Restored Bradbury Called Key to L.A.’s Downtown Core : Renovation: The 98-year-old building at 3rd and Broadway could be a cornerstone to revitalizing historic area, developer says.

Inside the historic office building on Broadway, developer Ira Yellin confidently described the new life that could await downtown Los Angeles’ deteriorated core.

Where others see empty buildings, traffic-choked streets, panhandlers and other civic eyesores, Yellin envisions a “wonderfully interesting environment” that could serve as the “connecting link” between downtown’s disparate parts.

The cornerstone of revitalization efforts, according to Yellin and others concerned about downtown’s future, is the 98-year-old Bradbury Building, which has just undergone a painstaking, $7-million restoration.

Co-owned by Yellin and his former Harvard Law School roommate, Allan Alexander, the landmark building was closed for more than a year while workers added new lighting and a portico, reconditioned its glazed brick walls, repaired its Italian marble stairs and lifted decades of grime from its dramatic five-story skylight.

“The whole history, culture and economy of the city is within a few blocks of here,” Yellin said last week, barely an hour before he threw open the Bradbury’s doors for a party to celebrate the end of the renovation. “In a real sense, I see this place as the city’s center.”

Sharing his view is Edward Avila, the head of the Community Redevelopment Agency, who hailed the Bradbury’s reopening as a significant step in old downtown’s rebirth.

Yet, even Yellin, who is widely praised in downtown circles as a preservationist developer, concedes that the Bradbury and the historic corridor as a whole might be a tough sell.

The developer hopes to persuade lobbyists, law firms, government agencies and other professionals to become tenants in the office building, one of only four in the city with National Landmark status. Last week, he announced that state Treasurer Kathleen Brown had signed the first lease.

Downtown has a glut of office space, however, with the vacancy rate hovering around 20%, the highest in the city, according to a recent survey. Moreover, 70% of the 6 million square feet of unused commercial space downtown is located in the historic core--the area bounded by 1st, Los Angeles, 9th and Hill streets.

Although it encompasses lively retail strips along Hill and Broadway, which draw thousands of shoppers seven days a week, the area also is haunted by social problems. Panhandlers, derelicts and transients are painfully visible on many streets and back alleys, much to the consternation of local merchants.

Jim Hunter, president of the Central City Assn., an influential downtown business group, called the Bradbury’s reopening “the first essential component” of any revitalization strategy in the downtown core.

“It is a small building. It’s not going to have a tremendous economic impact of its own. But the symbolism is important,” Hunter said. “It shows investor confidence in that whole part of downtown. Ira Yellin deserves everyone’s thanks for having taken the incredible risk to bring (the Bradbury) back.”

But, he said, if future efforts are to succeed, city government must strengthen its commitment to redeveloping the entire historic core, which he said has received only “sporadic” attention over the years.

The CRA’s Avila said in an interview last week that he intends to change his agency’s strategy for old downtown. He has appointed a 45-member Historic Core Task Force, which is scheduled to deliver a redevelopment plan for the area by early next year.

The task force will “look at the historic core as a neighborhood, as opposed to looking at individual buildings or corners or any particular spot,” Avila said. “We want to bring this area back to its former glory.”

Hunter suggested that the city would do well to follow Yellin’s lead and focus redevelopment efforts on whole sections within the historic area, rather than on individual buildings.

Yellin controls three major downtown landmarks, all at the intersection of 3rd and Broadway. Over the last several years, he and various partners have purchased, in addition to the Bradbury, the Million Dollar Theater and Grand Central Market.

His development firm, the Yellin Co., is spending an estimated $25 million to upgrade and restore the three properties and to build a parking structure at 3rd and Hill. They form a project he calls Grand Central Square.

Yellin, a Boston native who professes a love of “cities and wilderness and not much in between,” envisions Grand Central Square as the hub of a “corridor of activity” that stretches from Bunker Hill and the Figueroa financial strip on the west to historic Spring Street and Little Tokyo to the east and the Civic Center on the north.

Developing within a few blocks of his own projects are the Angel’s Flight funicular, which may be restored as early as next year; a major Metro Rail station, and the Central Library, which is undergoing renovation. In addition, a business group headed by prominent downtown developers is spearheading a drive to redesign Pershing Square, a gathering spot for many transients and derelicts that many consider a prime example of the city’s neglect of downtown’s older sections.

The Bradbury Building anchors the north end of the historic core, where more than 100 buildings erected between 1900 and 1929 still stand. Designed by architect George H. Wyman, it has an unimposing brick exterior. But it has “one of the most beautiful interior spaces to be found in L. A.,” according to Los Angeles architectural historians David Gebhard and Robert Winter in their guidebook, “Architecture in Los Angeles.”

Chosen as the backdrop for numerous movies, including “Blade Runner,” it features ornate ironwork on the balconies, elevator cages and open stairways. Natural light filters in from the pitched skylight.

Architect Brenda Levin, who oversaw the restoration work, added a new south entry way, which links the building to Biddy Mason Park and the Broadway Spring Center parking garage. Just inside the new entrance, the developers have set aside space for several retail shops.

At last week’s party for the building, guests raved about the Bradbury’s face lift.

“It’s a grand old building,” said Paul McKelvey, 84, who owned the building for 45 years before selling it to Yellin and Alexander in 1989. “It has no competition.”

Yellin is banking on the building’s unique appeal to fill its 78,000 square feet.

“Some people will not like the location. It’s urban, it’s multicultural, and there is a density of people on the sidewalks,” he said.

“But I believe a lot of people in L. A. like the sense and feel and energy of the city. We have a wonderful opportunity to turn this into one of the most dynamic, vibrant parts of L. A.”