Group Restores Historic Building

When the Banks Huntley Building--an impressive 12-story Art Deco structure--was erected in the late 1920s at 634 S. Spring Street, it was the first building in the city of Los Angeles to have central air conditioning and heating.

Today, after years of renovation, it serves as the national headquarters for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, a leading Latino civil rights organization.

MALDEF officials moved into the historic building in 1984 and in 1991 agreed to buy it for $8.5 million, said MALDEF president and general counsel Antonia Hernandez.

So far, MALDEF has raised $6.2 million from corporate donors to fund its purchase of the building. Most recently, Southern California Edison gave MALDEF $250,000 toward the group’s capital campaign for the building.

Hernandez sees MALDEF’s ownership of the Banks Huntley as a step in sparking a renaissance of the Spring Street corridor, where many government agencies are located.

“I really believe that we need to preserve these old buildings,” Hernandez said. “We believe the historic corridor can be revitalized.”

The Latino organization occupies the top two floors of the building; other nonprofit and city agencies rent space in the rest of the building, Hernandez said.

The walls of the Banks Huntley are covered with finely polished wood paneling. Some of the ceilings are decorated with colorful frescos that are being restored.

“We have totally renovated it. Totally gutted it. It’s totally up to code,” Hernandez said. Cherryl Wilson, director of the Spring Street Assn., a nonprofit property owners group, said, “It’s crucial to the revitalization to this area that private developers come in and take over buildings. The government is not in the position to do all of it. [MALDEF] has been very helpful in terms of attracting positive attention to the area.”