Located in Manteca, the $12.8-million Kerasotes Showplace 16 is the first theater for the Kerasotes group in the West. This theater was part of the larger project of The Promenade at Orchard Valley Lifestyle Center, developed by Poag and McEwan Lifestyle Centers. Related Links: Best of California 2009 With over 82,000 sq ft, 3,200 seats and Kerasotes’ first all-digital theater, this project was constructed in a little more than eight months using 440 pre-cast concrete panels shipped over 225 mi to the project site. Each auditorium consisted of eight thick exterior walls and two to six demising walls separating each

L.A. Live! Buildings A and B are among the final pieces of a vast entertainment complex aimed at providing Los Angeles with a downtown feel. Entertainment Building A is a nearly 408,000-sq-ft retail center that houses several restaurants, nightclubs, the Club Nokia music venue, a Lucky Strike Bowling Alley and the Grammy Museum. Related Links: Best of California 2009 Entertainment Building B is about 105,000 sq ft and houses an ESPN Zone restaurant and bar, and production facilities and offices for ESPN. The design concept required the buildings to be visually striking, which translated into the use of sharp angles,

The Los Angeles Police Department’s Hollenbeck Station is proof that you can still go green and deliver a satisfying civic structure. Related Links: Best of California 2009 The project team behind the Hollenbeck Station – FTR International and AC Martin and Partners – delivered a project that met all of the LAPD’s needs and also earned LEED gold certification. The two-story, 176,000-sq-ft facility includes a four-story parking structure and a one-story maintenance building. The team building the $34.5-million project had to overcome some challenges to construct the facility. Chief among those challenges was the partial demolition of an existing building

A campus aimed at enriching high school students’ lives through art and music received one of its finishing touches from a specialty contracting team that wanted its work to mirror the creativity of the students. Related Links: Best of California 2009 Los Angeles Unified School District’s Central Los Angeles High School #9 is expected to be a showcase campus for the district and features a number of performance and art activities designed for the school’s nearly 2,000 students. Enclos worked on installing the curtain wall for the entrance to the 40,000-sq-ft theater wall lobby. The Enclos design team worked closely

The builders of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles would be happy to know that a quality project has risen from the rubble of the hotel. The Central Los Angeles Learning Center #1 is the first phase of a K-12 learning center that is being built at the site of the former historic hotel along Wilshire Boulevard. Related Links: Best of California 2009 The school was completed in time for students to attend in September and features its own entrance, administration and academic program. The school features enough classroom space for 840 students, a parking garage, central plant and athletic

The project team behind the Mariners Church Youth Building was tasked with creating a fun space for children and teenagers while not disturbing the ongoing operations of a church campus. Related Links: Best of California 2009 The building is a two-story steel structure that contains two large multi-purpose auditoriums. The downstairs auditorium features a large roll-up door that opens to the outside youth plaza. There is a lounge downstairs for high schoolers that has couches, a pool table and televisions. There is also a loft for junior high school children that includes games, including a foosball table, a ping-pong table

The Edward R. Roybal Learning Center took a long and difficult path to completion but once finished the Los Angeles Unified School District could call the school a success, rather than a disaster. Related Links: Best of California 2009 Construction at the school site began in the late 1990s but was shut down two separate times after seismic and environmental conditions were discovered. The project site sat dormant for three years. The school, then called the Belmont Learning Complex, was viewed as the most expensive high school never built. But in 2005, the Los Angeles Unified School District awarded new

This $10-million City Hall project culminates a six-year process that spanned visioning, programming, site selection, master planning and design. The new building combines bold, civic-scaled spaces with warm, informal materials, and facilitates the public’s easy access to the city staff that was the norm at the old facility. The two-story, glass-walled building along Manila Avenue has been submitted for LEED silver certification. Related Links: Best of California 2009 Teamwork and a project management focus combined for a successful project, according to the building team. The architect says it has long been an advocate of an integrated approach to design with

Needing to build a fire station for the city of Encinitas while an existing fire station remained in operation was one of the most significant challenges for the project team behind Encinitas Fire Station #3. Related Links: Best of California 2009 The existing fire station was outdated and did not meet the requirements for new stations. However, the old station needed to remain in service in order to provide emergency and fire help for the surrounding area. HAR Construction built the two-story, 7,256-sq-ft fire station working with city officials and architect Dominy + Associates Architects @ domusstudio. To build the

The project team behind the Fox Theatre Renovation and Addition was tasked with preserving the historical ambiance of a 1929 vaudeville theater, but also converting it into a 1,600-seat performing arts center. Related Links: Best of California 2009 The $30-million project, which took less than two years to build, also needed to retain the Spanish revival architecture and detailing both inside and out. The city of Riverside funded the construction of the theater and asked the project team to restore it to its former glory. The project is part of the city’s billion-dollar plan to invest into Riverside’s art and