Like most urban downtowns, Los Angeles' was moribund, a place where people worked on weekdays and avoided evenings and weekends. Then, in October of 1999, Staples Center opened.

“Streets all of the sudden filled with people,” says Carol Schatz, president and CEO of the Downtown Center Business Improvement District. DCBID, which represents 65 square blocks downtown, is the largest of the eight organizations dedicated to downtown revitalization.

Staples Center is one of many attractions responsible for perking up downtown Los Angeles. The Cathedral of Our Lady of Angels, a contemporary Roman Catholic church designed by Spanish architect Jose Rafael Moneo, opened in 2002 to both acclaim and controversy. The Frank Gehry-designed Walt Disney Concert Hall, home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, opened in 2003.

Wolfgang Puck opened an Express location in downtown Los Angeles; it's been so successful that the chain converted it to a full-service restaurant.

These days, almost 29,000 people live downtown. Sixty percent are single, and 55 percent both live and work downtown. The median annual household income is $100,000.

The residential boom is drawing retail and even more development. “We have brought in everything from restaurants to art galleries to furniture stores,” Schatz says.

The residential population is stable enough that Cincinnati-based Kroger Co. opened a Ralphs Fresh Fare downtown in August 2007. The store, Schatz says, has the busiest deli in the entire Ralphs system.

Likewise, downtown has proven profitable for Grill Concepts Inc., the Los Angeles-based operator of 23 Daily Grills and five Grill on the Alley restaurants. An attractive deal from a developer persuaded the company to open a Daily Grill downtown in May 2005.

“The more we looked at it, the more we were impressed by the opportunity,” says Philip Gay, Grill Concepts president and chief executive officer.

The restaurant, located in a building with retail on the ground floor and condos above, is now the highest-grossing Daily Grill in Southern California, with annual sales “north of $4 million,” Gay says. “We do a great lunch with all the businesspeople in the area and a nice happy hour.” The location recently began offering breakfast.

While the time for real-estate pioneering is past, downtown is “not oversold,” Gay says. “I think there are still good deals to be had.”

Indeed, Schatz estimates that the area's renewal is 70 percent to 80 percent complete. DCBID's future plans include courting more restaurants to fashion Seventh Street into a restaurant-and-nightclub row. The street is within walking distance of 8,000 hotel rooms, and there's no mall nearby to provide restaurant competition, Schatz says.

The future, she adds, does hold a challenge: providing reasons for residents to remain downtown once they marry and settle down. “We are working feverishly to provide charter schools and private schools to try to keep young people here when they start to have babies,” Schatz says.