South Glendale Community Plan
The South Glendale Community Plan is the second in a series of comprehensive plans for Glendale, and will address the urbanized heart of the City south of the 134 Freeway.
Author Archives: Alan Loomis
Small Lot Subdivision Ordinance
Glendale’s Small Lot Ordinance aims to encourage development of infill lots and preserve units with historic character in order to catalyze neighborhood investment, provide greater housing choice and expand the opportunities for affordable home ownership.
DSP wins APA/LA Award
The Los Angeles Chapter of the American Planning Association (APA) recognized the City of Glendale with the Implementation Award of Excellence for the Glendale Downtown Specific Plan (DSP) & Mobility Study.
Space 134 on NBC4 News
Patrick Healy of NBC4 News profiled the “freeway cap park” movement in Southern California on the 6 o’clock news yesterday. He and I spent some time discussing Glendale’s Space 134 project.
Tropico Station Plan
The Tropico Station Plan is a neighborhood-level policy study, which recommends design guidelines, zoning designations and parking standards for the Tropico neighborhood, and is a component of the South Glendale Community Plan.
Small Lots in Glendale
This course “field tested” Glendale’s draft Small Lot Ordinance through a series of investigative operations, developer roundtables, field trips and research.
Glendale CDD best in California
The Glendale Community Development Department received the Distinguished Leadership Award for a Planning Agency from the California Chapter of the American Planning Association at the annual conference in Anaheim.
From Tokyo to LA
Fronting for UNIQLO, or how Godzilla inspired me to make great cities.
Space 134
Space 134 is a concept study for a 25-acre “freeway cap park” over and adjacent to the 134 Freeway between Central Avenue and Glendale Avenue. Space 134 will connect the community to the City’s civic, cultural, and business core through public open space and pedestrian and bike friendly trails.
Talking about Space 134
Glendale’s local TV channel, GTV6, asked me to talk about Space 134, our plan to cover the 134 Freeway with a series of parks. This is the result.
Streetscapes
Reflections on the Southern California Edison photography archive, published in “Form and Landscape,” The Huntington’s contribution to Pacific Standard Time Presents: Modern Architecture in LA.
Space 134 on Good Day LA
This week Hal Eisner interviewed me about “Space 134,” a concept to build a series of parks over the 134 Freeway as it cuts across the middle of Glendale.
Triangle and Brand+Wilson
Last week the Glendale City Council approved two mixed-use projects, each located at significant infill sites within the city’s urban centers. The Triangle will anchor the Tropico Station district surrounding the Glendale Metrolink/Amtrak stop. The second will fill a vacant lot and chronic hole in the middle of the Brand Boulevard downtown retail district.
Unfinished Business
“Consuming the City,” my editorial to the Winter 2002/2003 LA Forum Online Newsletter on Shopping, was featured in Unfinished Business: 25 Years of Discourse in Los Angeles.
On the Glendale Downtown Plan
A review of Glendale’s Downtown Specific Plan, featured in “Planning Los Angeles,” published for the 2012 American Planning Association conference in Los Angeles.
Space 134: Urban Design Studio
This fourth-year design studio explored the possibilities of building over and adjacent to the 134 Freeway corridor as it cuts through Downtown Glendale. Students explored concepts of scale, infrastructure, megastructures and planning.
North Glendale Community Plan
The North Glendale Community Plan is the official guide to the La Crescenta and Montrose areas of Glendale. It is the first of several community plans which will describe Glendale’s development policy for the various neighborhoods and commercial districts in the city.
Maryland Off Broadway
“Maryland Off Broadway” is a Focused Implementation Plan to create an Art and Entertainment District in Downtown Glendale.
Creative Sign Ordinance
The purpose of the creative sign program is to encourage signs of unique design that exhibit a high degree of thoughtfulness, imagination and inventiveness, and make a positive visual contribution to the project site and downtown.
Citywide Sign Standards
The goal of the Citywide Sign Standards is to establish a consistent and coherent family of environmental graphics for various purposes around Glendale, including Parks, Public Parking, Bike Routes and Vehicle Wayfinding signs.
Urban Art Ordinance
The Urban Art Ordinance was initiated in 2006 with the adoption of the Downtown Specific Plan, and expanded city-wide in 2010. The Ordinance requires the installation of public art on-site for all new development over $500,000, or payment of an in-lieu fee. Since adoption, the Ordinance has raised more than $3 million for public arts programming.
Urban Design Theory
Programmed as a “study aboard” course at home, students document, investigate, analyze and map a district in greater Los Angeles as a means of illustrating their understanding of the themes, issues, trends and theories outlined in the lectures and readings. This research focuses on the relationship between the theoretical ideas and actual places.
Central Park Master Plan
This Strategic Master Plan guides the phased reconstruction of Glendale’s Downtown Central Park, including built work by Shimoda Design Group, AECOM, and Gruen Associates.
Urban Design As Top Priority
“We are challenging the architects who work here to produce better work than they might have been accustomed to when they came to Glendale five or ten years ago,” said Loomis. “We’re trying to push Glendale into that echelon of cities like West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, Pasadena, where architects want to do their best work.”
Glendale Urban Design Studio
The Glendale News-Press profiles the City’s urban design agenda. Glendale’s “new ‘design studio’ is in place to make sure that as the city becomes more dense, it does so with engaging design, concessions to the pedestrian and protection for the past.”
Delirious LA 