exploring Spring Street

Yesterday The Los Angeles Conservancy hosted a special walking tour of Spring Street. Once the Financial Center of Los Angeles, Spring Street is undergoing a huge growth in today's changing face of Downtown. Adaptive Reuse is the catch-phrase of the moment, to people not familiar with that terminology it means converting a building that was once used as a commercial property (ie. office) into mixed use residential/commercial (ie. lofts).

My partner in crime (literally) for the day was Eric. Eric and I are known for finding open doors in buildings that lead to places not normally open for public access. We've found ourselves in the middle of a construction zone inside of a building being converted, a stairwell that led to no open doors except for the one leading to the street...thank god....and a Mexican restaurant behind a treasured Art Deco building.

Yesterday was no departure from the norm. We started the tour at the old Van Nuys Building on 7th and Spring. Not much to see there except for some sweet elevator cabs and carved marble banister. NEXT.

The tour de force in as far as our inquisitiveness came at out second stop, the Pacific Stock Exchange. There is now a nightclub located on the old trading floor of this interesting Art Deco building. We were herded up to the trading floor in groups of about 15-20 while a docent gave details about it's history. Eric marveled at the vintage signage and bad neon as I wondered what kind of clientele the place catered to and if I would seem devastatingly out of place if I had the urge to shake my groove thing here some Friday night. When the docent was wrapping things up I spotted a restroom and, having the tiniest bladder known to man, needed to pee. When I was done Eric came up to me and whispered, "doors in the back are open." Needless to say we meandered to them and slipped away into the building undetected. Upstairs we found a room that was most likely a private dining club. It was entirely in disrepair with paint peeling from the walls and dead bird skeletons. Yum. Eric took massive amounts of photos of the interior. I took pictures of buildings across the street, The Hayward Hotel, and Eric roaming a room filled with old doors. We went up another few flights of stairs and found abandoned offices and such but nothing as interesting as the original room.

Our next stop was the Security Bank Building. The highlight of this building was the old bank vaults that are being converted into a hipster bar by Marc Smith. He and his former partner Cedd Moses opened the Golden Gopher recently on 8th Street (near Hill). This place is gonna be nice. The main thing you notice when you walk around this space is the interesting rock walls. Well, it's not really walls that you're looking at, it's the foundation of Spring Street. Yes kids, the FOUNDATION for the street above. Look at the pictures I have posted from this event, you can see what I'm talking about in more detail. There will be a bar along one side and at least one of the main vaults will hold a lounge area. The vault doors are stunning in and of themselves. I couldn't get a good pic of the main vault but was able to get a of one further away and cordoned off.

Next up was the most disappointing stop of the day. The Mercantile Arcade Building. This is a loft conversion and the worst one I've seen to date. I do believe I overheard someone refer to it as a "Home Depot special." Odd choice of kitchen cabinetry. And although I am a big proponent of actually having the ability to close off the bedroom from the main portion of the living area - their choice of oversize sliding glass shower doors just didn't do it for me. Plus the $2 per SF price tag for something not well done at all sealed the non-deal. On a side note, this building is one of the ones that Eric and I were able to explore about a year ago when they had just started to undergo conversions. It seemed promising at the time.

Next 2 stops...the insanely beautiful and haunted 1913 Stowell Hotel, later know as the El Dorado Hotel and the Douglas Building Lofts. The El Dorado is next up for conversion by Goodwin Gaw and Tom Gilmore. They also teamed up on the stunning Douglas Building Lofts just down the street. The El Dorado has a massive two story lobby area that encompasses the entire ground floor footprint of the building. Rumor has it that a restaurant similar to Cicada will utilize the space once renovation has been completed. These lofts will be for sale with the smallest units at 800+ SF and starting around $350K....that's an estimate. As I stated earlier the developers are the same as the Douglas Building Lofts and those sold out prior to the building being completed. 34 units were leased on the first day of availability alone! If you're interested in buying downtown I'd say keep you're eye on this property. Definitely.

Douglas Building Lofts note, GAS STOVES! Yay! As we walked into the viewing unit, mind you everything in this building has been sold so this is just for reference to see what the developers will most likely do with the El Dorado, the first thing I notice is it has a gas stove. I'm thrilled when I see gas stoves as I cannot stand electric stoves and would never consider buying a loft with one. Needless to say the designer who just happened to be in the unit at the time heard my exclamation and smiled. I asked him if the El Dorado would be gas as well and he said "yes." To the powers that be, a resounding Thank You!

Final stop on the tour was the Los Angeles Times building, most specifically the lobby that contains 4 murals done by the famous Art Deco muralist Hugo Ballin. Other places around the city you can see his works are Griffith Observatory, One Bunker Hill, Title Guarantee and Trust and...I forget. Oops. Also on display is a huge bronze (?) eagle that once stood at the top of the old Los Angeles Times building. Back in 1910, there was strife between the unions and the owners of the newspaper. The building was bombed and about 20 people lost their life, the building sustained extensive damage but this eagle statue survived and is displayed prominently in the lobby. Yeah, that was an uninteresting story on my part, it's much better when told by others...read and look at this for a much more interesting account. Note the eagle at the top of the building.

After our exhausting walk we fueled up in Little Tokyo at Frying Fish. A sushi joint that serves the food via a conveyor belt, a must for any visitor to the area. Afterwards, ice cream! Because you can't have sushi without ending it on a sweet note.

Make sure to enjoy the pictures from the adventure!

x

Comments

[Grant]

Hi! I just discovered your site and I love it. I too went on a tour of a bunch of those loft conversions downtown a couple years ago. We went into the Mercantile Arcade building and at the time it was still completely raw. And yet in the years since I have not heard anything else about it. Did the project fall through. I haven't been able to find a website on it. Have you heard anything?