Downtown's Awful Fauxtalian Fortress Developer Just Screwing With Us With This One

Downtown's worst developer, Geoff Palmer, king of the fauxtalian fortress, is really screwing with us lately. In the past couple weeks, we've learned about his biggest project to date (yet another massive, vaguely Italian-themed monster for the edge of Downtown) and seen renderings for his least offensive project ever (a massive, but relatively innocuous brick mixed-user for Broadway); now we find out he's working on something super-tiny in a totally new realm—adaptive reuse of a historic building—and there are even legit architects attached. Wh-wh-what? Urbanize LA says that Palmer's planning to give the live/work loft treatment to the original headquarters of the Southern California Gas Company, near the northeast corner of Broadway and Olympic, across from the Ace Hotel and right by his under-construction Broadway Palace (that's the inoffensive one).

And that's not all—the renderings for the building at 950 South Broadway look promising! According to a presentation for the Downtown LA Neighborhood Council, the project would create 30 live/work lofts across the six upper floors of the building, with the ground floor and basement hosting 7,500 square feet retail space between them. The rooftop would hold resident amenities. The building's right next to a large parking lot, so presumably that's where residents' cars would be stored.

Those worried about how a fauxtalian fortress developer might adapt a historic old structure can probably even relax: Killefer Flammang Architects will be helming the building's return to its comely 1913 appearance by peeling back additions to the exterior and popping on metal balconies and a "decorative cornice" above the top floor windows. With just 30 units, this new-old building will be Palmer's smallest project in Los Angeles.