Los Angeles developer Downtown Management has revived plans to build a mixed-use skyscraper next to a row of buildings known as the Spring Street Arcade. This time, the real estate firm headed by landlord Joseph Hellen returns to the table with a much different design in hand, swapping Steinberg Architects' curves for the cants of Adam Sokol Architecture Practice.
The revised proposal calls for a 45-storey tower at 525 South Spring Street with 360 residential units and 25,000 square feet of commercial space. Renderings available on the architect's website show a substantially different overall form for the building, which abandons the undulating balconies of the previous architects' scheme and instead envisions a crystalline volume of blue glass.
The skyscraper's square footprint occupies the northern part of the site and abruptly shifts southwards as the structure rises, creating a diagonal geometry that almost appears to be crashing into the abutting building. The composition then straightens out and culminates in a flat roof.
The site has been stagnating as a surface parking lot as a deluge of concepts were presented to the public. Initial plans entailed the construction of a parking garage to serve neighbourhood businesses, which was then retooled as a 12-storey proposal with residential and commercial space. The latest dumped version was announced in 2014.
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