As the MTA moves closer to starting construction on a subway tunnel in downtown Los Angeles, some property owners have dug in for a fight.
The big landlords fear that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's plans to build a massive trench on Flower Street will disrupt their businesses for years, costing millions of dollars in lost revenue.
The four-story-deep canyon planned by the MTA would travel through more than two busy city blocks of the financial district, which includes popular destinations such as the Westin Bonaventure Hotel, the Central Library and the City National Plaza office and retail complex.
Predictably, this clash of potent forces — transportation and real estate — has spawned lawsuits that threaten to delay the project and potentially add millions to the cost.
Influential landowners said they want the city to do more of the work underground to connect separate subway lines into one seamless system. The MTA said it was technologically impossible because of some unusual construction barriers.
What's clear is that the subway has put some of the city's most civic-minded property owners, who helped spawn downtown's renaissance, in the awkward position of opposing a highly popular project that they, in fact, want.
"The connector is very important for the community, and so is the existence of businesses located along the connector route," said Gary L. Toebben, president of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce. "We were very hopeful there could be a win-win solution. It doesn't look like they have gotten to that point."
The $1.4-billion Regional Connector subway is a top MTA priority because it would eliminate a major bottleneck in the system caused by a lack of interconnections between rail lines. Upon completion in 2019, riders would be able to travel from Azusa to Long Beach or from East Los Angeles to Santa Monica without changing trains twice, as the current system requires.
It also would help speed workers and visitors to the financial district, a major benefit for landlords and tenants.
"We agree the connector will facilitate ridership on the transit system," said Paul S. Rutter, co-chief operating officer of Thomas Properties Group. "We are not objecting to the line or its route."
The problem, as far as property owners are concerned, is how construction would be carried out.
Most of the 1.9-mile subway from Little Tokyo to the 7th Street/Metro Center station would be built underground with tunnel-boring machines.
But the MTA plans to finish the line's last section— 4th Street to south of 6th Street — with "cut and cover" construction.
That means digging a deep, wide trench on Flower Street, laying train tracks and then refilling the trench on top of the new subway tunnel. During most of the construction, the street would be accessible to traffic because of metal plates placed over the hole.
Thomas Properties, the owner of City National Plaza, one of Southern California's largest office complexes, is a leading voice of opposition. The company would like to see tunneling continue south on Flower Street two more blocks to 6th Street.
"We're concerned that the MTA is not taking into account adequately the stakeholders on Flower Street," Rutter said.
The MTA has proposed stopping the tunneling at 4th Street. The transit agency has said a longer tunnel would be too costly and isn't feasible because of underground obstacles left by builders of past projects.
During construction of the Bonaventure, City National Plaza and other skyscrapers in the 1960s and 1970s, builders drove hundreds of steel cables, called tiebacks, deep into the ground to support the underground garage walls made during excavation.
Those cables are no longer structural supports for the buildings, but they are still under the surface and would tangle the maws of digging machines, according to the MTA.
"It's not possible to tunnel through the tiebacks," said Diego Cardoso, an MTA executive officer. "A review by tunnel experts concurs with us."
Downtown property owners fight MTA subway tunnel plans
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Downtown property owners fight MTA subway tunnel plans
