Dive Brief:

• A Los Angeles developer, L&R Group of Companies, has filed plans with the city for a new 52-story, mixed-use residential tower designed by architecture giant Gensler, according to Los Angeles Downtown News.   
• The high-rise will replace an auto dealership and repair shop with a 250-room hotel and restaurant, 336 residential units, 6,500 square feet of office, 3,000 square feet of retail and capacity for nearly 500 vehicles.
• The project, which has drawn attention because of its slightly askew, "experimental look" of teetering, stacked layers, will also include nine apartments and 23 condominiums set aside for low-income residents.

Dive Insight:

The project represents the 18th tower for Figueroa Street, downtown's de facto southern border, according to The Architect's Newspaper. Among these are other Gensler-designed projects, such as the Fig + Pico project across from the Los Angeles Convention Center. That development includes two mixed-use hotel towers with retail and meeting rooms. Gensler also designed the Metropolis project, with its three residential towers and one hotel skyscraper. 

Although not a Gensler project, another development that will alter the downtown Los Angeles skyline is the $1 billion Oceanside Plaza development, which will feature 504 residential units and a 166,000-square foot shopping center with a 700-foot-tall LED display. Hyatt Hotels has also announced plans to build a luxury Park Hyatt hotel there.  

The increase in megaprojects has led to disagreements between developers and activists who say that these massive developments are changing the character of neighborhoods, as well as creating traffic congestion and air pollution. In March, voters will decide whether to approve the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative, which would put a moratorium on the rezoning necessary to allow them. In anticipation of an anti-development stance on behalf of taxpayers, many developers are staging a run on the city planning office in hoped of pushing their projects through before any future ban goes into effect.

It's not just Los Angeles officials and taxpayers who are rethinking the magnitude of new development, though. Last month, Miami Mayor Tomás Regalado said he would veto a proposed 7-acre megaproject that would see the construction of a 1.2-million-square-foot mixed use project blast through the existing height limitations of the neighborhood, as well as raze existing housing and an existing American Legion building. A major point of contention between the mayor and developers was their request to use an adjacent park in the acreage count required to qualify for a special zoning district.