Hey, remember this block-long site on Vine, between Homewood and De Longpre Aves.? A long time ago (up until a few weeks ago), the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences planned to build a Christian de Portzamparc-designed movie museum here. (They acquired the land starting in 2005.) Now that they've announced they'll be moving their museum into LACMA's old May Company building at Wilshire and Fairfax, let's check in on the old Hollywood site. AMPAS had already promised to make improvements on the 3.69 acres (which sit just across Homewood from its Pickford Center for Motion Picture Study) and dirt is now moving. Academy COO Ric Robertson tells us "We're trying to make it look a lot better and inject some cultural life into it as well."
Some of the old post-production buildings on the site have already been demolished. Robertson says that Phase I of the improvement project will include landscaping in an L-shaped area around the old Golden Bridge yoga studio to create a site for outdoor screenings (they'll bring in a portable screen). The area will also be used for events, including receptions for screenings in the Pickford's Linwood Dunn Theater.
The Academy is still mulling what to do with the old yoga studio, since it'll require a lot of engineering work to make it usable. They're considering using it for exhibitions--AMPAS used to have space in its Beverly Hills headquarters for those events, but has had to convert it into offices. But Robertson says they're not sure how much they want to spend improving a temporary space (since eventually exhibitions will be shown in their museum).
Work on Phase I should be done in the first quarter of 2012.
As for whether the Academy will eventually sell off the whole block, Robertson says "it's one of many possibilities," but suggested that any decision on that is a long way off.
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· Academy's Movie Museum Ditching Big Hollywood Site, Planning Move Into LACMA's Old May Co. Building [Curbed LA]
· Academy Has Big Plans for Hollywood Parcels, But No Museum Yet [Curbed LA]
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