Light is beginning to shine again into downtown’s iconic 1914 Los Angeles Herald-Examiner building.
Some of the structure’s large, arched, street-level windows that were covered and sealed during a strike years ago are being uncovered and removed, as the former newspaper headquarters prepares for a reported $40 million transformation into restaurant, retail, and creative office space.
The mission revival-Spanish colonial building at Broadway and 11th Street – designed by Hearst Castle architect Julia Morgan, California’s first registered female architect – was home to the daily Herald-Examiner until the newspaper shut down in 1989. Since then, it has housed movie and TV sets, standing in for an office, apartment, bar, and a jail.
Various revitalization plans have stalled over the years, but now a partnership between New York real estate firm Georgetown Co. and Hearst Corp., former owner of the Herald Examiner, is breathing new life into the landmark. Downtown architecture firm Gensler is handling the design work.
Carl Muhlstein, Jones Lang LaSalle’s international director based in Los Angeles who is handling the leasing effort, said the distinctive arched windows are going to be restored. The building’s ornate lobby also will be preserved.
“We’re just in sort of a study phase with the architect and contractor, still getting our arms around the project,” Muhlstein said. “There’s been some soft demo of the interior to clear it out. We’re doing field measurement work, structural analysis, all the homework you need to do before you start.”
The interior filming sets were demolished about a year ago, said Georgetown Vice President Michael Fischer, and renovation will probably be completed in early to mid-2018.
The decision to build creative space at the building, Muhlstein said, “addresses the changing workplace strategies that are dominated by the competitive millennials.”
“The whole nature of work is changing, so private offices are giving way to open plans and more collaborative spaces,” he said. “We are anticipating the needs of the millennial workforce.”
– Diane Haithman
