DTLA's Parker Center Will Likely Fall, Be Replaced by Tower

The 60-year-old, Welton Beckett-designed Parker Center, which housed the LAPD until it moved to new digs in 2009, should be knocked down and replaced with a 27-story tower that consolidates city offices, according to a report from the City Department of Public Works and the Bureau of Engineering and reported in Downtown News. The departments will present the $475 million plan—currently without renderings or an architect—to the City Council this summer. The tower would bring together departments like General Services and Personnel. On a less bureaucratic note, the building would also have street-facing retail, something desperately-needed for this moribund stretch of the Civic Center. The plan calls for an enclosed pedestrian bridge connecting the building to City Hall East, along with a courtyard linking Los Angeles and Judge John Aiso Streets and, in effect, the Civic Center and Little Tokyo. If the council approves, work would start in 2016 and wrap two years later.
· City Recommends Replacing Parker Center with 27-Story Tower [DN]