Peeled Back
Located in the heart of the downtown produce district, the offices of Lowe Enterprises Commercial Group are not easily mistaken for those in a high-rise building.
“You know that clearly, because you are dodging the lift truck” to get in the front door, said Douglas Hinchliffe, a principal of the firm’s corporate parent, Lowe Enterprises.
Once inside the door, however, visitors are surprised to discover a tasteful office interior that combines the stripped-down aesthetic of exposed steel columns, wooden ceiling beams and bare concrete with wrought iron, mosaic tile and hanging lamps.
The office is on the second floor of the Seventh Street Market, a concrete monolith built in 1917 that stands today as a reminder of the rough-and-tumble evolution of the produce industry.
For the last 70 years, the market has been at the center of the city’s wholesale fruit and vegetable trade. Upstairs is the site of a long-closed “clubhouse” that produce merchants used for entertaining.
“It was more than just a meeting place,” Hinchliffe said. “The activities [that took place there] were more consistent with a red-light district.”
Nowadays, the noteworthy aspect of the upstairs comes from design, not dalliance.
Lowe bought the building in 1988 and moved into the offices in 1993. The remodel by architect John Thogmartin of Los Angeles included removing a false ceiling, sandblasting the wooden ceiling structure and the outer concrete walls, repainting the door frames and installing skylights.
Much of the impact of the interior comes from the contrast between the produce market activity in the street below and the refinement of the office above.
In the early morning, the market is a beehive of activity. Trucks pull into the narrow lanes of the market, load pallets of onions, tomatoes and fresh green chilies, then roll out to grocers and supermarkets citywide. The market bustles with produce workers, and on hot days the service alley reeks from rotted vegetables.
Visitors enter through World War I-era wooden doors with elaborate wrought-iron detailing, and climb a vintage wooden staircase.
An original tiled fountain is visible from the reception area. From that point on, the new supplants the old: Visitors can see the contrast of original materials with new offices, skylights and white-painted walls.
The incongruity is particularly startling for people who work in conventional high-rises, said Hinchliffe.
“When our financial partners arrive from Boston, New York or [other cities on the West Coast], there is not a single person who does not have a reaction,” he said. “Everyone who comes through the door says, ‘Whoa! Look at this!’ ”
Hinchliffe attributes much of the effect to the materials. “It is the raw concrete and the exposed wood,” he said. “You don’t typically see those surfaces in downtown office buildings.”
