More Theatre Reuse: Units for Palace, Los Angeles?

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — Applications have been filed to convert space in two more Broadway theater buildings to residential use. The Broadway office tower above the entrance to the Palace Theatre is proposed to be converted to 20 condo units. That space includes an amazing 5th floor with skylight and enormous windows, site of numerous recent movie shoots.

Another application lists 96 live/work units in the Los Angeles Theater building. Before you spend too much time scratching your head on that one, though, it's worth pointing out that the "building" encompassing the Fox office tower that fronts on Hill street. It is the office tower that residents could soon be calling home, not the historic theater.

The Los Angeles Theater and the Fox office building were announced in 1930 by William Fox. Fox, a theater owner and producer, bought the plot of land running between Hill and Broadway in 1929. While S. Charles Lee is rightfully known as the architect of the Los Angeles Theater, S. Tilden Norton was the architect charged with supervising the combined project. The 13-story office tower contained 200 offices and ground floor retail.

According to documents filed with the Planning Department, conversion of the Los Angeles would bring 96 units, with eight each on floors two through thirteen. The smallest would be 433 sq. feet, with the largest 743 sq. feet. Average unit size would be 544 sq. feet.

The much smaller Palace office tower would be converted to 20 units on four floors. Diagrams on file with the Planning Department show that fifth floor units would include a mezzanine level. The smallest unit would be 611 sq. feet, with average size 793 sq. feet and the largest unit running 1,168 sq. feet with the mezzanine included.

The fifth floor office space has been a location for many films, including 2003's I Love Your Work, and the 1998 classic The Big Lebowski.

Both Vesting Tentative Tract maps have their public hearings on April 16th at 10:30am, the same session that will include the application for conversion of the United building, home of the State Theater.