Buildings Reborn : The ‘adaptive reuse’ movement saves outdated architectural treasures by converting them to other uses.

Old buildings never die. At least they don’t have to.

Take Bullock’s Wilshire, for example. Which is just what Southwestern University School of Law did earlier this year, taking over after the R. H. Macy & Co. vacated the building. The elegant 1929 landmark department store is scheduled to reopen in December, 1995, as the school’s law library.

The magnificent monument to Art Deco architecture barely escaped consignment to a landfill and a page in the history books as a missing part of the history and culture of Southern California.

Bullock’s Wilshire was saved through “adaptive use,” which the National Trust for Historic Preservation defines as “converting a building to a use other than that for which it was designed. . . .”

The adaptive reuse movement to save architectural treasures reaches far beyond Southern California, with cities and neighborhoods all over the country finding new life for outdated buildings.

“(These buildings) are examples of who we are, where we came from and where we are going,” said Huell Howser, host of a weekly program on public television about past and present Los Angeles and the California Preservation Foundation’s 1993 “Preservationist of the Year.”

“In other words,” he said, “a building separates Los Angeles from San Antonio, and San Antonio from Kansas City, and Kansas City from Chicago. . . .”

Southern California is defined by a surprising wealth of distinctive old buildings that over the years have escaped the wrecking ball and been reborn through adaptive reuse.

Among them:

--In Santa Ana, the United Presbyterian Church is an example of Beaux Arts, a classic mix of historic styles. Built in 1911, it is now used as a rehearsal hall for the Pacific Symphony and for performances by a local comedy troupe, the Orange County Crazies.

--In Pasadena, the YWCA no longer provides fitness and short-term accommodations for young women. Designed in 1920 by Julia Morgan, architect of William Randolph Hearst’s San Simeon estate, the building has recently been converted to private housing.

--Another of Morgan’s YWCA designs is now occupied by the Riverside Art Museum. Built in 1929, the building was restored in 1990, and reflects the Mission style of neighboring buildings in Riverside’s historic downtown.

--In Glendale, the former Intervalley Ranch Winery’s stone barn, built in the early part of the century, was recently converted to a nature center for the surrounding Deukmejian Wilderness Park.

--Just a stone’s throw from the Glendale Galleria is the classically styled 1929 Masonic Temple, a nine-story building that is now a performing arts center for the A Noise Within theater group.

--In Canoga Park, an old Mission-style building conjures up images of padres and Indians tending gardens and livestock. In reality, the structure was built in the mid-1930s by film star Francis Lederer for use as a stable. It was later converted and now houses the Canoga Mission Gallery, which showcases folk and primitive art.

--In Huntington Beach, what else could city planners do but install a surfing museum in a former theater, which during one previous incarnation was known as Sam’s Tiki Room?

While not a new concept, adaptive use is gaining in popularity, due in part to economic pressures.

“In historic preservation, sort of a flip statement is that ‘poverty preserves,’ ” said Marion Mitchell Wilson, architectural historian for the Riverside Planning Department.

One of Mitchell Wilson’s recent triumphs is the newly restored Loring Building. Built in 1890 by Charles Loring, the building was used as Riverside’s first City Hall. In December, 1993, after a $2.75-million renovation, the first tenants to move in were the Riverside Chamber of Commerce and the Riverside Development Agency.

Besides the recession’s beneficial effects on preservation, today’s focus on energy conservation has also placed a premium on recycling old buildings.

“In many cases, rehabilitation can be cheaper and it can be faster,” said Barbara Hoff, director of preservation issues for the Los Angeles Conservancy, a nonprofit historic preservation group.

Developer Wayne Ratkovitch agrees. One of the leading real estate developers in Los Angeles for the past 20 years, Ratkovitch also serves on the board for the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

“It’s a lot less expensive to fix than demolish a building,” Ratkovitch said. “Economically it’s beneficial, and from a social point of view it’s a worthy endeavor.”

Recycling old buildings can also revive a declining neighborhood. The Loring Building is just one of 28 points of interest on Riverside’s historic downtown walking tour, along with the Mission Inn.

For Torrance, the catalyst for revitalizing the historic downtown was the Southern Pacific train depot. Now an upscale restaurant called The Depot, the building is the centerpiece in a 50,000-square-foot commercial office and shopping center.

Designed by architect Irving Gill in 1912, the early California-style depot was too weak to tolerate the seismic upgrades required for safety. So the contractor preserved the fragile walls by sandwiching them between new inner and outer walls that exactly matched the originals; the dome was saved in the same way.

Spurred by The Depot’s success, other restaurants and businesses are moving into Historic Downtown Torrance. “I think it encourages other people to redevelop as well,” said Rick Cappelino, of Cappelino & Associates, developer and contractor for The Depot.

In South-Central Los Angeles, the recently renovated historic Dunbar Hotel is beginning to have the same effect. The hub of Central Avenue’s jazz scene and the African-American community for the better part of the century, the hotel had fallen into decay during the 1970s.

In the early 1980s, a grass-roots movement formed the Dunbar Economic Development Corp. (EDC), initially to found the Dunbar Museum. The Dunbar EDC then acquired the hotel, and the planning began. Funding was culled from many sources, including KCBS-TV, the Chevron Oil Co. and the Community Redevelopment Agency. The hotel was already both a local and national historic landmark, so the project benefited from a federal rehabilitation tax credit available to qualified restorations.

According to Reginald Chapple, project director for the Dunbar EDC, it was the first project of its kind to be done by the city.

“The Community Development Department recognized the need to restore the building to its original condition,” Chapple said, “and actually get into the adaptive use kind of mode.”

Now a market, dry cleaning shop and restaurant have opened nearby. And next door to the hotel, Somerville Place, a new project combining housing, a child-care center and commercial space broke ground earlier this year.

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The Dunbar is also three projects in one. First is the Dunbar Hotel Apartment’s 73 units of affordable housing, which provide income to operate the hotel. Second are the ground-floor commercial spaces leased to local businesses. And, on the second floor of the hotel, is the Dunbar Museum, which also serves as a community meeting and exhibit space. The EDC is discussing plans to convert the former basement nightclub, The Turban Room, into space for local entertainment, echoing the rich past of the jazz era hotel.

A number of the hotel’s tenants lived, worked and played in the Central Avenue area during its heyday. Musicians, singers and artists often stayed at the Dunbar, and Nat (King) Cole often invited aspiring musicians to sit in on his sessions.

“Some of the residents have great stories,” said Chapple. “Like, ‘I bumped into Billie Holiday, we just chatted for a few moments.’ ”

Chapple sees the restoration of the Dunbar as a means to help a community scarred by gang violence find new meaning in its past.

In the old days of Central Avenue, “younger persons could actually meet their heroes, see how they made it,” Chapple said. “That doesn’t happen right now . . . which is why we are trying to preserve the history of the African-American community.”

The Dunbar Hotel is one example of a newly emerging definition of what determines which buildings are worthy of saving.

Until more neighborhoods follow suit, buildings like the Golden Gate Theater in East Los Angeles face a shaky future.

Designed in 1927 by the Balch Brothers, noted architects from that era, the Golden Gate was purchased by a private developer in 1981.

In 1986, the owner, with plans to build a mini-mall on the site, began demolition of the two-story commercial building that wrapped around the front and side of the theater. Called the Vega Building, it was built at the same time as the theater complex, and contained both commercial and residential space.

“My father drove by and saw the wrecking ball,” said Alma Martinez, who at the time was chief of staff for then Los Angeles City Councilwoman Gloria Molina. “He called me, and I got on the phone and called (then Supervisor Ed) Edleman’s office.”

Martinez then set into motion actions that would save the theater, including organizing a protest by local residents to physically block the demolition. Although the Vega Building was lost, the theater remains, waiting for investors and plans.

With no local preservation group fighting for it and no historic district designation, the future looks grim for the Golden Gate.

“There are things you must do to promote economic benefit while still preserving the history of this area,” said Martinez, who is now chief of staff for First District Supervisor Molina.

And, added Carrie Sutkin, Molina’s planning deputy, “It takes a local group to be concerned and put this preservation issue up in the public eye.”

Traditionally, in lower-income areas, the prime focus for the residents is generally safety. Preservation is low on the list due to economics, time restrictions and lack of information.

“It comes down to the question of empowering neighborhoods, and sometimes you need additional resources for that,” Sutkin said. “You need experts, organizations like the Los Angeles Conservancy to come in, and a lot of these (neighborhood) groups wouldn’t even know how to reach them or what they are for.”

But there may just be a happy ending for the theater. This past summer, hearings were held in Sacramento to determine the fate of the Golden Gate. Local advocacy groups, the Mothers of East Los Angeles and Barrio Planners, spoke on behalf of the theater, along with the Los Angeles Conservancy. Currently, the Metropolitan Transit Authority is looking at the building for potential use as a transit station.

As with the owner of the Golden Gate Theater, the reality is that any building, regardless of its historic value, is still real estate. Reuse is just one of many options for an investor to choose from.

The challenge for preservationists is to make that option attractive and provide incentives for owners and investors to choose rehabilitation over other investment options.

“As the person who has to go to the bank and borrow the money, we have to be guided by the economic benefit,” Ratkovitch said. “I think the chances are as good that one could be as successful in restoring older buildings as they can in new development.”

Ratkovitch’s past projects include the Wiltern Theater and Offices, and in downtown Los Angeles, the Fine Arts and Oviatt buildings. He is currently working on a project 10,000 miles from Los Angeles, in Moscow, renovating a six-sided building built in 1923 for an exhibition in Gorky Park.

“The ability for us to preserve the best of our past is probably the most significant economic thing that we can do for a community,” Ratkovitch said.