No Landmark Status For LA Times Building

LOS ANGELES, CA — A 1970s addition to the downtown Times Mirror Square Complex moved closer to possible demolition Tuesday, with a City Council committee declining to recommend it for designation as a historic-cultural monument.

Councilman Mitchell Englander noted that the Planning Department had only recommended the addition be preserved for its historical value, not for any architectural reasons, but the council generally looks for architectural value when it is designating monuments.

"We need a little more than that, than the feel-good historians, which is critically important for preserving and protecting what we're losing every single day," Englander said. "In looking at this one, it's very delicate."

The Planning and Land Use Management Committee's recommendation to designate the complex as a monument, with the exception of the 1970s addition, still needs to be voted on by the full City Council. If the council concurs with the committee, it will clear the way for a developer to put an apartment complex at the site of the 1970s addition.

Councilman Gil Cedillo said he believed that excluding the 1970s addition from monument status would strike the "perfect mix" between the need to preserve history along with the city's need for housing and union jobs.

Los Angeles Times staff vacated the complex over the summer when the newspaper moved its operations to El Segundo.

The Times had been located at the complex since 1935, although the paper had been renting its space there since 2016 when its former owner, Tribune Media Co., sold it to Canadian developer Onni Group.

The Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Commission sided with preservationists in September and others who have argued the entire complex is worthy of preservation. The commission even added its own recommendation that the '70s portion be preserved for its architectural contributions even though staff had recommended it was only noteworthy for historical reasons.

The Chandler family owned and ran the paper for seven decades until the family-controlled Times Mirror Co. was sold to Tribune in 2000. Harry Chandler, son of former Times publisher Otis Chandler, asked the committee to consider the entire complex's history.

"When we talk about what historical-cultural monument status is, it's not just the architecture, it's also the history. So in those three buildings I would argue not another three buildings in the entire city, next to the council chambers here, that more history happened," Chandler said.

The developers cannot tear down any buildings while the complex's application for monument status is being considered. A historical designation would also delay the demolition of a designated property for up to one year while other preservation options are considered.

The Times Mirror application was submitted by a preservationist organization called Esotouric, which offers historical tours in Los Angeles, and signed by its co-founder, Richard Schave.

The Times Mirror Square Complex consists of five buildings constructed between 1935 and 1973, according to a report by the Department of City Planning:

-- the 1935 eight-story Los Angeles Times Building designed in the art deco/moderne architectural style by Los Angeles architect Gordon B. Kaufmann;

-- the four-story Plant Building completed in 1935 that is an original two-story art deco/moderne-style building by Kaufmann, with two one-story additions designed by Los Angeles architect Rowland H. Crawford in 1946 and 1955;

-- the 12-story Mirror Building designed in the late moderne architectural style by Crawford in 1948;

-- and the six-story Times-Mirror Headquarters Building and six-story parking structure designed by architect William L. Pereira in the corporate international architectural style in 1973.

With Onni already having pledged to preserve much of the complex except for the 1970s addition, many of the public speakers at Cultural Heritage Commission meetings and the Planning and Land Use Committee focused their comments on it, with fans of the addition outnumbering its critics.

Bill Delvac, an attorney representing Onni, told the committee the developer plans to "rehabilitate the historic heart of the complex," while tearing down the Pereira addition and parking structure.

Teresa Grimes of GPA Consulting, which was representing Onni, told the Cultural Heritage Commission earlier its research could not conclude that Pereira actually designed the addition, only that his firm did, and said it "is just an average example of the style and doesn't contribute to the history of modern architecture in Los Angeles."

In a report, Department of City Planning staff said the complex is associated with the lives of historic personages important to national, state, city, or local history, including for its direct association with the prominent Chandler family, in particular Harry Chandler, Norman Chandler, Dorothy Buffum Chandler and Otis Chandler, each of whom the report said played a significant role in the evolution of the Los Angeles Times from a local publication to a newspaper of national stature, and were influential in real estate development in Los Angeles.

The report also said the complex is as an excellent example of the art seco/moderne and late moderne architectural styles, and is a significant work of master architects Gordon Kaufmann and Rowland Crawford. The Cultural Heritage Commission made an addition to the recommendation that the Pereira addition also be recognized for its architectural contributions and as a significant work of master architect Pereira.

By CRAIG CLOUGH, City News Service; Photo: The Los Angeles Times in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)