Can big names and big money make the Grand a great civic place?

After more than 15 years, the Grand — the final piece of Bunker Hill’s transformative Grand Avenue Project — is finally showing signs of life. According to current plans, the $1-billion-plus development, designed by Frank Gehry and developed by Related Cos. and set directly across the street from Gehry’s Walt Disney Concert Hall, will, by 2021, contain a residential tower, a hotel, 176,000 square feet of shopping and dining, and a public plaza that spills onto Grand Avenue. FULL COVERAGE: Grand Avenue project » Related Senior Vice President Rick Vogel calls this approach, softened in places with trees and other landscaping, an “urban room,” connected to the street and filled with benches, pathways, stairs, bridges, art, graphics, open-air dining and space for live performances. The same authority bargained for Related to fund Grand Park — thus far the Grand Avenue Project’s biggest victory in terms of promoting civic life. Although the street’s biggest booster, Eli Broad, once said Grand Avenue was going to be the Champs-Élysées of Los Angeles, upper Grand hardly contains any of that Parisian street’s trees, planters, active storefronts, porous building edges, street furniture, sculpture, public transit, public amenities and pedestrian activity.