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  • L.A. County to buy downtown skyscraper for new HQ despite a ‘hell no’ from Hahn

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    The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Wednesday approved the county’s purchase of the Gas Company Tower, one of downtown L.A.’s most prominent skyscrapers, paving the way for the transfer of thousands of workers and public services out of the city’s civic center.

    With a 4-1 vote, the supervisors gave county officials the final green light to move ahead with buying the tower for $200 million.

    The approval came over vehement objections from Supervisor Janice Hahn, who warned that the purchase would sound the death knell for downtown’s civic heart and shunt the county’s workforce to a “souless” office tower on Bunker Hill.

    “None of you here are going to convince me that this is a good idea,” Hahn said before casting her vote against the purchase with a “hell no.”

    County employees are currently based inside the Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration, a 1960 building named after Hahn’s father, a longtime county supervisor.

    The building is one of several county-owned properties considered vulnerable to collapse in a major earthquake. Officials have estimated that it will cost hundreds of millions to upgrade the buildings, making a new, presumably safer skyscraper an appealing alternative to some on the board.

    “If we know this building is not seismically safe, then we have an obligation and a responsibility to take action,” Supervisor Holly Mitchell said from the room inside Hahn Hall where the board holds its weekly meetings.

    County Chief Executive Fesia Davenport, whose office spearheaded the sale, promised the purchase “will save the county hundreds of millions of dollars” compared with the cost of upgrading the Hall of Administration and other county buildings.

    No supervisors have toured the building themselves, according to a county spokesperson, though several of their staff members have visited.

    The 52-story tower at 555 W. 5th St. was widely considered one of the city’s most prestigious office buildings when it was completed in 1991. It has nearly 1.5 million square feet of space on a 1.4-acre site at the base of Bunker Hill.

    The price is a deep discount from the building’s appraised value of $632 million in 2020, underscoring how much downtown office values have fallen in recent years.

    At $200 million, the county would get the Gas Company Tower for about $137 a square foot, a bargain by historical standards. The county also agreed to pay as much as an additional $5 million in closing costs on the transaction.

    “This opportunity will not last forever,” Davenport warned, adding that the county could finance the purchase in part from money set aside for capital projects.

    Hahn said the transaction was akin to “robbing Peter to pay Paul.”

    “The money being used to pay for this purchase is being stolen from the funds that were meant to keep this building alive,” she said from Hahn Hall.

    Richard Keating, the architect who designed the Gas Company Tower to appeal to corporate America, said it makes sense for a public entity to take ownership now.

    “We’re looking at a decline in need for standard office use, meaning lawyers, architects and accountants are doing things differently” since the pandemic, Keating said. “City and county employees are still hard at work in their office spaces, but they’re tired, old, sometimes decrepit and oftentimes no longer up to code in terms of earthquake” safety requirements.

    “It’s a perfect time to take advantage of some of these more or less empty office buildings.”

    Moving hundreds of county workers into the Gas Company Tower also stands to lift shops, restaurants and other businesses in the nearby blocks by Pershing Square, he said. “I think it’s a good move all the way around.”

    In recent years, the downtown office market has turned against landlords as many tenants reduced their office footprint in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, when it became more common for employees to work remotely.

    Last year, the owner of the Gas Company Tower, an affiliate of Brookfield Asset Management, defaulted on its debt, and the property was put in receivership, in which a court-appointed representative took custody of the building to help creditors recover funds they lent to Brookfield. The building has about $465 million in outstanding loans.

    Other major tenants in the Gas Company Tower include law firm Latham & Watkins and accounting firm Deloitte. The county will assume the tenant leases as landlord.

    When the Gas Company Tower is formally owned by the county, it will be removed from the tax rolls. The building’s property tax bill last year was more than $7.1 million, according to real estate data provider CoStar.

    Tenants would, however, be required to contribute to the tax rolls by an unspecified amount through a “possessory interest tax” that can be levied on private companies leasing public buildings. Tenants in privately owned office buildings also commonly pay a share of the landlord’s property taxes.

    The building is in good condition with “a remaining useful life” of no less than 35 years, according to a recent property condition report prepared for the current owner that was obtained by The Times.

    The report also said the tower and the World Trade Center garage at 333 S. Flower St. included in the deal require about $1.3 million to address urgently needed repairs and deferred maintenance. Additional long-term costs to maintain and modernize the properties were estimated at about $48.7 million over 12 years. Projected costs include roof repairs, refurbishing air conditioning systems and updating the elevators.

    The county currently occupies about 16.5 million square feet of office space for 38 departments, which comprises 6.9 million square feet of leased office space and 9.6 million square feet of owned office space, Davenport said in a memo to the board recommending the purchase of the Gas Company Tower.

    The county spends about $195 million per year on the leased office space, and the property it owns “is in poor condition and old,” Davenport said. Nearly half of it is more than 50 years old.

    By moving staff from both leased office space and aging buildings in poor condition, the county avoids paying rent and the “significant” costs of seismic retrofits and other needed renovations to old buildings such as aging air conditioning, plumbing and electrical systems, the chief executive’s memo said. Funds earmarked for seismic retrofits and other renovations of old buildings will be included in the payment for the Gas Company Tower.

    The county inspected the building and will buy it “as-is,” Davenport said. The Department of Public Works reviewed a seismic report for the tower and agreed with its findings. A county spokesperson said the findings will remain confidential until the deal closes.

    If the county elects to complete a seismic retrofit and other improvements to the Gas Company Tower, it can realize a future return on its investment by selling the building when the market recovers, Davenport said.

    Southern California Gas Co. said in September that it is planning to move from its longtime headquarters in its namesake tower, where it has been a primary tenant since the building was completed, to another skyscraper a block north at 350 S. Grand Ave.

    The utility signed a long-term lease for nearly 200,000 square feet on eight floors in the Grand Avenue building on Bunker Hill often known as Two California Plaza, its new landlord said, and is expected to move by spring 2026 after building out the new offices. SoCalGas will also have an office on the ground floor to serve customers.

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    Rebecca Ellis, Roger Vincent

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  • SoCalGas to move from its longtime headquarters in downtown Los Angeles

    SoCalGas to move from its longtime headquarters in downtown Los Angeles

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    Southern California Gas Co. is planning to move from its longtime headquarters after signing the largest office lease of the year in downtown Los Angeles.

    SoCalGas will leave its namesake Gas Company Tower at 555 W. 5th St., where it has been a primary tenant since the building was completed in 1991, and move a block north to another skyscraper, at 350 S. Grand Ave.

    The utility signed a long-term lease for nearly 200,000 square feet on eight floors in the Grand Avenue building on Bunker Hill often known as Two California Plaza, its new landlord said, and is expected to move by spring 2026 after building out the new offices. The gas company will also have an office on the ground floor to serve customers.

    The Bunker Hill neighborhood has been a bright spot for office leasing in what has been an extended period of declining occupancy in downtown’s financial district since the pandemic ushered in a movement toward allowing employees to work from home.

    Bunker Hill has benefited from having a mixture of building types, including offices, apartments and hotels, as well as being one of the city’s main cultural destinations with such institutions as Walt Disney Concert Hall, the Broad Museum and Colburn School of music.

    “We are somewhat of an island in downtown,” said landlord Shaul Kuba, whose company CIM Group owns Two California Plaza. “There is so much culture, with a daytime and nighttime population.”

    The building is part of an office, hotel and retail complex that dates to the 1980s, a period when Bunker Hill, a former residential neighborhood, was being remade from the ground up in a process of “urban renewal” meant to transform blighted neighborhoods.

    With the arrival of SoCalGas, Two California Plaza will be home to two major Los Angeles institutions. City National Bank is already headquartered there and currently has its name affixed to the top. As part of the lease agreement with SoCalGas, its name will replace City National, Kuba said.

    The new offices will be about two-thirds the size of SoCalGas’s current space in the Gas Company Tower. A spokeswoman for the utility, Erica Berardi, did not address why the company is moving but said its current lease expires at the end of 2026.

    “SoCalGas is excited to maintain our headquarters in downtown Los Angeles, where we have a long history as one of the area’s largest tenants,” she said.

    The lease is the largest in downtown Los Angeles this year, according to analysis from Raise Commercial Real Estate.

    The utility’s roots in downtown date to the 1800s. It is the largest gas distribution utility in the United States, serving about 21 million customers across 24,000 square miles of Central and Southern California.

    In a separate transaction, the Gas Company Tower is in the process of being sold. The county of Los Angeles has tentatively agreed to buy the prominent office skyscraper near the historic Millennium Biltmore Hotel for $215 million in a foreclosure sale that could take months to complete.

    The Board of Supervisors must still approve the purchase, and the county has begun the due diligence process of examining the property for possible structural problems or other issues before finalizing the transaction.

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    Roger Vincent

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  • Frank Gehry-designed performing arts center at the Colburn School is under construction

    Frank Gehry-designed performing arts center at the Colburn School is under construction

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    One of architect Frank Gehry’s long-standing wishes is finally coming to life: a new concert venue in downtown Los Angeles that will complement his famous Walt Disney Concert Hall.

    Preliminary work has begun on a $335-million expansion of the Colburn School of performing arts designed by Gehry that includes a mid-size concert hall he expects to be in near-constant use for events put on by students, professional artists and academics.

    “It’s a chance to do a lot of experimenting,” he said.

    The long-planned Colburn School addition will be the third Gehry-designed building on Bunker Hill, which already has Disney Concert Hall and the Grand LA, a $1-billion apartment, hotel and retail complex he designed for New York mega-developer Related Cos.

    An artist’s rendering of the Colburn Center at 2nd and Hill streets in downtown Los Angeles.

    (Courtesy of Frank O. Gehry & Gehry Partners )

    The new Colburn structure is under construction on a former parking lot, cater-cornered to the current campus, at 2nd and Olive streets just east of the Grand, creating three contiguous blocks of Gehry-designed buildings.

    Colburn Center, the new building, will be modest in appearance compared with the other two but represents a significant leap for the Colburn School, which opened on Bunker Hill in 1998 and has around 2,000 students.

    “The Colburn Center will be a game-changer, stepping up everything we do,” said Sel Kardan, president of the Colburn School.

    The centerpiece of the expansion will be a 1,000-seat concert hall named for Pasadena philanthropists Terri and Jerry Kohl with an in-the-round design meant to create intimacy between the performers and the audience. The hall will include an orchestra pit and a stage large enough to accommodate “the grandest works,” Kardan said, making it suitable for orchestra, opera and dance.

    “There’s always been a dream of having a place where our largest ensembles can play,” he said, such as the school’s symphony orchestra, bands, youth string programs and children’s choirs. “Currently, those programs take place off-site.”

    An artist's rendering of the interior of the concert hall in the Colburn Center.

    An artist’s rendering of the interior of the concert hall in the Colburn Center.

    (Courtesy of Frank O. Gehry & Gehry Partners)

    The size puts it in a sweet spot between the 2,265-seat Disney and the popular 415-seat Herbert Zipper Concert Hall already on the Colburn campus. The nearby Dorothy Chandler Pavilion seats about 3,200 guests. Larger still is the Peacock Theater at L.A. Live, which seats 7,100.

    “It’s more rare to find a kind of medium-sized venue,” Kardan said. “They’re extremely desirable and highly functional. They also have enough seats to be really economically viable.”

    Japanese acoustical engineer Yasuhisa Toyota will be the acoustician for the hall, as he has been for all of Gehry’s concert halls, beginning with Disney Hall.

    The Colburn Center will also more than double facilities for the school’s Trudl Zipper Dance Institute, creating what the school called “one of the most comprehensive dance education complexes in Southern California.” The dance facilities will include a 100-seat theater for dance and four professional-size studios for dance instruction and rehearsal.

    Architect Frank Gehry, left, and Colburn School President Sel Karden

    Architect Frank Gehry, left, and Colburn School President Sel Karden at Gehry Partners with a model of Gehry’s design of an addition for Colburn School, a private performing arts school in downtown Los Angeles.

    (Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

    The center will include a rooftop garden large enough to host receptions and outdoor performances, as well as a ground-level garden with a performance space that will be open to the public.

    “I think it is very exciting that the school is going to expand,” Mayor Karen Bass said. “I think one of the things the school is known for is an incredible facility and experience for young people. It also provides access through scholarships, so it is a treasure for the city that is accessible to all.”

    The Colburn School estimates that it already brings in 10,000 people a week, including students attending classes, lessons and rehearsals. Others rent the current performance and lecture spaces, helping attract audiences who attend more than 500 performances a year in the existing small venues.

    The Colburn School has raised $315 million to date toward its $400-million goal for the expansion, the school said. The campaign will cover an estimated $335 million in construction costs as well as $65 million in endowment and operating costs to support the activities of the Colburn Center and the Colburn School.

    The new building represents the near culmination of decades of efforts to redevelop Bunker Hill, a former residential neighborhood dating from the city’s early years that was razed in the 1960s to make way for “urban renewal,” a popular concept at the time intended to remake blighted city blocks from the ground up that displaced mostly poor people.

    A rendering of the Hill Street side of Colburn Center

    A rendering of the Hill Street side of Colburn Center, which will include ground-level and rooftop gardens.

    (Courtesy of Frank O. Gehry & Gehry Partners)

    First among the new development was the Music Center performing arts complex, followed years later by office skyscrapers, a few apartment buildings and such cultural venues as the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, the Colburn School for music and the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. Disney Hall opened in 2003, followed 12 years later by the Broad museum.

    Gehry’s design for Colburn Center was influenced by decisions he had to make while creating a mid-size concert hall inside an existing warehouse in Berlin. The space was small, so he had to put some audience members on the same level as the musicians.

    “The audience’s feet are on the same floor as the orchestra,” he said. “I had no idea, but that made a ‘wow’ difference.”

    Another facet of the Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin that Gehry is bringing to Los Angeles is what he calls a floating balcony. In Berlin, it wasn’t structurally possible to hook the balcony to the wall, so he suspended it in a way that gives the impression of floating above the action.

    “At first, everybody said, ‘Well, that’s not going to work,‘” Gehry said. “Finally, that became nirvana. So wherever we go now, everybody wants a floating balcony.”

    A view of Colburn Center east from Olive Street towards the entrance to the concert hall.

    A view of Colburn Center east from Olive Street towards the entrance to the concert hall.

    (Courtesy of Frank O. Gehry & Gehry Partners, LLP)

    Hanging from the ceiling will be concrete sound clouds designed to improve acoustics and evoke a sense of airiness. Gehry hopes that catwalks can be added above the clouds that can be used in future performances.

    “There’s a lot of space up there,” he said. “Our hope is once it’s built we’ll put catwalks through there and bring artists and performers so that will become another space, a part of the music.”

    Upon completion in 2027, the Colburn Center should broaden the Bunker Hill arts district that is now mostly confined to Grand Avenue, he said.

    “The body language of the building is to try to be user-friendly, not to preempt and become the centerpiece, but to be a part of the feeling of the district and cement it as a cultural district.”

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    Roger Vincent

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