Curbed LA reports that designs for the 12-acre, Rios Clementi Hale-designed downtown Civic Park, connecting City Hall with the LA Music Center, have been updated (drawing above). The new designs, they find, will overhaul and lengthen the park’s fountain, remove a series of trellises, enlarge the park’s community terrace, and remove the “viewing bridge” at the foot of City Hall.

The park (whose first phase will cost $56 million) also replaces curving geometries with longer, straighter thoroughfares. The plan is still set to go ahead despite the fact that the adjacent Grand Avenue Project is on hold. Despite liking certain elements, like a clearer set of “grand stairs,” the LA Times‘ Christopher Hawthorne said the plan was too “conceptually weak to stand on its own.” He added, “there is nothing evident in the latest version — no urban gesture, no aesthetic spark — that holds the proposal together as a compelling whole, or that might inspire the public or potential funders to embrace it with genuine enthusiasm.”

We’re just happy to have another park downtown. After all, what major city doesn’t have a great downtown green space?