MARCH 7: San Vicente Streetscape virtual meeting

 The City of West Hollywood invites community members to provide feedback on updated concept designs and alternatives based on prior community input as part of the visioning process for forthcoming San Vicente Streetscape shared street and plaza improvements.

The San Vicente Streetscape virtual meeting will take place via Zoom on Tuesday, March 7, 2023 from 5 p. m. to 6 p.m. City of West Hollywood staff and design consultants will be presenting updated concept designs and alternatives that reflect feedback received from the community during previous outreach presentations and community visioning activities that took place in October 2022 and in December 2022. Community members who wish to take part can join the Zoom meeting at https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82731546401. The design will be finalized with this community input.

The area of N. San Vicente Boulevard between Santa Monica Boulevard and Melrose Avenue is oftentimes the location for impromptu public gatherings, City-sponsored programming, and other City-permitted events. Current street activities result in approximately 20 to 30 days of partial or full street closures each year. However, because the street itself has not been designed for these purposes, tangible challenges arise within this stretch of N. San Vicente Boulevard when it becomes used for public gatherings or planned event purposes.

At times, N. San Vicente Boulevard experiences drivers that exceed posted speed limits. In addition to traffic safety issues, serious public health concerns related to excessive heat – 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 and re-emit the sun’s heat more than natural landscapes that include canopy trees, green spaces, or water elements and water bodies.

The City of West Hollywood is working with a recognized 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, account for transit needs, augment accessibility, upgrade traffic safety, and that would be designed as a micro-climate inspired ecosystem. This reimagined shared street would emphasize larger-scale outdoor gathering space, shading and green space, wildlife propagation, water resource management, and pedestrian-oriented design strategies in support of City-sponsored or otherwise approved programs and events, permitted activities, and organized or impromptu gatherings. 

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.

For additional information, please visit the project website or contact Garen Yolles, City of West Hollywood Architectural and Urban Designer in the City’s Urban Design and Architecture Studio, at (323) 848-6827 or at gyolles@weho.org. For people who require hearing assistance or other forms of accommodation please call TTY (323) 848-6496.