Simple Start in Overhauling Downtown Los Angeles LOS ANGELES - For more than a decade, civic leaders and developers here have envisioned a large-scale redevelopment of downtown Los Angeles's main civic and cultural thoroughfare, Grand Avenue. This past summer, the first - and smallest - component of this vision finally opened to the public. But instead of a massive mixed-use edifice that would completely change the streetscape, it was a modest 12-acre space named Grand Park, which replaced an existing but unwelcoming civic center plaza. Grand Park covers 12 acres in downtown Los Angeles, from Grand Avenue to Spring Street. It is designed to host concerts and other performances. The park was paid for by $50 million from Related Companies, the developer planning the nearby building projects. Community leaders, real estate magnates and urban planners hope the Grand Avenue Development Project, which would add several million square feet of commercial and cultural space, will provide a center of gravity and excitement to an area of the city that has lacked both. For now, Related's plans for a mixed-use building modeled loosely on its Time Warner Center in New York, which houses a hotel, retail stores, offices, condominiums and a major jazz stage, have been delayed. But a $130 million modern art museum, housing the collection of and paid for by the philanthropist Eli Broad and designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, was under construction and planned for completion by early 2014. Related also recently broke ground on a 24-story, 271-unit luxury rental building adjacent to the Broad museum, with 20 percent of the units designated as affordable housing. The park was supposed to be part of a later phase of development, said Bill Witte, president and chief executive of Related California. But that changed when the recession struck, undermining the condo sales market that was a bedrock of Related's vision. As a result, the fate of the mixed-use linchpin of the broad scheme is uncertain. Related has until February 2013 to come up with financing, which will almost certainly be prohibitively costly in the current market. Related won the right to build the project in 2004. In theory, though, it could lose that right, and a new selection process could be started. Gloria Molina, a Los Angeles County supervisor who is widely credited with pushing for redevelopment of the old civic center mall and for getting Related to pay for it, was doubtful that Related can move forward as planned. "I don't see the economy shaping up that quickly," she said. Ms. Molina was, perhaps, looking for Related to alter its proposal. "I'm hoping they will have something more realistic and attainable," she said. I'm not sure the original vision will be sustainable. Mr. Witte said that Related had applied for an extension on its February deadline from the city and county's joint powers authority, but declined to comment other than to say "we are very committed to getting this done." Despite clusters of skyscrapers and civic buildings that house some half-million workers in downtown Los Angeles, the area contained fewer than 20,000 residents in the late 1990s, according to the Downtown Los Angeles Center Business Improvement District. New or renovated apartment buildings began to open early in the new decade, and today's population is just under 50,000. Downtown also has the Staples Center, which anchors the LA Live entertainment district. The proposed Related project is meant to dovetail with the Frank Gehry-designed Disney Concert Hall, which opened in 2003 at the summit of Grand Avenue. Farther down the avenue, the Music Center also welcomed the idea of an expanded consumer base. At present, the park stands alone. It was designed by the Los Angeles-based landscape architects Rios Clementi Hale Studios, a firm that had already directed an expansion and renovation of the sidewalks and walkways that are part of the Music Center complex.