The Bloc Los Angeles
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| Location | 700 S. Flower Street Los Angeles, California |
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| Coordinates | 34°02′54″N 118°15′31″W / 34.048334°N 118.258643°W |
| Opening date | October 2015 |
| Owner | The Ratkovich Company and National Real Estate Advisors |
| Website | theblocdowntown.com |
The Bloc, formerly Macy's Plaza and Broadway Plaza, is an open-air plaza in downtown Los Angeles at 700 South Flower Street, in the Financial District. It's tenants include the downtown Los Angeles Macy's store, LA Fitness, and the Sheraton Grand Los Angeles hotel. The plaza has its own access to the LA Metro at the 7th Street/Metro Center station.
History
The Original Broadway Plaza (1973 - 2013)
The original Broadway Plaza opened as an enclosed shopping mall in 1973. The structure claimed to be the first enclosed "suburban" type shopping center in the United States.[1] The original enclosed mall included the downtown The Broadway store, the Hyatt Regency Hotel of Los Angeles, and an Oshman's Sporting Goods, along with an underground food court and several smaller non-chain shops. The mall was renamed Macy's Plaza in 1996 due to the bankruptcy of The Broadway chain being bought out by Macy's. In 2005, the Hyatt Regency, was renamed the Sheraton Grand with Sheraton as the new owner. Bally Total Fitness (which occupied the Oshman's space) closed and re-opened as LA Fitness in 2012. In 2013, the Macy's Plaza was acquired by Ratkovich, who developed plans to replace the imposing 1973-vintage "monolithic" red brick fortress-like architectural style, with a more open plan. [2]
Renovation (2015)
A majority of the Macy's Plaza closed in early-2015 for the conversion into a new open-air plaza, given the name The Bloc. The renovation forced many long-time tenants, including Bath and Body Works, Express, Lady Foot Locker, Victoria's Secret, and original 1973 opening tenant Carl's Jr. in the underground food court to close. Many of these tenants, including Victoria's Secret and Bath and Body Works, moved to the nearby newly-renovated FIGat7th outdoor mall. Macy's and the Sheraton hotel remained open during the renovations. LA Fitness and the United States Postal Service branch at the mall remained operational, but were forced to move to street level. In May, 2015, the large "Macy's" sign was taken down and the large glass atrium roof was removed, officially opening the atrium of the once enclosed mall to the sky.[3]
The New Outdoor-Plaza
The Bloc Los Angeles was officially opened in October, 2015. By design, the outdoor plaza was the first development in the Los Angeles area to have its own access to the LA Metro (as was planned when the subway line was constructed under Flower Street in 1989). The plaza includes a flagship store of the San Francisco-based men's retailer Wingtip, Los Angeles' first Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, a Dallas-based movie theatre chain, and Starbucks Evenings, a Starbucks store concept that serves alcoholic beverages. Other smaller tenants include TLT Food, Urban Oven, Popbar, and N'ice Cream.[4]
References
- ^ "Macy's Plaza & Hyatt Regency Hotel > Downtown Los Angeles Walking Tour > USC Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences". dornsife.usc.edu. Retrieved 2017-01-21.
- ^ "Ratkovich Acquires Downtown LA Macy's Plaza: Will Begin $160 Million Upgrade with New Access to Subway Station | DTLA RISING". DTLA Rising with Brigham Yen. 2013-06-06. Retrieved 2017-01-21.
- ^ Vincent, Roger. "Former Macy's Plaza in DTLA getting makeover from roof down". latimes.com. Retrieved 2017-01-21.
- ^ "Opening Soon | THE BLOC". www.theblocdowntown.com. Retrieved 2017-01-21.
External links
- The Bloc - official site