New Complex to Be Erected at Northridge Quake Site

The nation last saw the area as a heap of wreckage, glass shards and splintered beams.

At the site where the Northridge Meadows apartment complex once stood, a symbol of the Jan. 17, 1994, earthquake and its destruction, work on the new Parc Ridge apartment structure began Monday.

Its builders say it will be a symbol of recovery as well as a memorial.

The building’s designer, John Reed of Santa Monica-based REA Architects, said the design and materials used in Parc Ridge “will make an architectural statement about the earthquake.”

Reed and Robert Kleiman, co-owner of Structure Development Group, the project’s contractor, pointed to tougher building codes the city adopted after the quake. “The new codes require significantly improved structural components, like additional hold-down bolts to the foundation and sheer walls,” Kleiman said.