Pacific Design Center Gets Ready for the Red Building

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It has taken him over 30 years, but architect Cesar Pelli is finally close to realizing his vision for the Pacific Design Center.


In the early 1970s, Pelli designed a three-building master plan for the Melrose Avenue center, which for years served as an interior design marketplace. But amid a changing climate in the design industry, the third building was never built.


Now, though, a groundbreaking ceremony for the final Red Building is slated for March 29. And Pelli, a world renowned architect who has designed buildings such as the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, says the center can finally be completed as imagined years ago though for a different use.


Since Pelli’s initial work on the project, which resulted in the existing Blue and Green buildings, the center has changed hands and purpose. Now Cohen Bros. Realty Corp. owns the landmark property and it features creative office space.


“This has been unique because I have never been too far from this project for very long,” said Pelli, whose Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects firm was hired four years ago to make changes to Green Building when it was converted to office space. “I have particular fondness for this project. It has been with me at many different stages in my professional career.”


With construction of the 400,000-square-foot office building at San Vicente Boulevard and Melrose Avenue expected to take as long as two-and-a-half years, there was concern that the project might draw the ire of watchful West Hollywood homeowners.


But West Hollywood City Manager Paul Arevalo said that the $100 million plus project has not been met with resistance from city government or homeowners.


“The response on this particular project has been phenomenal,” Arevalo said. “There is tremendous support from the community. It ties into a major need in the city in terms of bringing in new business.”



Shades of red

While the 14-acre design center was always meant to include a third, red building, the forthcoming project is very different from the building Pelli imagined in the early 1970s. “At the beginning it was a cruder shape, it was not so refined. The building is (now) more sophisticated, more elegant,” Pelli said.


He said the elegance of the twin-tower design is a reflection of its new use as office space. Cohen Bros. bought the center in 1999 and under its ownership the design center has made a shift to office space in response to high vacancy rates as the design industry has migrated away.


In 1999, the 450,000-square-foot Green Building was “about half vacant” as tenants relocated, forcing Cohen Bros. to reposition the building, said Charles S. Cohen, president of New York-based Cohen Bros. The building was rezoned to allow for office space and renovations were done over the last several years to upgrade the building.


The final building is being constructed in an era of low office vacancy rates for the Westside. And aside from the recently-opened 2000 Avenue of the Stars in Century City, there are no immediate plans for a new large office building in West Los Angeles.


Because the Red Building was originally slated for more furniture showrooms, it took nearly three years to re-entitle the building for offices, Cohen said.


Pelli’s firm was brought back in to add basic necessities to Red Building, such as windows. “When we first designed the building in the early 1980s it was to be more of a showroom building an extension of the Blue Building,” Pelli said.


The Green Building, which has retained some showroom space, is now about 98 percent leased, Cohen said. Also, the Blue Building, commonly known as the “Blue Whale,” is about 90 percent leased and features showroom space.


The design includes an 185,000-square-foot west wing and a 215,000-square-foot east wing connected by a courtyard. The angular building includes six levels of above-grade parking below the office space. Pelli boasts it is the only red glass building in the world.

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