Credit: Los Angeles Public Library
Downtown LA’s historic PacMutual landmark has sold for $200 million, according to the Los Angeles Times, marking a turnaround for the once-struggling office block.
The seller, Rising Realty Partners, initially bought the three-structure property in 2012 for $60 million, and quickly removed the drywalls, dropped ceilings and carpets that had been added to the early 20th-century building after World War II.
Brick walls, concrete floors and windows were exposed, and the listed Beaux Arts complex – originally designed by architects John Parkinson and Edwin Bergstrom – is now a creative hub for tech and entertainment companies.
‘This building was meant to have high ceilings and a high volume of light,’ Rising Realty co-founder Christopher Rising told the Los Angeles Times. ‘By pulling it back to a sense of what it was like in the 1920s or 1930s, we had people saying, “I’ll pay for this.”’
Rising Realty’s move to attract creatives to an area that traditionally catered to law and financial firms was seen as risky at the time.
The building’s new owners, Ivanhoe Cambridge and Callahan Capital Properties, will continue running the complex as a workspace.
