Valley Big-Box Warehouse Gets a Big-Box Wrap

The best way to disguise a “big-box” construction project is to use a big box.

That’s what they decided in North Hollywood, where a 45-foot replica of a cardboard packing box is helping camouflage a new warehouse building. An oversized teddy bear, umbrella and other molded-fiberglass items are depicted as spilling from the top of the faux box, which carries king-size “fragile” and “handle with care” labels.

But as the city fee-financed sculpture was being celebrated Thursday, the question was asked: Is it art or advertising?

It turns out that the sprawling structure to which the sculpture is attached is home to A-1 Self Storage. And as a sign next to the towering, three-dimensional box notes: “We sell boxes.”

The decoration was commissioned after some in the surrounding neighborhood worried that the four-story, 134,000-square-foot building at 5310 Vineland Ave. would look bulky and plain without some sort of embellishment.

Municipal rules require builders to contribute 1% of their developments’ costs to the city to help pay for public art. But most of the time those fees are pooled and used for projects elsewhere, officials say.

Because the storage warehouse development is located in the city-designated NoHo Arts District, members of the area’s regional arts council and others felt that its $63,000 art fee should be spent on the building, not somewhere else, said Lillian Burkenheim, a project manager for the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency.

The design by North Hollywood artist Hyunsook Cho was selected by the owner-developers of the $6-million project, said Tom Kearney, one of the partners. He and the others kicked in an extra $48,000 to pay for the pieces to be attached to the corner of the building, Kearney said.

So what is it? Art or ad?

“Good question. It’s sort of advertising,” said Lewis Schlesinger, a North Hollywood lawyer who stopped to admire the work Thursday. “But it mitigates the look of the building. I like it.”

Robert “Bud” Ovrom, head of the Community Redevelopment Agency, pronounced the big box as art. He recalled wrestling with the same question as city manager of Burbank when “Seven Dwarfs” statues were installed as architectural columns at the Team Disney building in 1991. That was deemed to be art, too, he said.

City Councilman Tom LaBonge, who represents the North Hollywood area, also proclaimed Cho’s giant installation as legitimate art. There is no storage company name or logo attached to the box or its “whimsical” contents that would turn it into advertising. City guidelines keep property owners from crossing that line, he said.

So no one should worry that North Hollywood’s big box will become public art’s Pandora’s box.