Builder Gives L.A. $28.2-Million Check : Library Project Gets Financial Boost
After nine months of delays, renovation of the fire-scarred Los Angeles Central Library received a $28.2-million boost Wednesday when the developer of an ambitious downtown project that will help finance the library’s restoration turned over a check for that amount to city officials.
The transfer of funds marked the first concrete indication that the long-awaited renovation--the subject of years of municipal wrangling--will proceed, library officials said. Mayor Tom Bradley and Library Commission President Ron Lushing were among those who formally accepted the check from developer Robert F. Maguire III at a ceremony on the library grounds.
“What it means is that there is a commitment to the project,” said library spokesman Robert G. Reagan. “One way or another, the project now goes forward.”
The financial underpinnings of the library renovation grew from a complex development agreement among the city, the Community Redevelopment Agency and Maguire Thomas Partners, a commercial property developer.
Essentially, Maguire Thomas was given the right to build two office towers near the library--at heights exceeding the allowable limit--in exchange for depositing millions into an account set up to restore and expand the 60-year-old flagship library at 5th and Hope streets.
Maguire Thomas was due to make the first payment nine months ago, but won a series of postponements after it ran into delays in signing up tenants for the office towers.
When he turned over the payment on Wednesday, Maguire said that construction of the first building, a 73-story, $350-million structure called Library Tower, will begin June 23. Maguire said it will be the tallest skyscraper on the West Coast.
The $141-million renovation and expansion of the Central Library, meanwhile, is expected to begin early next year. Overall, Maguire Thomas is expected to pay $50 million toward the cost of the library renovation, according to CRA officials.
A temporary library, to be housed in the old Bullock’s building at 7th Street and Broadway, is expected to open next year and will serve until the original library reopens in 1991.
The expansion had been planned long before an arson blaze swept through the aging library 14 months ago, destroying more than 375,000 volumes and causing $22 million in damage. A second arson fire, which fire officials believe was unrelated to the first, burned another 25,000 books and caused $2 million damage in September, 1986.
