Broad museum headed downtown [updated]

The legendary art collection of Eli and Edythe Broad is one step closer to finding  a permanent home—in a new “world class” museum to be built at 2^nd Street and Grand Avenue in downtown Los Angeles.

County supervisors on Tuesday signed off on a revised plan to build the contemporary art museum on the site, which originally had been targeted for retail uses under the Grand Avenue Project. When that project originally was approved in 2007, developers had envisioned a sweeping array of businesses, residences, cultural attractions and a hotel along the corridor. Most of those elements are now on hold because of the recession, although one of the project’s centerpieces, a Civic Park stretching from the Music Center to City Hall, recently broke ground.

The supervisors’ sign-off on the new museum means that only one more official approval is required for the plan. That’s expected to come Monday from the joint powers authority overseeing the Grand Avenue Project.

Eli Broad was in the audience at the Hall of Administration on Tuesday, and said after the vote that the museum was headed downtown—not to Santa Monica, which also had been in contention.

“Absolutely it’s coming to this site,” Broad said.

But he declined to name the project’s architect, who is expected to be named on Monday. Architects including Rem Koolhaas and Diller Scofidio + Renfro have been reported as contenders for the commission.

Broad is picking up the $80 million to $100 million tab to build the museum and will set up a $200 million endowment to run it. Under the plan approved Tuesday, Broad also will be paying an additional $7.7 million that the county treasurer will hold in trust to build affordable housing downtown.

A museum to house the Broads’ collection—whose works are frequently loaned to other institutions for public display—is seen by cultural and business leaders as a vital step in downtown’s renaissance.

David Johnson, co-chair of MOCA’s board of trustees, said that the new museum across the street will “make Los Angeles one of the most important places in the world to see contemporary art.”

Carol Schatz, president and CEO of the Central City Association, said it will create 1,500 jobs and provide $234 million annually in related economic benefits.

“Cultural tourism is one of the great multipliers,” she noted.

Stephen Rountree, president and CEO of the Music Center, said he welcomes the energy the new museum will bring to the neighborhood—along with younger audiences he hopes will stick around to sample the offerings of his resident companies.

Broad, who did not address the board, echoed those hopes after the meeting:

“The exciting part is we want to dramatically increase attendance to all of the cultural organizations on Grand Avenue,” he said.

He noted that the new museum, with its architect to be named Monday, will join a spectacular stretch of buildings: Coop Himmelblau’s High School for the Visual and Performing Arts, Jose Rafael Moneo’s Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, the Frank Gehry-designed Walt Disney Concert Hall and MOCA, designed by Arata Isozaki.

The new 115,000-to-120,000-square-foot museum is to be built on three levels. Its galleries will display pieces from the Broads’ collection of more than 2,000 works by artists including Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Damien Hirst, Cindy Sherman and Jeff Koons.

Posted 8/17/10

Updated 8/18/10: Following Broad’s reported comments on Supervisor Yaroslavsky’s website that the museum “absolutely” will be built in Downtown Los Angeles, a spokeswoman for the Broad Foundation, Karen Denne, said Wednesday that “no decision has or will be made” until after the upcoming meeting of the Joint Powers Authority. She said Broad did not make the statement, which is documented in the writer’s notes from her interview with Broad on Tuesday at the county Hall of Administration. The supervisor’s website stands behind its report.