DTLA: Times Mirror Square

If you are taking a walking tour of downtown Los Angeles, it wouldn’t be complete without swinging by the Los Angeles Times Building and Times Mirror Square. It’s just a stone’s throw away from the LA City Hall building (where you will find the best view of Los Angeles), Grand Park and the Walt Disney Concert Hall.

You also want to do it soon.  It won’t remain there in its current form much longer!

The Los Angeles Times Building isn’t on the LA Historic Cultural Monuments or any of the historic landmarks register, but it should be.  Located on the corner of 1st and Spring Streets in LA, the Art Deco Los Angeles Times Building was opened in 1935 as the headquarters for LA’s main newspaper.  It is on the site of two previous LA City Hall’s before it was moved to its current location a block away.

Unfortunately, the Onni Group real estate development company announced they were raising the rent on the property by one million dollars per month.  Faced with more than just a bit of a steep increase, the LA Times notified employees on April 13, 2018 that staff of about 800 employees would relocate to a new campus under construction in El Segundo.

News articles at the time mentioned the considerable inconveniece the new location was going to cause employees that would be faced with both long commutes to work, and to DTLA which is where so many of the news stories occur.

Plans are in the works for new construction on the site.  This is one time that I must say I cannot support the new development.  The Los Angeles Times is too much a part of our city to be “evicted” from its home by greed driven insane rent increases, and Times Mirror Square is a significant part of LA’s history that shouldn’t be defaced.