Comment
Rate
Work to Keep SCI-Arc in Downtown
The news that the Southern California Institute of Architecture is looking at alternatives to its current home in the Arts District raises serious concerns for Downtown. The school has played an important role in the revitalization the community has enjoyed in the past decade, thanks to the creative base provided by its 500 students and the associated professors, administrators and other employees. Local business and political officials should come forward sooner rather than later to ensure that a solution can be found to keep SCI-Arc in its Downtown Los Angeles home.
This is not to induce unnecessary alarm. School officials have not said that SCI-Arc, which relocated from Marina Del Rey to Downtown in 2000, will vacate the quarter-mile former freight depot when its lease expires in 2010. At this point, they have only said they are exploring options. Those include another home in Downtown, a school somewhere else in the region, or even triggering the first of the three 3-year options to extend the Arts District lease.
In many similar instances, this would barely be worth noting. Businesses approaching the end of a lease often “threaten” to look elsewhere; it is a sometimes-effective deal-making ploy, and in a soft commercial real estate market like the current one, many tenants use a high vacancy rate to negotiate better terms for themselves.
Two things set this situation apart. The first is the stormy relationship that SCI-Arc has endured with its landlord, Meruelo Maddux Properties. Past disputes became contentious when the landlord fenced off a lot that SCI-Arc staff and students were using for parking and floated plans to build two 40-story towers near the school. Things have calmed down since then, but the past mistrust means that getting the parties to agree on terms may be more difficult than in other cases.
The second complicating factor is that Meruelo Maddux has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, and that the debt for SCI-Arc’s properties (and other plots) has been purchased by a Pasadena-based developer and investor. With foreclosure a possibility, another level of uncertainty is at play.
If things were to deteriorate, and if SCI-Arc were to depart, the results for the Arts District would be significant. Although the area for decades has housed pioneering creative types (who, by the way, set up in lofts before the word became slang for almost any residence with exposed ducts), it took the combination of SCI-Arc’s arrival and the general Downtown residential upswing to usher in real change. Many housing complexes, restaurants and retail establishments in the community can trace their arrival to the energy and economic boost provided, in part, by SCI-Arc. They rely on the school’s students and staff (among others) to pay their own bills.
It is also difficult to imagine what other community-friendly entity might deem the former freight depot on Santa Fe Avenue an appropriate home. The low-slung, century-old edifice provides a litany of challenges for potential developers. The best type of tenant might be the one already there — a school whose raison d’être is to work with and create solutions in the physical environment. The worst scenario would be to have the structure sit empty for an extended period.
SCI-Arc officials have voiced a desire to own a home. Perhaps that is an option here, or maybe another long-term lease will be achieved. Whatever the case, it makes sense to begin working on it now, and it makes even more sense for those with an interest in seeing Downtown get even better to help out. The difficult past relationship could make a new deal long, difficult or potentially impossible. One cannot assume things will work themselves out, and it is better to nail it down now and help secure the neighborhood’s future than risk seeing a result that no one wants.
This is not to induce unnecessary alarm. School officials have not said that SCI-Arc, which relocated from Marina Del Rey to Downtown in 2000, will vacate the quarter-mile former freight depot when its lease expires in 2010. At this point, they have only said they are exploring options. Those include another home in Downtown, a school somewhere else in the region, or even triggering the first of the three 3-year options to extend the Arts District lease.
In many similar instances, this would barely be worth noting. Businesses approaching the end of a lease often “threaten” to look elsewhere; it is a sometimes-effective deal-making ploy, and in a soft commercial real estate market like the current one, many tenants use a high vacancy rate to negotiate better terms for themselves.
Two things set this situation apart. The first is the stormy relationship that SCI-Arc has endured with its landlord, Meruelo Maddux Properties. Past disputes became contentious when the landlord fenced off a lot that SCI-Arc staff and students were using for parking and floated plans to build two 40-story towers near the school. Things have calmed down since then, but the past mistrust means that getting the parties to agree on terms may be more difficult than in other cases.
The second complicating factor is that Meruelo Maddux has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, and that the debt for SCI-Arc’s properties (and other plots) has been purchased by a Pasadena-based developer and investor. With foreclosure a possibility, another level of uncertainty is at play.
If things were to deteriorate, and if SCI-Arc were to depart, the results for the Arts District would be significant. Although the area for decades has housed pioneering creative types (who, by the way, set up in lofts before the word became slang for almost any residence with exposed ducts), it took the combination of SCI-Arc’s arrival and the general Downtown residential upswing to usher in real change. Many housing complexes, restaurants and retail establishments in the community can trace their arrival to the energy and economic boost provided, in part, by SCI-Arc. They rely on the school’s students and staff (among others) to pay their own bills.
It is also difficult to imagine what other community-friendly entity might deem the former freight depot on Santa Fe Avenue an appropriate home. The low-slung, century-old edifice provides a litany of challenges for potential developers. The best type of tenant might be the one already there — a school whose raison d’être is to work with and create solutions in the physical environment. The worst scenario would be to have the structure sit empty for an extended period.
SCI-Arc officials have voiced a desire to own a home. Perhaps that is an option here, or maybe another long-term lease will be achieved. Whatever the case, it makes sense to begin working on it now, and it makes even more sense for those with an interest in seeing Downtown get even better to help out. The difficult past relationship could make a new deal long, difficult or potentially impossible. One cannot assume things will work themselves out, and it is better to nail it down now and help secure the neighborhood’s future than risk seeing a result that no one wants.
 |
 |
|
| Entertainment Center, and a Business Boost Too | A Skid Row Basketball Oasis |
Reader Comments
The following are comments from the readers. In no way do they represent the view of ladowntownnews.com.
Popular Searches
