Architects AC Martin and developer Onni Group have released new renderings depicting the teams’ redevelopment plans for the Times Mirror Square complex in Downtown Los Angeles. The project calls for demolishing the historic William Pereira–designed LA Times addition from 1971 and replacing the black metal panel-clad late modernist office block with a pair of podium-style housing towers.
The two towers—one 37 stories tall, the other with 53 floors—would hug the sidewalk along Hill Street in order to create a pedestrian paseo through the site separating the existing LA Times and Mirror buildings from the new towers. The existing buildings, originally designed by Gordon Kaufmann and Rowland Crawford, respectively, would be preserved and renovated to house creative offices. No word on where the LA Times offices will be relocated to or if the publication will continue to operate out of the renovated offices.
Overall, the project will contain 1,127 residential units and 34,572 square feet of commercial areas.
The two flat-topped towers are depicted in the new renderings rather generically, with alternating stacks of projecting balconies and curtain wall expanses populating each tower’s facades. The dual monoliths sit atop a single podium populated by low-rise apartments and rooftop amenity spaces. The building’s ground level retail spaces wrap around the base and into the paseo area, which is shaded from above by an operable glass ceiling. The paseo itself will contain multi-level terraces spaces as well as the aforementioned storefronts. The LA Times building is depicted along Broadway as having a public marketplace along its ground floor.
The towers will be joined in the vicinity by a blocky 30 story mixed-use tower designed by Gensler to be located on the block behind the LA Times complex. The projects will also feed into a growing push to convert the surrounding the Civic Center area into a new mixed-use residential enclave. The Times Mirror Square project is anticipated to begin construction in 2019 and open for occupancy in 2023.
