Office Space Wars Winners Are Sitting Pretty in Penthouse

The view from the offices of the Drug Enforcement Administration in Los Angeles stretches beyond the rim of Dodger Stadium and across the Valley to the San Gabriel Mountains. Inside, the carpeting is plush and the place still smells like a new car. And location? Just a two-minute walk from the federal courthouse, where agents often have business.

It’s the penthouse suite of government offices, and the DEA’s success in nabbing it--a victory in a new realm of “office politics”--has not gone unnoticed.

As one FBI agent grumbled recently: “Who died and made them Trump?”

The tower that DEA sits atop has no relation to the fallen New York real estate magnate, and it’s not exactly a luxury hotel. But in the hunt for federal office space, the Edward R. Roybal Building, a $158.5-million, 21-story monolith of red granite and gray glass, is the hottest government property around.

In this era of cutbacks and intense public scrutiny of government spending, nabbing a new office is a cherished victory for agencies that otherwise would be condemned to carry out their missions in aging, drab institutional buildings--the kind that often are painted green and seem to evoke visions of a mental ward.

Among the lucky agencies that snared offices inside the new Roybal Building are the DEA, the Secret Service and Equal Opportunity Commission, a small wing of the State Department and a variety of judges.

But for every tenant who got a space, there are more who did not. The Internal Revenue Service, the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the FBI are just a few of the losers in this bureaucratic game of one-upmanship. They remain housed in the older, uninviting federal office buildings across Los Angeles. One of those, the federal office building at 300 N. Los Angeles St., just across a plaza from Roybal, is a hospital-like maze of corridors and threadbare carpets. It’s functional, but it’s nobody’s favorite.

Inevitably, there’s been some grumbling.

“It has to be kind of hard for the people in 300 to look across the plaza and see that brand new building,” said Mary Filippini, a spokeswoman for the General Services Administration, which has overseen construction and management of the new building. “We realize that putting up a new building makes the old one look a little shabby.”

Filippini, who works in San Francisco, is considerably more diplomatic than some local observers.

“It’s the difference between a slum and Beverly Hills,” one federal agent said. “It’s night and day.”

So how did the DEA and the other winners manage to pull off their real estate victory? The GSA says it picked Roybal’s tenants based on the bottom line, not on comfort.

“Our general policy is to get people out of leases,” Filippini said. “It tends to be more cost-effective over time to own buildings rather than lease.”

As a result, DEA, which was leasing space in the World Trade Center, got priority over agencies such as the FBI and IRS, which occupy government-owned buildings.

Just leases, no politicking here. That’s what they say.

Even after securing a spot in the building, DEA held out for one more bonus: The drug administration said it wanted the top floors. The FBI routinely makes similar requests because a high perch gives the intelligence agencies better security and access to rooftop communications systems.

It also guarantees penthouse views, although both agencies insist that has nothing to do with the policy.

The DEA got its wish and moved in last year. So now FBI agents have to schlep 45 minutes across town to make a court appearance, while their DEA counterparts lope across the street.

The early reviews of the Roybal Building are overwhelmingly positive. The building’s chief backer and namesake, former Rep. Roybal, liked the building so much he buttonholed a space for his staff on one of the upper floors.

When he left Congress this month, his daughter Lucille, herself a newly elected member of the House of Representatives, took over her father’s suite of offices. So the Roybal Building still has a Roybal, even if this one is a Roybal-Allard.

Still, amid the fanfare for the new building, there are a few voices of quiet discontent.

Some lower floors are being reserved for District Court judges. The new building has expansive views and new amenities--every district judge gets his or her own shower--but the courtrooms are smaller and plainer than those in the old federal courthouse.

Then there are the little things.

“We have our share of glitches, doors that slam in your face, microphones that cut in and out,” said U.S. District Judge Dickran Tevrizian, who chaired the space committee for the judges. “But over in the old courthouse, you’d come in in the morning, and there would be this thin film of who-knows-what over everything. . . . This really is a beautiful building.”

Tevrizian also has a few complaints about the artwork in front of the building--a collection of tiny, odd figures that he says are demeaning to women. And although he likes his chambers, he is mystified by a few of the extras.

“They’re great showers,” he said. “But who’s going to take a shower?”

It is the courtroom space that is likely to pose the most significant public issue for the new courts because the building is about to be severely tested. Journalists and curious onlookers from around the world will descend on U.S. District Judge John G. Davies’ court next month when trial begins for four police officers charged with violating Rodney G. King’s civil rights.

That is bound to pose some problems. There are no public phones installed yet on the floor where Davies has his courtroom, and the seating in his court is nowhere near adequate to accommodate the horde that is expected to arrive.

“So much for the right to a public trial,” said one prosecutor who is not involved in the King case. “But at least the judges get their own showers.”