High-tech center for Pasadena
A threesome crucial to planting Walt Disney Concert Hall on Bunker Hill in downtown L.A. is teamed up again to bring a high-tech instructional and research building to a bucolic hillside in Pasadena.
The project is the Design Research Center, an estimated $50-million facility where Art Center College of Design hopes students can learn about the newest developments in computerized design technology.
The trio consists of Frank Gehry; Art Center President Richard Koshalek, who chaired the selection committee that endorsed Gehry as Disney Hall’s architect; and Andrea Van de Kamp, the former Music Center chairwoman who played a key role in reigniting fundraising for the hall.
Art Center announced this week that it had reached the halfway mark in a $150-million fundraising campaign. The first $75 million, among other things, paid for Art Center’s 2004 expansion to a satellite campus in South Pasadena quartered at a renovated former Douglas Aircraft test site.
Van de Kamp, a longtime Pasadena resident, was brought on board last month to spearhead the second phase of fundraising -- with the goal of opening the new building within five years.
“She understands the world of creative individuals, and she has a strong commitment to the city of Pasadena and Gehry,” Koshalek said Thursday.
Meanwhile, Koshalek said, an agreement reached this month between Art Center and Pasadena officials greenlights work on expanding the South Campus as a base for the school’s graduate division and public programs.
The City Council approved a 55-year lease on part of the nearby Glenarm Power Plant property, with Art Center paying $1 a year. Art Center aims to build a parking garage there -- and the deal makes it possible to proceed with a 200-unit apartment building for grad students across the street estimated to cost $35 million and designed by Daly Genik Inc., which renovated the aircraft test site.
Koshalek said the student housing and parking projects are being undertaken in partnership with private developers, who will earn back their investments from rents and fees.
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