Downtown Management, the real estate firm helmed by longtime Historic Core landlord Joseph Hellen, is reconsidering plans to construct a mixed-use high-rise development next-door to the Spring Street Arcade.
The revised concept, designed by asap/adam sokol architecture practice pllc, envisions a 45-story tower on the property at 525 S. Spring Street, featuring 360 residential units, 25,000 square feet of street-fronting commercial space and a below-grade parking garage. Renderings portray the approximately 500-foot building with an angular form that shifts to create open space along the property lines. The exterior is composed of varying shades of blue glass that gradually lighten moving up the tower.
Hellen has pondered several development schemes for 525 Spring in the past.
Originally, Hellen had sought to construct a larger parking garage on the lot to serve businesses in the Spring Street Arcade. He would eventually rethink the project as a 12-story building featuring residential units and commercial space.
Then in 2014, he announced plans for a larger 40-story structure on the property, with an undulating facade that evokes Chicago's Aqua. That project was later refined in 2015 by Steinberg Architects, and folded into a larger plan to reactivate the Roxie, Cameo and Arcade theaters on Broadway with live entertainment and refurbished retail space. However, the Downtown News would later report that Hellen had abandoned the project due to a dispute with the City of Los Angeles over design issues.
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