Despite development, plenty of room to grow in downtown L.A.

Three years ago I was an expert witness in a case involving a residential property in downtown Los Angeles. I walked around downtown for several days looking for new development and major redevelopment projects. I also explored the development history over the past several years. Virtually nothing was happening.

And then, it exploded. Currently, there are 100 projects under way in downtown Los Angeles and they are all monumental. I say this as a citizen of San Diego, where monumental might be a four-plex in Pacific Beach. Well, that's a slight exaggeration, but not far from the truth.

Frankly, I am stunned by the public, nonprofit and private sector development that is underway in downtown Los Angeles.

Right now, under construction, there are 2,000 condominium units; 1.6 million square feet of office space; 1.8 million square feet of retail space; 6,000 rental units; and 2,700 hotel rooms.

On the nonprofit side, The Broad, a gallery housing the 2,000-piece collection gathered by art mavin Eli Broad and the 100,000 square feet mega-gallery from Hauser, Wirth and Schimmel will be open by mid-2016.

On the public side, the L.A. Convention Center is moving forward with a major expansion, several major extensions of the Metro (including a line out to the beach in Santa Monica) are underway as is a 3.8-mile streetcar project that would run through downtown Los Angeles, and there is a major make-over of Union Station in the works.

Also, Pershing Square, which opened in 1866 and has had many revisions, is now going through a major international design competition to turn it into a world-class urban park.

I want to zero in on a few projects in each development sector to provide at least a glimpse of what is going on there:

On the commercial side, the Wilshire Grand Center is underway with a 73-story billion dollar office tower. It will be the first new office tower in downtown Los Angeles in 30 years.

The Bloc, a Wayne Ratkovich mega-project, is nearing completion of a $180 million redo of the old Macy's store. The "new" block will consist of a remodeled Macy's and a remodeled 500-room Sheraton Hotel, a nine-screen Alamo Drafthouse and numerous retail spaces.

Metropolis, just north of L.A. Live, is underway with a 350-room Hotel Indigo and a 38-story condominium tower, followed by 40 and 56-story condominium towers and 70,000 square feet of retail space.

Oceanwide Plaza, also near L.A. Live, is moving forward with a billion dollar project that includes 540 condominiums, 183 hotel rooms and almost 200,000 square feet of retail space.

I'm typically a residential guy so let me focus on what is going on in that sector. Almost every major apartment builder in the nation has a big-time project underway in downtown Los Angeles. Among the major developers are Lennar, Hanover, Palmer, Carmel Partners and a few Xpera clients, Holland, Trammell Crow and Onni.

The most recent addition is Carmel Partner's 700-unit apartment project at 8th and Grand which boasts downtown L.A.'s first Whole Foods Market.

Among the 22 behemoth residential projects underway are Holland's 640-unit Bixel and Grand, CIM's 526-unit 888 Hope and GH Palmer's 686-unit Broadway Palace.

In the proposed column are two Onni projects (730 and 589 units), two Holland projects (320 and 341 units) and one each from Equity Residential (428 units), Camden (360 units), Related (450 units), Evoc (685 units) and Mack Urban's (666 units).

And that's just the rental side. On the condominium side, the first new condominium project in 10 years in downtown Los Angeles, TEN50, has broken ground for its 151 super-luxury contemporary units.

Seven other condominium projects have been announced, but not yet broken ground, including three by long-time downtown residential condo converter Barry Shy. The largest of the condominium projects is Hazens' 685-unit high-rise at 924 N. Spring Street. It will be Hazens' first condominium project in the United States. They are China-based.

Amidst all of this new construction, there is an enormous amount of renovation of older projects taking place including numerous hotels and rental projects.

Prior to 1999, there were 12,000 persons living downtown. Since then, another 22,000 have been added, for a current grand total of 35,000 persons. Those projects under construction will add another 18,000 persons and the proposed projects another 20,000. In a period of about 20 years, downtown Los Angeles will have seen its downtown population soar from 12,000 to about 100,000.

And yet, that 100,000 will account for about 1 percent of the population of Los Angeles County. It seems like there's plenty of room to grow in downtown Los Angeles.

Alan Nevin is director of economic and market research at Xpera Group, the West Coast's largest source of experts in the fields of construction. It focuses on construction management, condition assessment, building envelope and water intrusion consulting and forensic services.