7th St. Proposal Worries Preservationists : Air Rights Law Likely to Test L.A.’s Resolve to Save Old Buildings

The U.S. arm of a Japanese developer is proposing an unusual $400-million office-hotel-retail complex that it hopes will help revitalize downtown Los Angeles’ Seventh Street, a once-glistening row of smart shops that has since faded.

But the fledgling project is already generating controversy because it could mean the destruction of two old--some say historic--buildings. It could prove to be the first test of the city’s resolve to protect historic downtown structures under a year-old ordinance regulating how high a developer can build.

Called Grand Avenue Plaza, the development would include two office towers, a 500-room hotel, a restaurant, shops and a lushly landscaped plaza where pedestrians could linger, said Sue Iwasaki, executive developer of Pacific Atlas Development Corp., the Los Angeles-based subsidiary of Pacific Atlas of Tokyo.

“This is a people-friendly project. I think that’s important,” said the San Diego-born executive, who has developed several properties of her own and specializes in renovating buildings in and around Little Tokyo. Iwasaki was one of the early developers of artists’ lofts on the east side of downtown 10 years ago.

Although Pacific Atlas has renderings and models galore, the project is still young and the design of several features could change, in part depending on what happens during negotiations with the Community Redevelopment Agency, which regulates development in much of downtown, said Miles Kubo, Pacific Atlas general manager.

Public Garden

“We wouldn’t want to deceive anybody,” Kubo said. “This project is still very much in the planning stages.”

But Pacific Atlas has bought all except a small piece of the site, an entire city block bounded by Seventh, Grand, Eighth and Olive. The company has invested more than two years in planning and design.

The first phase of the project would be a 34-story blue-green tower and the 40,000-square-foot plaza, which, as planned, would be more like a public garden than the typical paved square found outside the typical office building, Kubo said.

“Los Angeles is short of green space,” he said.

“The idea is to create a walking zone. There are a lot of businesses along Seventh Street that we’ve talked to that feel the neighborhood is changing, and they don’t think the neighborhood is changing for the better,” Kubo said. Shops would be located on all four streets surrounding the complex.

Also envisioned for later phases are a 12-story luxury hotel, a small retail building and another large tower whose size, currently set at 59 stories, would depend on what kind of “air rights” the CRA would allow the developer to buy.

Air rights refer to the space available for development at a given plot of land, and such rights are bought and sold when a developer wants to exceed the limits. The first office tower and hotel will use all the air rights available at the site, Kubo said.

Sore Point

Most of the site is covered with parking lots with the exception of the Seventh Street side, which is dominated by the 77-year-old Brockman Building, former home of a Brooks Bros. traditional men’s clothing store that recently moved a few blocks away to Figueroa Steet. On the other corner is the four-story Coulter Dry Goods building, which, when the structure opened in 1917, housed the city’s oldest mercantile establishment.

Those two buildings have become a sore point with Los Angeles Conservancy, a preservationist group that sued the CRA over air rights use at an office and hotel development near Pershing Square resulting in the May, 1988, ordinance to set up a more formal process for transferring air rights. The CRA is still developing a procedure on how to value air rights in cash and public benefits--things like historic preservation, low-income housing, child care and cultural facilities.

The CRA and City Planning Commission have said they would discourage the transfer of air rights to projects where historically or architecturally significant structures would be demolished.

Neither building is a legal landmark, although the Brockman and Coulter Dry Goods buildings were among seven structures nominated last year by Los Angeles Conservancy to the Cultural Heritage Commission’s Historic-Cultural Monument List. The other five were forwarded to council committee without Brockman and Coulter when Councilman Gilbert Lindsay intervened at the request of the owners, Conservancy Executive Director Jay Rounds said.

“We at the Conservancy feel very strongly about the importance of the Seventh Street historical corridor,” Rounds said. “It is probably our most historic corridor. As a sort of Rodeo Drive of the teens and ‘20s, it has some interesting architecture and history that reflect its elite status in the development of downtown.”

Environmental Studies

The Conservancy does not oppose development of the block, but demolition of the buildings could imperil the Conservancy’s plans to get the whole Seventh Street corridor named a National Register historic district, he said.

The draft environmental impact report on the project assumed that Brockman, Coulter and a small building in between would be demolished. The CRA requested a more in-depth study on reuse of the two buildings, which has been included in the report, said Ileana Liel, senior planner in charge of the CRA’s environmental review section. A final environmental impact report should be ready in a few months, she said.

The draft environmental impact report “doesn’t say the reuse options are infeasible,” Liel said. “It comes down to how much money the developer would like to make and it comes down to the developer’s perception as to what kind of a project they want.”

Pacific Atlas is looking at several designs for the hotel, which would stretch along Seventh Street, said Pat Underwood, senior project manager. Alternatives include saving one or both buildings, saving the facades of one or both, building a replica or starting over with new construction, he said. One plan even calls for numbering the buildings’ bricks, dismantling the structures and later reassembling the facades as part of the hotel.

The buildings, which have been remodeled several times over the years, do not meet current building codes and are not earthquake safe, Underwood said.

Rounds said Pacific Atlas does not seem terribly interested in saving the buildings, although at a meeting Wednesday company representatives appeared to be bending.

Clifton Disagrees

“We remain hopeful that they are ready to work with us,” Rounds said. “In a year of meetings with them they’ve never once showed us a drawing or any kind of site plan . . . in which there was even a shred of any historic fabric left.”

Clifton Cafeterias President Donald Clinton was among some nearby property owners and tenants who spoke in support of the Pacific Atlas development at a CRA hearing last month.

Clifton’s has been commended by the Conservancy for preservation of its historic building across the street from Brockman and Coulter, Clinton said. “I’m a big supporter and booster of the Conservancy, but sometimes I disagree with their point of view and this is one of those times,” he said.

“I don’t hold the same high evaluation that they seem to of those present old buildings,” he said. “It’s really just a pile of nice old building scabbed over with fast food (signs) and whatever.

“Lord willing, we’re going to be around a long time at this location and we feel that that development would be a tremendous enhancement for the entire neighborhood,” Clinton said. “We’re doing business on the street and we’re looking for good clientele. We’re looking for office occupants and that kind of thing.”

Pacific Atlas estimates the complete project will generate $5.85 million in tax revenues compared to $150,000 now. Some 8,700 jobs would be created, the developer said.