lapd motor transport facility to begin construction
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Construction fencing was being assembled today surrounding the site of the future LAPD Motor Transport Division Facility on Main Street between 2nd and 3rd. The new five-story structure — Phase II of the LAPD Headquarters Replacement project — will house garage and fleet services for the Los Angeles Police Department where vehicle repairs, acquisitions, salvage and testing activities will take place.
In a controversial move by the City, the use of eminent domain was necessary to acquire the three parcels for the project, one of which housed the M.J. Higgins art gallery. A clothing distribution business and adjacent parking lot were also forced out last year to make way for construction.
Bulldozers and other heavy razing equipment are now present on site, and according to the construction crew, demolition will commence next week.
Approximately 3,500 square feet of ground-floor retail fronting Main Street will help integrate the government facility into the emerging neighborhood and fill in a key parcel between the Old Bank District and Little Tokyo.
-LAPD Motor Transport Division Facility Project Site Photos
-new lapd headquarters already getting clad
-imaginasian center revealed
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15 comments
is the building right at the corner of 3rd and main part of what will be demolished for the development, or will that remain? looks like it is there in the first rendering, but not the second.
Jim, that’s a great question, and my first answer is “I’m not sure.”
I’ll look into it to see what I can find.
Is there any street facing retail? Is the entrance to the Police Brigade on Los Angeles or Main?
At least St. Vib’s is safe!
this is an urban planning disaster for that part of main. totally destructive.
Agree heartily with dtownla’s comment. What city puts police transport headquarters on its Main Street U.S.A? Gives a whole new meaning to “Cruisin’ Main.” Developers, merchandisers should be outraged. Outta be a law!
And they royally screwed Higgins on this! Not only put ‘em through legal hell but they were forced to close months before groundbreaking and lost holiday business. (Can’t very well argue with the ‘big guns.’)
But, you can’t keep a good gal-lery down. Marta’s reopened around the corner from Pete’s (as I reported in heidi’s holla, downtownlalife.com webzine last month) and…HOT BLOGGER TIP…she’s opening a second Gallery/Speakeasy on Spring, CONNECTED BY A SECRET PASSAGEWAY to the Comedy Club at Alexandria Hotel.
Feel free to scoop me, please. Higgins deserves all the word it can get. (I don’t publish again ‘til the 15th.)
- Heidi
ER, correction to last comment post. “Outta” should be “Oughta” …LOL. Little emotional when I wrote that. Just got off the horn with Marta. LOL. Heidi
Thanks for the info, Heidi. I’ll try to do some recon work and see what I can dig up for a post. I’d credit you, of course! =)
“What city puts police transport headquarters on its Main Street U.S.A?”
What city puts a big layer of tar on a block that sits along its Main Street USA?
How long have several of the properties south of Saint Vibiana’s, around the former Higgins Gallery, been used mainly for parking vehicles?
It is SO SAD what has been done to our Main Street over the years. When I look at historical photos of Main Street, I just want to cry. It used to be AMAZING. And this, this architectural DRECK, is an affront to urbanists everywhere.
it looks like a big box of kleenex…
This thing will probably be demolished in the next 20 years for something else.
The building on the corner - part of an historic old theater whose history I am too tired to recount right now - will be spared. And while this is an urban planning disaster, the architecture is a lot better than it could have been. And we are still SUPPOSED to be getting an art gallery at the base of the building when it is completed but, as usual, we need to make certain it happens.
^ As for the building that sits on Main Street across from the old theater and the now-demolished building that once housed the Higgins art gallery, the owner should either remodel it or tear it down. That thing, with its cheap vertical slat-wall siding, looks horrible.
Have any of the businesses housed in it, particularly the ones that serve food and beverages, ever been known to make customers sick or gotten complaints from the BBB?
I took the DASH bus by there this morning, and the MJ Higgins gallery building (whatever it was called originally, who knows) is already a pile of rubble. Sad but true. Let’s all make sure those building the police garage put in that street friendly retail, like they promised.
But yeah, this thing is not a distinguished building. When it gets torn down, whenever that is, nobody will mourn it, sort of like the State building that stood at First and Broadway until recently.
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