In the midst of an ambitious $6 billion fundraising campaign, the University of Southern California has transformed their section of South Los Angeles into a sea of construction cranes. Take a look at four projects currently changing the landscape of the 229-acre University Park campus.
USC Village
Last summer, work kicked off for the first phase of the USC Village, a $650 million mixed-use development on the former site of the University Village shopping center. The project, which functions as a 15-acre expansion of the USC campus, will include new academic facilities, 115,000 square feet of commercial floor area and housing for up to 2,700 students. Renderings from architecture firm Harley Ellis Devereaux depict a series of low-rise structures, designed with the red brick and Neo-Gothic stylings which typify many of the university's newer buildings.
Completion of the Village is expected by 2017, at which point commercial tenants such as City Target and Trader Joe's will occupy the complex's ground-floor retail space. Later phases of the development will incorporate two adjacent blocks to the west along Jefferson Boulevard. A full buildout of the Village will cost an estimated $1.1 billion dollars and include more than 2 million square feet or programmed area.
For live construction updates, please view the webcam embedded in the official USC Village website.
- Demolition Beginning for $1.1 Billion Village at USC (Urbanize LA)
- USC Village (Official Website)
Fire Station No. 15
At the intersection of Hoover and 30th Streets, construction is nearing completion on the new, USC-funded Fire Station 15 (LAFD Station 15). The two-story structure, designed by WLC Architects, will be capable of housing up to six emergency vehicles and 19 LAFD personnel.
The new facility was necessitated by the adjacent USC Village development, which will displace the current LAFD Station 15 on Jefferson Boulevard. The existing station building, built in 1950, will be preserved and relocated to a vacant property near the Shrine Auditorium. There it would serve as an 8,700-square-foot studio annex to the Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts.
- Erickson-Hall Begins Building USC Fire Station (Erickson-Hall)
- USC Pursuing Adaptive Reuse of Fire Station 15 (Urbanize LA)
The Glorya Kaufman International Dance Center
On the south side of Jefferson Boulevard, concrete and rebar are rising for the new home of the USC Kaufman School of Dance. The 50,000-square foot facility, designed by Pfeiffer Partners Architects, will include studio performance spaces, dance studios, dressing rooms, classrooms and offices for faculty and andministrators.
The design of the three-story edifice is closely tailored to match the Italian Romanesque and Neo-Gothic architecture of the Village development, which is located directly across the street.
Completion of the new facility is expected by Fall 2016. For updates on the project, please view the live camera embedded in the Kaufman School's website.
- USC Glorya Kaufman International Dance Center (Matt Construction)
- The Building (USC Glorya Kaufman School of Dance)
Jill and Frank Fertitta Hall
Lastly, work continues for Jill and Frank Fertitta Hall, a 102,000-square-foot expansion of the USC Marshall School of Business. Vertical construction on the five-story edifice concluded earlier this month, when crews installed a conical spire atop the five-story edifice.
The Neo-Gothic structure, designed by architecture firm AC Martin, will feature 20 classrooms, two lecture halls and state-of-the-art IT hardware. It will offer seating accommodations for slightly over 1,000 students, increasing the Marshall School's undergraduate capacity by nearly one-third when completed in Fall 2016.
For live construction updates, please view the project webcam on the Marshall School's website.
- Fertitta Hall Project Reaches New Heights (USC News)
- Webcam (USC Marshall School)
