Community Group Loses Bid to Acquire South LA’s Crenshaw Mall | Eater LA

"A historic South LA shopping center currently at the center of a contentious redevelopment fight: long-planned mixed-use proposals would add hundreds of new condos and apartments, a large hotel, office space, restaurants, and retail, but the site today has only a handful of operating tenants and a small food court. Local activists and Downtown Crenshaw Rising mounted an ambitious, community-focused acquisition and redevelopment bid — raising roughly $59.5 million (including $34 million in philanthropy) and assembling local architects and designers — that emphasized affordable housing, job-training programs, a six-acre park, daycare, a recording studio, an entertainment production district with a theater, and a permanent home for a local food co-op alongside commercial uses. Despite submitting the highest reported offer (about $115 million) and a plan meant to preserve historic community character, the group says the sale process favored larger, nonlocal developers; the current owner/brokerage selected an LA-based development firm with a track record of large mixed-use projects and financial backing from an international billionaire, a result that has renewed community fears about displacement and gentrification. The transaction is slated to close at the end of July unless further action intervenes." - Mona Holmes