Philanthropist Details Plans for a $100 Million Grand Avenue Art Museum, Though Santa Monica Is Still in the Running
by Ryan Vaillancourt, Staff Writer
Published: Thursday, May 27, 2010 3:22 PM PDT
DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES - Eli Broad is no stranger to Grand Avenue. He helped found the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Grand Avenue Committee. With former Mayor Richard Riordan he revived the plan to build the Walt Disney Concert Hall, and he convinced the Los Angeles Unified School District to hire a big-name architect to build its $232 million arts high school on Grand Avenue. Last year, he came back to where he started, infusing a financially strapped MOCA with $30 million, essentially saving the Downtown institution.
Now, Broad wants to directly join the Grand Avenue party by building a $100 million art museum on the street, across from MOCA. If he has his way, the 120,000-square-foot facility, which would showcase some of the 2,000 works owned by his Broad Art Foundation, would open by 2012, in what he termed “an exciting, iconic piece of architecture.”
The billionaire philanthropist has spent the past several months publicly weighing two locations for the proposed museum, the other being in Santa Monica, where the foundation now has offices (a previous contender, Beverly Hills, pulled out of the running earlier this year). But in a recent meeting with Los Angeles Downtown News editors and reporters, Broad delivered his strongest public preference yet to place the museum — to be called The Broad Collections — in the Central City.
“We’d rather be Downtown,” Broad declared.
Despite the enthusiasm for Grand Avenue, Broad clearly stated that a deal is not done. He expressed skepticism about securing approvals for a project in a spot where he has to deal with four entities: the Community Redevelopment Agency, City Council, the County Board of Supervisors and the joint powers group the Grand Avenue Authority.
“Santa Monica is smart,” Broad said. “Their attitude is, look, [with us] you’re one-stop shopping. You don’t have to deal with three agencies…. Maybe in their mind they’re thinking, when you get tired of all this stuff Downtown, we’re ready.”
If Santa Monica offers a smoother path toward a groundbreaking, Broad is nevertheless motivated to build the museum on Grand Avenue because he strongly desires to help create a vital urban center in Los Angeles.
“I can’t think of any city today or in world history that’s been great without a vibrant center,” he said.
Broad is currently negotiating with local officials, and said he wants to secure approvals within 45 days. That is necessary, he said, to meet his 2012 opening goal.
Although talks continue, the proposed museum has already passed some high hurdles; the project would be folded in to the stalled but approved $3 billion Grand Avenue project, for which entitlements and environmental studies are complete.
The plan envisions the Broad Collections museum replacing phase two of developer Related Cos. project — a mixed-use structure with housing and about 100,000 square feet of retail. The change to the museum (and 20,000 square feet of Related retail) is currently under review to ensure it meets California Environmental Quality Act guidelines, but it is expected to gain approval because the museum would have a lower impact than the already cleared phase two structure, a Broad spokeswoman said.
Once the environmental review is complete, the museum will need approvals from the Grand Avenue Authority, the City Council, the CRA and the Board of Supervisors. No votes have been scheduled.
Under the proposed terms, the museum would lease the space from the CRA for $1 a year for 99 years, the same agreement the city has with MOCA’s two Downtown locations.
The Broad Foundation would spend about $80 million to develop the structure on a current parking lot bounded by lower Grand Avenue, Gen. Thaddeus Kosciuszko Way, Hope and Second streets, just south of Walt Disney Concert Hall. Broad would also lend about $23 million to the CRA to fund a three-level, 293-space parking garage. The loan would be paid back over 11 years with a low interest rate, Broad said.
The museum would sit atop the parking structure, fronting upper Grand Avenue. Broad would endow the museum with $200 million. Galleries, Broad said, would feature works by artists the foundation has collected, among them Jeff Koons, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Cindy Sherman.
A foundation official confirmed reports earlier this week by the New York Times and Los Angeles Times that it has engaged six architectural firms in a competition to design the museum. The firms are Foreign Office Architects/Alejandro Zaera Polo, Diller Scofidio Renfro, Rem Koolhaas/OMA, SANAA, Christian de Portzamparc and Herzog & de Meuron.
The preliminary proposal calls for about 40,000 square feet of gallery space and 45,000 square feet of archive and storage space. Small spaces, 6,000 square feet or less, would be set aside for the foundation’s administrative offices and a bookstore.
The project is anticipated to create nearly 100 full-time jobs.
Support and Dissent
Although many Downtown stakeholders applaud the plan, support is not unanimous. Supervisor Michael Antonovich, who has frequently criticized the Grand Avenue plan, maintains that the city and county should scrap the entire project as drawn up.
Related has been unable to attain an estimated $700 million in construction financing for phase one of the project, which would include a 48-story tower with 295 hotel rooms and 266 condominiums, a 19-story edifice with 126 market-rate apartments and 98 affordable residences. Even if credit were readily available, the residential portion of the plan may not be viable until the Downtown condominium market is otherwise absorbed, said Paul Novak, Antonovich’s planning deputy.
“We don’t think that phase one as proposed works now or will work any time in the near future,” Novak said.
Still, Antonovich sees any change to the scope of the plan — such as redefining phase two to feature the museum — as an opportunity to compel Related to start construction, or pay the penalties for missing previously agreed-upon deadlines to begin work, Novak said. Related has been accruing $250,000 a month in penalties for not starting the project by February 2009, though the fines have been deferred until construction commences.
Related is supposed to begin construction in February 2011, but the company is requesting an extension until February 2013, said Bill Witte, the developer’s West Coast president. The extension request includes language that would require Related to start construction before that date if other major mixed-use projects start elsewhere in the state, Witte said.
Meanwhile, the $56 million, 16-acre Civic Park included in the Grand Avenue plan — funded by Related’s $50 million up-front payment and accrued interest — is moving forward, with a groundbreaking expected in July, Witte said. A CRA release said the park could open by June 2012.
Witte is hopeful that the museum would kick-start the Grand Avenue plan.
“Let’s be clear here: Fundamentally the overall real estate market has to improve, the capital markets have to come back, irrespective of any other development there,” Witte said. “That said, there’s no question that it helps us tell a better story to lenders and to the hotel.”
One strong supporter of the Broad project is Jeffrey Deitch, who will take over as director of MOCA on June 1. He sees the proposed museum as an opportunity to build critical mass and raise attendance for the museum.
Broad’s collection, he said, is anchored by newer contemporary works, from the 1960s onward, whereas MOCA is more heavily weighted in earlier works, Deitch said.
“The Broad Foundation’s collection fits in very, very well, and does not really compete with MOCA’s collection,” Deitch said. “It’s complementary.”
Currently, MOCA’s annual attendance is less than 200,000, Deitch said. Both Deitch and Broad hope the new museum would bring up to 500,000 visitors a year to the two attractions.
Broad’s ambitious 2012 timeline relies in large part on the fact that the project does not require financing. If approvals come within 45 days, Broad said, an architect could be selected shortly thereafter. Meanwhile, he said the firm Matt Construction has already finished the documents for the parking garage, and that could be built in five months.
As for the rest of the Grand Avenue project, Broad is less certain.
“I can’t predict that,” Broad said. “If the economy were recovering — and I hope that it’ll continue to recover — it’ll sop up [the condo supply in Downtown] and then the question is, when can they get a construction loan? Pick a date. Three, four years from now? I don’t know.”
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