Architect Frank Gehry plans move to El Segundo

The firm of well-known Los Angeles architect Frank Gehry has outgrown its offices in West Los Angeles and will move 160 employees to a former warehouse in El Segundo next year, the owner of the warehouse said Wednesday.  Gehry Partners designed the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, and several other prominent structures. Moving again wasn't in the plans when Gehry took his firm from Santa Monica to the former West Coast headquarters for BMW in 2003. After renovating the high-ceilinged industrial space near Playa Vista into offices, he said, "This is it. I'm 74, and I don't want to move again. I'm in pig heaven."  But Gehry's firm quickly filled 44,000 square feet of old BMW space and needs the 75,000 square feet in a campus being developed in El Segundo by NSB Associates, said Lawrence N. Field, chairman of NSB. Field and Gehry are longtime friends and Field also redeveloped the former BMW space. Gehry is working with Field to design the "Gehry Campus"  between Utah Avenue and Alaska Avenue, near Aviation Boulevard.  Two warehouses built there in the 1960s will be converted to offices. El Segundo is the historic home of Standard Oil and several defense contractors. In recent years it has become known as a lower-cost alternative to  the pricey Westside for white-collar office tenants and creative firms.

--Roger Vincent

Comments

[Craig]

I appreciate the information on this blog because I'm learning about SoCal hoping to move ther some day from Texas. That's why I monitored the SoCal sales, prices thread until it was reduced to a zip code scan. Add back the older format that included the price trends over the last several years so we can keep track of price trends. Thanks

[Tim K.]

First off, welcome Roger. Always good to see that the LA Times thinks this is an important blog to have more journalists posting on.

But I must agree with Craig - the subtitle of LA Land could be interpreted very widely, but I believe the most interesting topics that people come to expect relate to real estate for individuals to live in, not necessarily things like famous people moving their offices from one city to another.

I know you guys aren't Peter Viles, but one of the things that made his posts interesting is that he gathered interesting leads from all sorts of sources that affected housing prices. Financial, legal, plus man-on-the-street anecdotes. Yes, you can tangentially argue this is important because the people who work for Gehry have to live somewhere, and this might affect the local markets, but really, it's about as relevant to us as what Madonna is selling.

[annon]

Is Peter Viles not doing this blog anymore?

[LA Land Buyer]

I had no Idea El Segundo was where the creatives where heading theses days. I wonder to what extent Mr. Gehry plans on renovating. Any pics of the current space?