to keep me busy. Idle hands are the devil’s workshop, and let’s face it, no one really knows how long it will take the federal government and Wall Street to help us help ourselves with a $13 billion public transportation financing package.

And there it was, Ohio and Bundy Triangle Park. Who from the Westside hasn’t passed the closed park at Bundy Drive and Santa Monica Boulevard a million times and wondered why such an area in an open space-starved part of West Los Angeles is behind a locked fence rather than filled with families, retirees and office workers enjoying an al fresco lunch?

This bit of green isn’t off in one of the region’s business wastelands void of meaningful investment. This is West Los Angeles, where a padlock keeps open space unopened across the street from a thriving Starbucks. Demonstrating the area’s potential, at most times the Starbucks shop’s baristas are backed up filling orders for a crowd of caffeine-addled screenwriters, agents, lawyers, contractors, students and other area residents tapping away on their iPhones, iPads and BlackBerries.

With a half-dozen Metro and Big Blue Bus lines passing by on both Bundy and Santa Monica, those in the neighborhood are as likely to have arrived by bus, bike or foot as by car.

In this cash-strapped city, why on Earth would anyone care a whit about a little piece of green many of us fly by at 30 miles an hour? And what does all this have to do with business?

Everything. Just ask any successful real estate developer, including a certain likely Republican candidate for mayor, and he will tell you: Smart neighborhood development needs an anchor – a natural or man-made feature around which can be built a vision of community. It’s why when that fence went up 15 years ago and Bundy and Santa Monica lost its park, the area also lost its soul. After years on the skids, the area is showing signs of life and that it can again be a busy business hub amid a vibrant neighborhood. It’s why IHOP just opened a restaurant in the space formerly occupied by Blockbuster, and a high-end gastropub à la Father’s Office is in the process of securing a liquor license.

About the modest cost of reopening the park, let’s remember that this isn’t another plea to the city to give us something that isn’t already ours. What’s more, since going public just a few weeks ago with my dream to see the park reopened, one generous business owner cum civic leader has already stepped up and pledged cash to help make the park a reality. The distinguished firm of AHBE Landscape Architects has also offered to help us envision what can be at the park.

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