Major Breakthrough in Downtown Los Angeles Revitalization.

Business Editors

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 14, 2002

The Downtown Center Business Improvement District

- Commercial Building Transactions Near $2 Billion Mark So Far This Year

- Nearly 5,000 Residential Units Under Construction or Planned

Real estate

giant John C. Cushman III, chairman of Cushman & Wakefield, Inc., and major philanthropist Eli Broad, the chairman of AIG SunAmerica, Inc., told New York financiers and real estate developers today that the Downtown Los Angeles area, long considered forgotten real estate in that city, is now perhaps the best investment left in any major US city.

So far this year, major commercial office building transactions have accounted for nearly $2 billion.

The investors heard Cushman, Broad and Timothy Leiweke, president of Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG), and also president of the Staples Center, a $300 million complex which, since opening in 1999, has served as a tremendous catalyst to the resurgence of Downtown LA, nurturing some $1.43 billion in commercial and cultural development there.

The three pointed out that residential investment is also booming. Currently, there are 1,400 units under construction, with 2,000 units in the pipeline between 2003 and 2004, and another 3,500 units either planned or proposed for 2005 and beyond. The monthly rental rates run from $1,000 to $8,500. Condos will be selling for $300,000 to $500,000.

Cushman, Broad and Leiweke addressed an investment summit with key members of the real estate, investment banking and real estate lending industries assembled in the Rose Room of the Plaza Hotel this morning. The session was chaired by the Los Angeles Downtown Center Business Improvement District (DCBID), which has worked the past five years to augment a renaissance, making it an around-the-clock environment in the central part of Los Angeles, the city's major commercial center. The three described how in five years or so of quiet investment, the area has finally taken off and is now creating one of the most vibrant work and residential communities in the country.

Cushman described Downtown Los Angeles, roughly a 65-block area at the center of LA, as a place that resists parallels to, say, Century City or Westwood. " It's a story," Cushman said, "that's maybe a well-kept secret, the investment and development opportunities, offices, hospitality and residential opportunities in Downtown LA."