Six-acre Development Planned for the Corner of Crenshaw Boulevard and Rodeo Road

Local firm Charles Company, which is developing the project, wants to put up a mall containing a Target, a Ralphs, Marshalls, Dress for Less, and other retailers at the corner of Crenshaw Boulevard and Rodeo Road, just blocks from the famous West Angeles Church of God In Christ. And it's just blocks from the planned Expo Line. If approved by the city--the City Council will vote on this Target mall project on Friday-- construction would start by November, a rep for Charles Company told a City Council. For more information, click here. [via Curbed LA]

USC Plans $900-million Shopping and Residential Upgrade

 USC says it wants what many other big city universities have: an attractive, lively place next to campus for students and faculty to shop, dine, watch movies and just hang out.

In what is described as the most ambitious construction project in South Los Angeles in a generation, the university plans to replace an outdated shopping center with a retail, cinema and hotel complex that would also include dorms for about 5,000 students.

It is being designed in USC's signature Mediterranean style by the Boston-based architecture firm Elkus Manfredi, which worked on the Grove and the Americana outdoor malls in Los Angeles and Glendale, and on campus buildings at Harvard University and other schools. For more information about the story, click here. [via LA Times]

Inspired Match - How Patronage Drives Architecture

From Medici to Marx, how patronage drives architecture and what we can learn from it today.

By John Gendall
Nottingham Science Park, Image: Martine Hamilton-KnightHistorians position the Renaissance’s birth in Florence, Italy around the year 1400. They give it this coordinate in place and time because of a perfect storm of conditions: a wealth of talent pouring out from several accomplished workshops (Lorenzo Ghiberti, Fra Angelico, and Filipo Brunelleschi), a thriving economy owing to bustling trade, and, importantly, an ambitious and tasteful patron of the arts, the Medici family, willing to invest in provocative new art and architecture. In the midst of the Bubonic Plague, the revelation of the Florentine patrons served as a guiding light, paving they way for the exquisite work of the high renaissance. In other words, without the Medicis, there would have been no Michelangelo.

The same relationship between patron and architect carries through architectural history, with nobility, religious leaders, business owners tapping

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What Color Is Your Lease? - Beyond the Grid

Green leases offer sustainable and financial benefits for landlords and tenants alike

By Ina Drosu

In an environment where the ecological lobby is prevalent, and the general economic downturn begs for practical innovation that reduces operating costs, green leases are steadily gaining the interest of landlords and tenants. Profitability is key to survival of commercial ventures; without it, loftier concerns fly out the window. What better way to harness broad improvement potentials than a lease structured as economic driver accommodating comprehensive environmental regulations and allowing for necessary changes over time?

According to a study done by CRD&MI, energy costs are 29 percent of landlord
operating costs while less than one percent is paid for by tenants.

Alan Whitson, president of Corporate Realty, Design & Management Institute, created a model green lease to serve as more than a “token gesture to sustainability.” The lease provides incentives for landlords to build cost-effective peak-performance buildings that address energy and water efficiency, emission reduction, and waste minimization. According to a study done by CRD&MI, energy costs are 29 percent of a building’s operating costs while less than one percent is paid for by tenants. Most commercial leases leave energy efficiency out of the equation. He adds, “in a booming market it’s easy to be green, but now, savvy people realize it is part of an economic strategy to improve performance and productivity.”

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