$20-Million Retail Project Planned Near Chinese Theatre
Two Hollywood-based developers will unveil plans Thursday for a new retail building designed by some of Los Angeles’ best-known architects on the site immediately west of the historic Mann’s Chinese Theatre.
Construction of the $20-million, 32,000-square-foot project on a parking lot at Hollywood Boulevard and Orange Street is scheduled to begin in January, with completion expected in February 2001.
Designed by a partnership of two architectural firms--RoTo Architects Inc. and John Ash Group, both of Los Angeles--the new building will have a sculptural, tent-like form fronted by a 4,000-square-foot courtyard. The lower level of the building will include space for retail stores, while the 9,000-square-foot second level will be an open courtyard that may contain a restaurant as well as space that could be rented for parties and events.
A 25-foot-wide passageway, covered by an awning, will separate the new building and the Chinese Theatre. The architects said they devoted as much attention to the rear facade of the building as the front, because many visitors to the Chinese Theatre and the new retail building will approach from the rear, when a bus drop-off plaza is completed on Orange.
The new scheme replaces an earlier proposal by the same developers to build an IMAX theater, fronted by 50-foot-tall, free-standing capital letters spelling out “Hollywood.” The earlier scheme, which had been selected in a competition in 1993 by the Hollywood Arts Council, was unpopular with some nearby property owners.
The developers were also unable to attract an IMAX theater. In January, architect John Ash, who was project architect on the earlier design, suggested inviting RoTo Architects, a firm that has won a number of national awards for buildings in Los Angeles and elsewhere, to join the design team.
Ash said he sought RoTo to bring a contemporary feeling to the design. He said TrizecHahn, the developer of the historically flavored Hollywood and Highland project underway on the other side of the Chinese Theatre, was “looking to the past for Hollywood,” while “we wanted to look to the future.”
Architect Michael Rotondi, a principal of RoTo, said the building’s unusual, multifaceted shape was designed to maximize its visibility from surrounding streets and vantage points.
Clark Stevens, also a principal of RoTo, said the new building is intended to be “deferential” toward the famed Chinese Theatre. The theater was completed in 1927 by impresario Sid Graumann and has become a symbol of historic Hollywood and, until recently, was one of the few places where tour buses regularly stopped in Hollywood.
The new project would complete the block that includes both the Chinese Theatre and the $385-million Hollywood and Highland project, currently under construction. The latter project contains both retail and the future auditorium for the Academy Awards ceremony.
The developers, Larry Worchell and Steven G. Ullman, said in an interview that they hope the new building will become both a landmark and an example for developers in the use of avant-garde architecture in high-profile commercial projects.
Ullman pointed out that future Oscar-night broadcasts are likely to showcase the new building to a worldwide television audience. For that reason, he said, the building sits on “one of the most noticeable pieces of property in the world.”
Worchell is chairman of the Hollywood Palladium, while Ullman is president and chief executive officer of Grant Parking Inc. and chairman of the Bank of Hollywood. The half-acre site is owned by Grant Parking.
A model of the new building will go on display Thursday at the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce Economic Development Summit at the Egyptian Theater.
