People in the NoHo Arts District have been waiting a long time for a movie theater, and now with construction humming along and walls going up, we can finally get a sense of what the is going to look like once it is completed and how it is going to impact the area.
I'd written stories about it already and seen the floor plans, but I didn't fully comprehend how nice and snug it was going to fit between Phil's Diner and the until I saw the construction site. Something about the way it fills in the block so completely feels ... final. Like, "This is it, this is what the CRA intended, folks. It took a lot longer than expected, but here it is, your NoHo Arts District."
The Laemmle completes the final phase of the CRA's NoHo Commons project. And while other CRA-backed projects are still underway, like the , the Laemmle and the few other projects that remain are possibly the last work the CRA will be doing a major scale in the Arts District since it was first conceived about 20 years ago.
The Arts District has become a unique and special place, but there is still work to be done before it is the thriving everyone wishes it to be. There's no , for one, as our About Town columnist Tiffany Kelly has pointed out. Stores are , while others are . People are still debating if historical places like the should be preserved or razed to make way for mixed-use developments. And if you walk around Magnolia, Lankershim or Vineland and go exploring, you will find a lot of empty buildings and strange, shady activity going on.
We've seen open its doors this year and quickly become one of the top nightlife spots in the whole Valley, as well as a great place to have lunch. We've also seen after a long decade away (and a block away). And we've seen in a key piece of real estate that had been vacant since HOWS left.
And there are people like the women that run , who continue to draw crowds from all around Los Angles into NoHo, like last weekend's Lofts at NoHo Commons block party, which was .
I for one can't wait for the Laemmle. With the ribbon-cutting ceremony promised by the end of the year, I look forward to grabbing a bite at Phil's, seeing a movie at the Laemmle, then walking across the street to the Federal for a drink, three things that were not possible when 2011 began.
