New Life for the Bank of Italy Building?

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — There are a few buildings Downtown that I’ve always been curious about. One of them is the building on the northwest corner of 7th and Olive – either the Bank of Italy building or Giannini, depending on where on the building you look.

It’s one of those cool old buildings that’s seemed to sit completely vacant. Definitely no ground floor life, and no visible signs of life above either.

Over the past few days there have been signs that that’s changing. I don’t know what the plans are (perhaps someone else is more in the know than I), but there’s definitely construction work going on inside. Windows are open, and walking back from lunch I saw a large puff of dust come out of the upper floors.