New Koll Center Finds Fun Comes Naturally

People on their lunch hour walk by the new office and residential complex called Koll Center at 501 West Broadway and stop to look into the 30-foot-high window. Many of them are surprised when they discover that the huge glass cage houses 70 exotic birds and 12 varieties of plants.

But it is not just the aviary that makes the newly opened structure unconventional. The pale pink and green marble lobby also houses two 5,000-gallon aquariums next to the elevators and six 40-foot royal palm trees flanking the main entrance.

The aquariums “give people who are waiting for the elevator something to do instead of look at each other and wonder what to say or not to say,” said Bob Wade, a contractor with Koll Co., the Newport Beach-based developer of the 365,000-square-foot structure, which opened July 1.

Most people who work in the building or who just come to look at it agree that the 60-foot-high, glass-vaulted lobby is relaxing and innovative.

“It has flair, it has real class,” said Carolyn Barg, who works at Centre City Development Corp. in a building nearby. “It is not the standard office intention.”

When the $160-million project was conceived, the goal was to create a unique building, said Biff Porter, vice president of Koll Co. A design company came up with a “fun list” to make the complex bright and lively, and Koll Co. implemented the ideas, including the $125,000 aviary and the $100,000 aquariums.

The $82-million first phase of the project has a 21-story tower with 18 floors of office space, a 2,000-square-foot space for two stores, a flower shop and an international newspaper stand, a 5,000-square-foot restaurant and a 10,000-square-foot health club.

Work on the second of the project is scheduled to begin next July and will open in January, 1992. Phase 2 will be connected to the original lobby by a series of escalators that will be decorated with a waterfall, Porter said.