Restoration begins on Title Insurance Building’s gorgeous Art Deco facade

Work to restore the the gorgeous facade of the Title Insurance and Trust Building in Downtown’s Historic Core is underway. The Art Deco building, newly rechristened the Trust Building by owners Rising Realty Partners and Lionstone Investments, has been somewhat neglected over the years, though it’s been used often as a filming location.

Preservation architect Architectural Resources Group has begun the painstaking process of cleaning the delicate terra cotta that cover the outside of the 1928 building, located at 433 South Spring. A plaque marking its status as a city Historic-Cultural Monument, thought to be stolen, will be replaced.

The Trust Building’s “interiors and facade can’t be recreated today,” and that makes the building desirable, Rising’s vice president Adam Lev tells Curbed.

Designed by the Downtown powerhouse Parkinson and Parkinson, the building is an example of the Zig Zag Moderne style, and, along Spring Street, it features murals by Hugo Ballin along Spring Street that will be restored. Ballin’s work appears at the Griffith Observatory and in the Los Angeles Times building.

The restoration is part of a bigger makeover. The interior is being reworked to host creative offices.

Kansas Sebastian via Flickr creative commons

“Spring Street is one of [Downtown’s] great streets, and it’s largely restored, but it isn’t there in terms of workplace,” Lev says. The street already has a lot to offer in terms of retail, nightlife, and restaurants, but bringing offices into the mix will fill a void, Lev says.

All the work on the Trust Building is slated to be completed by the end of next summer. At that point, the edifice will be ready to be occupied. Lev says Industry Partners, which is managing the leasing for the building, is already talking to a few larger tenants, mostly media and tech companies, that are interested in the space.

Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated work on the Trust Building would be finished this summer. It will be complete in the summer of 2018.

• Renovations Underway at Art Deco Title Insurance and Trust Building Downtown [Curbed LA]
• The 10 best Art Deco buildings in Los Angeles [Curbed LA]