The Grand: A Landmark Mixed-Use Development in L.A.

The Grand, a $1-billion towering collection of apartments, stores, restaurants, movie theaters and a luxury hotel in downtown L.A. across the street from the Walt Disney Concert Hall, left, has reached the halfway mark as construction carries on through the pandemic. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)

While the COVID-19 pandemic forces Americans to avoid each other and challenges the desirability of offices, museums and other shared institutions, the builders of a $1-billion project in downtown Los Angeles are betting that the city will revive and people will come together again in large numbers.

Work on the Grand, a long-anticipated mixed-use complex designed by architect Frank Gehry has reached the halfway mark as construction carries on unobtrusively through the pandemic.

The towering collection of apartments, stores, restaurants, movie theaters and a luxury hotel is rising on a full city block across Grand Avenue from Gehry's famed Walt Disney Concert Hall at a time when few are around to witness its creation.

Bunker Hill's office buildings are mostly unoccupied, as are government offices and courtrooms in the nearby Civic Center. Art institutions steps away from the Grand are closed for the pandemic, including the Broad, the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Music Center. Tourists who swoop by to get a selfie in front of Disney Hall have gone missing as fear of COVID-19 dampens leisure travel.

Work on the Frank Gehry-designed Grand development in downtown L.A. is continuing while many of downtown's office buildings are nearly 90% empty, according to real estate brokers. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)

So in this uncertain time, the aptly named Grand has turned almost into a stealth project, an audacious potential landmark dreamed up by one of the world's most famous architects coming together with all the fanfare of a five-story apartment building.

Even Gehry doesn't tour the construction site as much as he would like, as aides try to shelter the 91-year-old.

"I would go more often that I do, but they won't let me," he said in a teleconference. Instead, "I fly over it," he said, courtesy of a friend with a small plane.

What he can see now are the frames of two towers, rising at a steady clip as concrete is poured from tall cranes. The 20-story Equinox hotel is on pace to top out by the end of the year and the 39-story apartment tower should reach its peak height in early 2021.

Iron workers set columns made from rebar for the Grand's residential tower. The entire complex will be completed by early 2022. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)

The entire complex will be done by early 2022, said Rick Vogel, who is overseeing the project as a senior vice president at New York developer Related Cos.

The full-speed construction of the Grand stands in contrast to the idle cranes at Oceanwide Plaza, another downtown mixed-use development valued at more than $1 billion, where work stopped early last year as its Chinese developers apparently ran out of money. Although it predates the pandemic, the breakdown in development of the hotel, condominium and retail complex near Staples Center demonstrates how quickly economic tides can turn and upend real estate markets.