Civic Center WELCOME HOME

Since spinning off its struggling publishing division, Tribune Media Company has gone to work monetizing its national real estate portfolio. The Chicago-based corporation made one of its first moves in Los Angeles last month by filing plans to redevelop a parking lot near the Los Angeles Times Building as a mixed-use tower. The proposed development, which would sit atop Metro’s future 2nd/Broadway Station, calls for the construction of a 30-story building featuring 107 condominiums, 534,000 square feet of commercial offices and approximately 7,200 square feet of ground-level retail space.

Before and after images from architectural photographer Hunter Kerhart showcase the $350-million Federal Courthouse that recently opened in Downtown Los Angeles. The 10-story building, designed by SOM, features 24 courtrooms and 32 judicial chambers. See more below.

Yesterday, the the General Services Administration granted a first look at Downtown’s $350-million Federal Courthouse. The 10-story structure, located at the corner of 1st Street and Broadway, features 24 courtrooms and 32 judicial chambers. Tenants include several Federal agencies, including the U.S. District Court, the U.S. Marshals Services, the U.S. General Services Administration, the Federal Public Defender and the U.S. Attorney Office. Architecture firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill designed the new courthouse to resemble a cube floating above a stone base.

Downtown’s Civic Center is known as the largest concentration of government employees in the United States outside of Washington D.C. Now, a private developer will try to add a new element to the neighborhood: residents. According to plans filed with the City of Los Angeles, a mixed-use tower is slated for a surface parking lot at 2nd Street and Broadway. The project site, which also fronts Spring Street, would birth a 30-story building featuring 107 condominiums, 534,000 square feet of offices and approximately 7,200 square feet of ground-floor commercial space.

Four months after voters were asked to select the design of a new shade structure at Grand Park, a squadron of paper planes now soars above Olive Court. The installation, appropriately titled Paper Plane, was designed by local artists Elenita Torres and Dean Sherriff. It consists of 11 total pieces, composed of a mesh-like material. Compare the real life display with an artistic rendering below.

A report from the Bureau of Engineering has shed new light on the city’s proposal to build a new municipal office building on the site of Parker Center, the one time headquarters of the Los Angeles Police Department. The city has been exploring the possibility of demolishing the mid-1950s building since 2006, when the LAPD was on the verge of relocating to the new Police Administration Building on Spring Street. The process culminated in 2014, when staff recommended that the city demolish eight-story structure and replace it with a high-rise office building.

Nearly six months after our look at four competing visions for Downtown’s First and Broadway Park, the City of Los Angeles officially declared the design team of Mia Lehrer + Associates, the Office of Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) and IDEO as the winner. The two-acre FAB Park, budgeted at $28 million, will rise from a vacant lot in the heart of the Civic Center. The property was previously home to a state office building, which was demolished due to earthquake damage in 1976.

Two images taken by architectural photographer Hunter Kerhart offer a before-and-after look at the Civic Center’s $400-million Federal Courthouse. The first picture, taken in June 2014 from the observation deck at Los Angeles City Hall, shows the 10-story courthouse near the beginning of vertical construction. The second image, captured in July 2016, shows the project as it nears completion. Designed by SOM, the building has been described as a glass cube floating above a stone base.

The plan to revive streetcar service in Downtown Los Angeles has taken another step forward, with the release of the project’s draft environmental impact report (DEIR). The proposed streetcar would run along an approximately 3.8-mile loop through the heart of Downtown, connecting a number of destinations and neighborhoods such as the Wilshire Grand, L.A. Live, the Civic Center, the Historic Core, the Broad Museum, M.O.C.A. and the Walt Disney Concert Hall.

Onni Group, the Canadian developer which has embarked on a skyscraper building spree in South Park, is expanding its reach to the Civic Center. Last week, the Vancouver-based real estate firm reportedly entered into an agreement to purchase the longtime headquarters of the Los Angeles Times for $120 million. The 750,000-square-foot complex, known as Times Mirror Square, consists of multiple buildings spanning a full city block bounded by Broadway, 1st, 2nd and Spring Streets.