Plans for the much-touted Pershing Square Renew project in Los Angeles appear to be shifting. 

Curbed reports that three years after being selected as the winning entry for an international competition to redesign the five-acre postmodern urban park, a team led by French landscape architects Agence Ter has shifted gears. Pershing Square is the oldest park in Los Angeles and its latest iteration was designed in 1996 by Mexican architect Ricardo Legorreta. The team's winning "radical flatness"-focused proposal has instead given way to a phased approach that will focus demolishing an existing concessions stand at the park in order to replace the structure with a new set of elevators serving the below-ground parking garage located beneath the park. 

The remaining plans involve other small fixes that focus on “taking down as many barriers as we can,” Debra Girod, a partner at Gruen Associates, the architect of record for the project, told Curbed. 

The shift is underpinned by a lack of funding available for the project, and to the loss of one of the project's main civic boosters, local councilperson Jose Huizar. Huizar is embroiled in a variety of ethics scandals, problems that arose for the councilman just as work on the park was supposed to kick off late last year. Since then? Silence. 

The architects estimate that about $100 million will be needed to complete the project, much of that funding is yet to be found. 

Despite the setbacks, Michael Shull, general manager of L.A.'s recreation and parks department told Curbed, "We haven’t given up on the large scale project."