EL SEGUNDO, CA - Frank Gehry and the 160 professionals of the world-renowned architectural firm Gehry Partners, LLP will relocate to this coastal California community in early 2009, occupying 75,000 square feet in a campus being developed by NSB Associates—a move that was announced Lawrence N. Field, chairman and CEO of NSB.
Gehry Partners is currently developing the master plan for the campus and will add 15,000 square feet of space to the 60,000 square feet of existing structures. Occupancy is expected in the first or second quarter of 2009. The property is located between Utah Avenue and Alaska Avenue, near Aviation Boulevard.
Because of continuing growth in demand for its services, Gehry Partners has outgrown its 44,000-square-foot studio space on Beatrice Street in West Los Angeles, which was also developed in partnership with NSB Associates.
The El Segundo property that will be the new home of Gehry Partners includes a total of 154,000 square feet of land, providing ample parking and potential for future expansion. The warehouse-style structures were built in the 1960s, and have 20-foot ceilings.
Harvey Beesen and Luke Staubitz of The Klabin Company represented the buyers in the acquisition of the property, working with Kevin Mansfield, NSB's vice president for acquisitions.
Field noted that El Segundo, once known as a center of aviation and aerospace manufacturing, has emerged in recent years as a highly desirable location for creative, technology and new media companies.
"Like many people in Los Angeles, the Gehry Partners designers didn't know much about El Segundo," says Field. "But when they visited the new campus site and realized that they would be a just few minutes' walk from great restaurants, shops and entertainment, and a short bike ride from the beach, they were eager to move."
El Segundo Mayor Kelly McDowell said, "To have someone of Frank Gehry's stature headquartered here is a great coup for our city, and fortifies El Segundo's growing reputation as a prime destination and center for design, the arts and creative media. Frank Gehry is truly a giant in the field of architecture and his works are world-renowned for their synthesis of architecture and art. We are proud to welcome him to our community."
Mayor McDowell noted that a number of prominent design, arts and media companies have been attracted to El Segundo. In just the past year, advertising agencies Ignited Minds, LLC and David & Goliath moved to the city, as did Internet media firm Tandberg Television.
A coastal community situated just south of Los Angeles International Airport, El Segundo has a population of 16,000 in its five square miles. In addition to quiet residential neighborhoods and a quaint, pedestrian-friendly downtown, it offers a bustling commercial district that draws more than 85,000 employees daily and boasts the highest paying jobs in the South Bay.
In addition to several of the world's largest defense firms and the Los Angeles Air Force Base, the city is home to more than a dozen Fortune 500 companies in industries ranging from information technology to entertainment.
About Frank Gehry
A Toronto native who moved to California at the age of 18, the Pritzker Prize winning architect burst onto the scene in 1972 with his innovative Easy Edges furniture designs that incorporated cardboard as a medium. Over his career, he has completed dozens of widely acclaimed high-profile buildings, many of which have become tourist attractions. Gehry has received honorary doctoral degrees from Occidental College, Whittier College, the California College of Arts and Crafts, the Technical University of Nova Scotia, the Rhode Island School of Design, the California Institute of Arts, the Southern California Institute of Architecture, the Otis Art Institute at the Parsons School of Design, the University of Toronto, the University of Southern California, Yale University, Harvard University, and the University of Edinburgh. In 1982, 1985, and 1987-89, Gehry held the Charlotte Davenport Professorship in Architecture at Yale University. In 1984, he held the Eliot Noyes Chair at Harvard University. In 1996-97, he was a visiting scholar at the Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich, Switzerland.
About Gehry Partners
Gehry Partners is a full-service firm with broad international experience in museum, theater, performance, institutional, commercial and residential projects. The senior partners of the firm work as a team in the development of all projects undertaken by the firm, with Frank Gehry leading the design effort and other partners complementing his work with their extensive experience in project management and the development of technical systems. At the heart of the firm's approach to design is a process which has been developed over many years, in which the client is brought fully into the design process as part of the design team, making the design a true working collaboration between the firm and the client. The design process is based on extensive physical modeling at multiple scales. The models explore both the functional and sculptural aspects of the project in a medium understood by designers and laypeople alike.
