Two More Conversions, Two More Small Fires

By Eric Richardson
Published: Friday, August 03, 2007, at 01:52PM

Eric Richardson [Flickr]

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — It seems that small fires during construction are about par for the course these days. This morning there was a small blaze on the 15th floor of 600 S. Spring, one of the buildings Barry Shy is converting to residential. Barry had a larger fire during the interior demo at 548 S. Spring back in 2005.

More recently, Downtown development has seen a couple fires in the Roosevelt conversion and a small blaze at Ralphs in April.

Good to know that crews are apparently at work at 600 S. Spring. That building's completely dead from the outside. I believe it was two Art Walks ago that I saw a guy making use of the entry way there as a place to hit a tennis ball off the wall.

Update (4pm): Turns out there was also a small fire at the Chapman this afternoon, less than two hours after the one at 600 S. Spring. CNS reports that blaze to have occured a bit after noon, and to have been put out in 12 minutes.

Update (9pm): After the jump, a shot of the damage in the Chapman.

Update (Saturday): Yesterday evening LAFD put a write-up about the fires up on their blog.

Looking at fire damage on the western side of the building, confined to one unit.

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Comments

Benjamin Pezzillo writes:

Yikes! I've seen the tennis ball against the wall guy as recently as two weeks ago...now all we need is for Barry Shy to keep the alley in the back clean.

I've had three patched tires from debris in the alley this year alone.

Granted, there's been a lot of junk from behind the Stock Exchange building too. Right now there's a dumpster back there which is one nasty public toilet.

I really hope someone buys that building soon and renovates it with starting a fire!

# on Aug.03.2007 AT 11:21 PM