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Broad set to choose Grand Avenue?

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The Architect’s Newspaper is reporting that Eli Broad, who has been shopping for a location for a museum to hold his Broad Art Foundation’s collection of post-war and contemporary art, will choose a site on Grand Avenue that is part of developer Related Cos.’ stalled Grand Avenue project. The site is across Grand from the Colburn School of Performing Arts and the Museum of Contemporary Art and across 2nd Street from Walt Disney Concert Hall.

The report should be taken with a significant grain of salt, since it relies on a single -- and hardly disinterested -- source: Martha Welborne, managing director of the Grand Avenue Committee. A spokesperson for Broad tells the publication that no decision has been made. Broad has seemed to be playing contending sites -- notably parcels in Santa Monica and Beverly Hills -- against one another all along as he shops for an attractive deal. His interest in the fate of Grand Avenue, of course, is well known. The new director of MOCA, Jeffrey Deitch, has reportedly been pitching the Grand Avenue site to Broad, founding chairman of the museum in 1979 and more recently one of its financial saviors.

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Welborne joined the architecture firm Zimmer Gunsul Frasca at the beginning of the year, while continuing her work for the Grand Avenue Committee.

-- Christopher Hawthorne

Above: Eli Broad, right, and Jeffrey Deitch, left, in January at MOCA. Credit: Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times

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