Suzanne Says

A special message from Suzanne Holley, President & CEO of the DTLA Alliance

Downtowns have had a rough go of it over the last four years and it’s often felt like we were going it alone. So it was with great optimism that I recently joined members of the California Downtown Association (CDA), along with the Mayors of San Francisco, Sacramento, Long Beach, and Riverside, California in Sacramento for the inaugural hearing of the California State Assembly's Select Committee on Downtown Recovery.

Assemblymember Matt Haney of Assembly District 17 in San Francisco, the committee’s chair, set the tone by acknowledging that “California will struggle if our downtowns are struggling,” praising the innovative work being done by city leaders and place managers, and committing to finding ways “our state government can support and uplift that work to ensure that our downtowns recover strongly and hopefully even better than they were before the pandemic."

The DTLA Alliance has been at the forefront of Downtown Los Angeles’ revitalization for over 25 years and has been on the frontlines of our recovery from the COVID crisis over the last four, and I can say first-hand that this kind of support – from the city, state, and even federal government – is critical and welcome!

Recognizing the shifting challenges and opportunities facing city centers today, our organization recently developed a comprehensive new strategic plan. The most visible aspect of the plan was rebranding as the DTLA Alliance (previously Downtown Center Business Improvement District) – a move meant to reflect the central role of partnerships in everything we do. Behind the new name the plan identifies “Building Community and Coalitions” as one of our key guiding principles, and Advocacy as a new priority area of focus. Our participation in the Select Committee on Downtown Recovery, along with our ongoing work with CDA and IDA (the International Downtown Association), and locally with the City of Los Angeles, Council District 14, the Central City Association, and the Los Angeles BID Consortium, are all examples of how we leverage partnerships and build coalitions to advocate for the interests of our stakeholders and the vitality of DTLA.

The DTLA Alliance’s strategic plan also highlights Placemaking as an “essential strategy for revitalization” – a point that was particularly relevant in the Select Committee’s discussion of public safety and public realm conditions as key to the recovery of our downtowns. Like place management organizations across the country, the DTLA Alliance has come to see the inherent value of “Improving the Place and Experience” – another of our guiding principles – with events, activations, streetscape enhancements, and public art, particularly as we strive to attract office workers back to our CBD’s and increase foot-traffic on our retail corridors.

Downtowns are diverse and dynamic places – centers of commerce and culture, hubs of transit, and increasingly, tourist destinations and residential neighborhoods – and they are critical to the economic vitality and social vibrancy of our cities. The perception of our urban centers took a big hit during the pandemic, so it is encouraging to note an increasing appreciation of their importance as we emerge from that crisis. “Telling the Story and Shaping the Narrative” about Downtown Los Angeles is the DTLA Alliance’s third guiding principle – sharing all that is good and great in and about DTLA. First and foremost on that list is the simple truth expressed in the theme of our new office worker engagement program: “Life is Better in Person!”