The City of West Hollywood invites community members to provide feedback as part of the visioning process for forthcoming San Vicente Streetscape shared street and plaza improvements.
There will be a feedback opportunity on Saturday, October 29, 2022 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. during the West Hollywood Kids Fair, which will take place at West Hollywood Park, located at 647 N. San Vicente Boulevard. Community engagement about the San Vicente Streetscape Plaza space will take place at the West Hollywood Park Great Lawn.
- San Vicente Boulevard between Santa Monica Boulevard and Melrose Avenue is oftentimes the location for City-sponsored programming and other City-permitted events. This results in approximately 20 to 30 days of partial or full street closures each year and there are some existing challenges with this stretch of N. San Vicente Boulevard, when it is used for public gathering purposes.
The City of West Hollywood is working with renowned landscape architecture firm !melk to develop a conceptual vision for a new “shared street” that would allow for temporary, partial, or full closures on N. San Vicente Boulevard and would be designed as a micro-climate inspired ecosystem. This reimagined area would emphasize shading, resource management, and pedestrian-oriented way of finding in support of city-sponsored or otherwise approved programs and events, permitted activities, and organized or impromptu gatherings.
Drivers regularly exceed posted speed limits on N. San Vicente Boulevard. Beyond traffic safety issues, serious public health concerns – particularly during the summer – can potentially arise when individuals may spend significant time in direct sun and are subjected to effects from what is known as a “heat island” while standing on hardscape concrete and asphalt surfaces. Heat islands are generally urbanized areas that experience higher temperatures than outlying areas. Structures such as buildings, roads, and other infrastructure absorb and re-emit the sun’s heat more than natural landscapes that include trees or water elements and water bodies.
The intent is to have a space that can provide new flexibility and transform seasonally and situationally. If carefully crafted as a “streetscape plaza,” this bookended and protected area could operate as either a programmatic extension of West Hollywood Park, as a useful companion to the forthcoming STORIES: The AIDS Monument, or as an independent civic or public event space itself. Centrally located within the City’s westside, the San Vicente Streetscape Plaza would be well buffered from a sound standpoint from residentially zoned areas nearby yet still be very walkable and in close enough proximity from the diversely scaled neighborhoods that surround it.
The project will have additional opportunities for the community to provide feedback at various stages as part of a comprehensive outreach plan.
Terrible idea. It will hinder access to and from our sheriff’s department. Why do we need more green space here? There is an entire park dedicated to green space right there already!
For one, the street should not be designed around organized political rallies. If it is going to be redesigned, it should be to enhance the look of the blvd. We already have the PDC and the park as space used for events…we don’t need to grow that to include the street as we’ve already had major issues with sound/noise coming from these events. We certainly don’t want to grow it even bigger.