Downtown Los Angeles is celebrating another coming-of-age residential milestone as work begins on a new dog park located in the Arts District.
The dog park, located at 1004 E. 4th St., will cover a 6,000 square foot triangular lot.
No downtowner will argue against the need for a park. About 40 percent of downtown residents reportedly own dogs, and as the Los Angeles Times reported last month, all those dogs are doing their business all over the city.
"It's the poo, man, the poo," one resident told the Times. "All day, pee and poo. It's nonstop."
Enter LAPD officer Jack Richter and neighborhood advocate John Saslow.
After seeing the lot sit unused, Richter and Saslow pitched the idea of a dog park to the Honda family, owners of the Honda Plaza in Little Tokyo.
"We asked what they wanted to do with it. They said 'Nothing. It's a pain in the neck. The weeds always need to be cut down. The fence is a wreck,'" Ritcher told blogdowntown.
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Saslow's group, the Los Angeles River Artist and Business Association, agreed to pay for maintenance, taxes and insurance on the park, and the Honda family will still own the land, blogdowntown reported.
An open date has yet to be officially announced, but according to the project's Facebook page, the park is "coming ASAP."
