Los Angeles County plans to demolish historic headquarters building

With the ink dry on the $200 million purchase of the Gas Company Tower office building in central Los Angeles County, a fight is brewing over what to do with the former 1960s headquarters it plans to leave behind.

Supervisor Janice Hahn and preservationists are rejecting a plan to move workers to the newly purchased skyscraper in Bunker Hill and raze the Kenneth Hahn Administration Hall, which was named for Hahn's father and is a centerpiece of the neighborhood. Government-oriented Civic Center.

“It was a big surprise to me when I realized what was happening,” she said, blaming county administrators for quietly pushing through what she called a closed plan to move the county seat of power and thousands of workers, and then tear down a prominent public building.

“I thought it was a bit of a secret process, they kind of knew what they were doing, but they didn't exactly reveal it,” he said.

However, county officials plan to begin moving staff from the Hall of Administration and other county buildings to the downtown skyscraper next summer, the start of a process that could take three or four years.

Preliminary county plans call for demolishing the Hall of Administration but maintaining the building where the Board of Supervisors meets in public sessions. That building is connected to the Administration Hall but is a separate structure that could stand on its own.

The plan to demolish Administration Hall is not set in stone, county officials said. Formal planning for the future of the site will begin in early 2025 and a master plan should be complete in about a year, followed by an environmental review of the plan that could last until 2027. But maintaining the building would pose budget challenges because a large portion of The funds used to purchase the Gas Company Tower came from money that had been earmarked for seismic retrofits and other needed repairs to the Hall of Administration and other county buildings.

Hahn cast the only “no” vote on the county's purchase of Gas Company Tower last month. When he first heard about the proposal to buy the 52-story building, which was facing foreclosure, he thought it was an opportunity for the county to make a favorable investment in a down market. The county could potentially consolidate some of its many offices there and then sell them later at a profit when the office real estate market recovers.

Then, he said, “it was revealed” that the plan was to move the Board of Supervisors offices and county services to the Gas Company Tower and ultimately demolish the Hall of Administration.

“I still find it baffling and a little shocking that this was their plan all along,” Hahn said. “I think the public still doesn't know what the plan is.”

Administration Hall was a source of civic pride when it and other key Civic Center buildings, including the Los Angeles County Superior Court (the Stanley Mosk Courthouse), were being built beginning in the 1950s.

“What the Acropolis was to ancient Greece during its Golden Age, the new Civic Center now being built on the ramshackle slopes of Bunker Hill will be to Los Angeles,” The Times wrote in 1957.

It was reported that the Hall of Administration was being built to last a century. The capital projects analyst for the county chief administrative officer's office was “willing to bet that the Hall of Administration will still be in service in 2059,” the Times said.

The building was renamed Kenneth Hahn Administration Hall in 1992 in honor of Hahn's father, who was the county's longest-serving supervisor and a former Los Angeles City Councilman.

Hahn said her legacy does not drive her to save the building.

“Hey, if you want to take the name away, if that makes you feel better about keeping it,” he said, “I'm okay with that.”

The director of the Los Angeles Conservancy, which advocates for the preservation of significant local structures, said the Hall of Administration is “definitely historic” and significant. It was designed by a prominent team of mid-century architects, including Paul R. Williams, the first licensed black architect west of the Mississippi, who designed movie star homes and prominent public buildings.

Demolishing the Administration Hall would be “a misstep for many reasons,” said Conservative party chairman Adrian Scott Fine.

Among the reasons for preserving it, he said, is its location across the Gloria Molina Grand Park from the Moscow Courthouse. The two form a couple that frames the park that connects the City Hall with the Music Center.

“These two buildings are integral parts” of the Civic Center, Fine said. “You can't lose one without losing the function they were intended for.”

The public spaces of the Administration Hall are filled with light brown marble and terrazzo that can make the hallways appear institutional. There are spots on the building that appear to need painting, patching and other maintenance.

“It's kind of a bleak place,” acknowledged frequent visitor Will Wright, director of government and public affairs for the Los Angeles chapter of the American Institute of Architects. “Which tells me you really need to invest in its maintenance.”

With investments, the county could “restore and improve” the interior to make it more attractive to employees and visitors, he said.

Ideally, the county would own both the Gas Company Tower and a restored Administration Hall, Wright said, a position Hahn supports.

“I think the amount of money that would be needed to modernize this is still an amount of money that we could easily find in a $50 billion budget,” Hahn said in an interview in his office. “I don't think it's too big of a question because of what this has meant for decades to the people of Los Angeles County.”

Los Angeles County oversaw the renovation of the Hall of Justice a decade ago. The historic building was severely damaged in the 1994 Northridge earthquake.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

Administration Hall is less flashy than other downtown landmarks such as Walt Disney Concert Hall, City Hall and the LADWP headquarters, but it doesn't need to be flashy to be important, said developer and preservationist Dan Rosenfeld.

“Not all public buildings need to shout to get attention,” he said. “If they did, it would be a very discordant city.”

Rosenfeld worked on preserving other important historic downtown buildings that were seismically dangerous and threatened by the wrecking ball, including City Hall and the Hall of Justice, both dating to the 1920s and still in use after renovations.

“It would be relatively simple to reinforce the building for lateral seismic resistance and modernize the interior,” Rosenfeld said of the Administration Room. “The building can and should be saved.”

Administration Hall is part of a Civic Center with public spaces and state, local and federal buildings “that defines Los Angeles,” he said, and should not be abandoned by the county. The Civic Center “is a symbol of our democracy,” he said, a place where citizens gather to celebrate, protest and mourn.

“A civic center is more than a collection of buildings,” Rosenfeld said. “It's a symbol of what a community believes.”

The county will not neglect the Civic Center, said Executive Director Fesia Davenport.

“We understand the importance of a vibrant, well-functioning Civic Center and are committed to maintaining the County's presence in this vital public space,” Davenport said in a statement. “As we embark on our Civic Center master planning process over the next year, we will invite extensive public comment to help shape our recommendations to the Board of Supervisors to help guide their decisions on the best way to reinvent our Civic Center buildings for optimal audiences. wear.”

The 52-story Gas Company Tower at 555 W. 5th St. was widely considered one of the city's most prestigious office buildings when it was completed in 1991. It has nearly 1.5 million square feet of space on one site of 1.4 acres at the base of Bunker Hill.

A little more than half of the building is leased to a diverse mix of tenants, including law firm Latham & Watkins and accounting firm Deloitte, real estate brokerage JLL said. Its namesake tenant, Southern California Gas Co., said in September it will move from the tower where it has been an anchor tenant since the building's completion to another high-rise a block north at 350 S. Grand Ave.

Times staff writer Rebecca Ellis contributed to this report.