By ELIZABETH HAYES

Staff Reporter

Low-rise office campuses with courtyards and gardens have been the hot ticket in suburban areas. But can the concept take hold in downtown L.A., where the office vacancy rate has been high for years?

Catellus Development Corp. will soon find out. The company is about to introduce its concept for an office campus surrounding Union Station.

“It seems to us the setting is so ideal to have a series of courtyards and plazas and public spaces accent the site for a more suburban office product,” said Chief Executive Nelson Rising.

But Rising and other Catellus officials believe the real draw for the 50-acre site would be its promise as a transit hub that would let people commute by rail. Already, 30,000 people commute through Union Station every day.

“The project is predicated on our strong belief in the role that transit will continue to play in addressing the inevitable growth of the L.A. Basin,” said Douglas Gardner, president of Catellus’ mixed-use group.

Catellus owns about 50 acres that include the train station and surrounding area, and it has entitlements for about 6.3 million square feet of office space at the site. However, the plan now calls for only build-to-suit construction or structures that are significantly pre-leased.

“In today’s market conditions, we would not build on spec,” Rising said.

Catellus already has developed headquarters buildings at the site for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and Metropolitan Water District. But the firm placed other building plans on hold during the real estate recession of the mid-’90s.

Millions of square feet of class-A office towers were built just before the recession at the same time several large corporate tenants were merging. The current downtown office vacancy rate stands at about 20 percent.

Catellus once envisioned the Union Station project as predominantly high-rise buildings but took a fresh look at the campus concept while considering ways to distinguish the project from the rest of downtown.

“We came up with an approach for the development of the property that’s very much about the future of L.A., and much more responsive to the marketplace,” said Gardner.

The current master plan designed by the Zimmer Gunsel Frasca Partnership calls for two distinct districts divided by the train platforms and linked by an existing passenger tunnel and a new pedestrian bridge over the tracks.

To the east of the tracks, near the 30-story MTA building, the Gateway Plaza portion of the project would have as much as 4.7 million square feet of space.

The west campus would have 1.6 million square feet of simple, functional buildings of four to 16 stories. They would frame the original Art Deco/Spanish-style train station, which was built in 1939 and recently restored.

Plans for the new buildings call for parking structures, large, flexible floor plates and state-of-the-art telecommunications infrastructure.

“The idea is to create a perimeter of buildings that frame the station and provide a backdrop to the courtyards and gardens,” Gardner said. “What makes Union Station unique is the fact that we already have a nucleus with the historical station.”

As possible tenants, Catellus is targeting telecommunication, high-tech and service firms, along with entertainment companies, Gardner said.

One possible tenant is the architecture and engineering firm of Daniel, Mann, Johnson & Mendenhall, which is considering relocating its offices from Mid-Wilshire to a new 130,000-square-foot building of its own design at Union Station.

“DMJN is very high on it for a number of reasons,” said Brian Ulf, vice president at Cushman Realty Corp. and DMJM’s broker. “It’s a viable center. The only thing missing is the infrastructure. You’ve got to have a California Pizza Kitchen or McDonald’s, something besides Philippe’s and Olvera Street. You need a food court.”

DMJM is also attracted by the proximity to downtown government offices, since it does a lot of public-sector contract work. DMJM’s current lease expires in 2001.

While DMJN is doing due diligence, Ulf said it’s also weighing the fact that “there are still opportunities in the central business district that are cheaper.”

Ulf said the shift by Catellus from a high-rise concept to a campus setting was smart. “It’s functional. It’s what corporate America is looking for,” he said.

But Angelenos remain dependent on their cars. And so far, no large technology firms have moved downtown (although there is a slew of telecom and small Internet firms that have set up shop there).

“We talk to so many new-media clients about the concentrations of technology companies in the Southland and whenever we mention downtown, they groan. It’s a central location, but they don’t love it,” said David Toomey of brokerage Cresa Partners. “If they do something really cool with a campus at Union Station, and they get some momentum, it could attract other technology companies.”