Structure Type: built works - commercial buildings - shopping malls

Designers: Luckman, Charles, Associates (firm); Charles Irving Luckman Sr. (architect)

Dates: constructed 1973

6 stories

Los Angeles, CA

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Ogden Developer/Broadway-Hale/Urban Center Partnership created this development, according to the Architectural Record, (04/1974, p. 137), "the first urban center to integrate a hotel, office and retail concourse in one self-contained megastructure." Broadway Plaza was one component of a $85 million project that included a shopping mall with 250,000-square-foot department store, a two-level shopping galleria, an eight-level parking structure, a 23-story Hyatt Regency Hotel and the 700 Flower Street Office Building. Charles Luckman Associates designed Broadway Plaza, which experienced great success in its early years; the new department store built into the mall was the first new large-scale facility built in Downtown Los Angeles, CA, in 50 years; the Hyatt was the first large hotel built Downtown in 20 years.

Broadway Plaza consisted of a two-level shopping mall (or galleria) attached to a huge, three-level department store; the galleria had a glazed front entrance with a glass skylight illuminating most of the main floor, known as the "plaza level." Thin steel trusses spanned the mall, allowing light to filter down abundantly. Light courts allowed some daylight to penetrate down to the underground "garden court." Originally, the plaza level contained spaces for a bank, 3 shops, and entrances to the 700 Flower Street Office Building and the Hyatt on the opposite wall. The garden level had room for a large restaurant (catering to a large lunch-time customer base) and 4 more shops. Eight levels of parking sandwiched the department store, 2 floors below grade and 6 above.

PCAD id: 7197