LOS ANGELES — Grand Park, one of the largest new parcels of open space in this sprawling city, is the focus of all sorts of grand visions. Designed for a major concert, a farmers’ market or a participatory dance recital, it opened late last month with much fanfare, meant to attract office workers, suburbanites from across the region, tourists and the urban dwellers who call downtown home.

Sandwiched between City Hall and Disney Hall, the park is the latest attempt to revitalize a neighborhood where the sidewalks once rolled up by nightfall but that now sees a new restaurant or bar opening seemingly every week.

Depending on whom you ask, it elicits comparisons to New York’s Central Park or San Francisco’s Union Square — and a couple of the most enthusiastic supporters even liken it to the Champs-Élysées.