Column Two:
WHAT’S CHANGED IN THE PLAYHOUSE VILLAGE SINCE 1985?
October 2020
Progress on the new building, looking northeast
In the last column we talked about the motivation behind building Brantwood at the corner of Oakland and Union. Brantwood is a new home for ageless adults interested in the arts community, to be completed in 2023. It’s not a regular apartment building, but more of a university-like home with curated experiences, modeled on European salons where people can live downtown, share interests, outings, and enjoy foods together.
The idea for Brantwood stemmed from a 1985 conversation that led to a plan to revitalize the Playhouse Village. The area had no name originally, but everything in City planning needs a name, so we called it the Playhouse District. That name gave way recently to the Playhouse Village, because the area is really more of an urban village than a political district.
Virtually nothing changed in the Village from the 40 years between the 1950’s and the 1990’s. At the west edge of the Village along Los Robles, the old Broadway department store came down in the 1980’s, and on the east side of the Village along Lake, tall office buildings were built. But inside the Village, nothing started changing until an earthquake rocked the four-story brick Crown Hotel on Colorado so badly in 1989 that it was torn down, along with Nardi’s Bar next door at the corner of El Molino. These demolitions paved the way for the Vroman’s expansion and the building of Laemmle’s Theater in 1996. That was the beginning of the Village’s transformation.
Aerial photos spanning six decades of change.
The parking lots begin to disappear by the early 2000’s. Hall’s Jewelry at Oak Knoll was bought and torn down by a developer in 1998, replaced by Office Depot, which has now been replaced by Total Wine. More significantly, the entire block around the historic bank building at Madison was acquired and a few buildings torn down in 2004, replaced by the 350-unit Trio Apartments.
On the south side of Colorado at Oak Knoll, the old Glendale Federal Savings Bank went out of business, and that building was torn down for more apartments. And finally, the Biggar’s Furniture Store at El Molino next to the Arcade was torn down and replaced by Pasadena Office Plaza in 2015 , a beautiful deco-revival office campus with a courtyard on El Molino that mirrors the courtyard of the Playhouse.
Up on Union, transformation began in 2006 when Mill Creek Development built Granada Court and then the Andalucia apartments a decade later behind Laemmle’s and Vroman’s.
These are Mediterranean rival style buildings, emulating the original 1920’s feel of the Village - lots of red tile roofs. In 2015, an architect drew a sketch of what Union Street could look like going east to west, as though you had come off the 210 freeway at Lake, went south and turned right on Union to approach City Hall.
Sketch of an Updated Playhouse Village
You can see the new Granada Court condos in the lower right corner, the Andalucia under construction, a proposed park across the street,and thoughts about revitalizing or replacing other buildings along Union.
That’s when Brantwood began taking shape. The Pasadena Presbyterian Church at Madison and Colorado owned five parcels of land nearby - three on Madison just north of the Barcelona Apartments and two on Union - one on the north side and the larger parcel on the south side, at the corner of Oakland. The governance committee of the Church wanted to see something useful and engaging built on these lots; we submitted plans to acquire the land for infill buildings that integrated contextually with surrounding architectural styles.
The sketch below became the winning concept for the corner of Oakland and Union, which emerged as Brantwood. We’ll talk more about the actual building in another column.
Concept sketch for Brantwood
If you’re feeling cloistered and need to see some progress during the pandemic, drive along Union and see what’s happening. On the north side of Union in this area, two buildings are going up - one is the Catalonia on Madison, 81 apartments similar in style to Granada and Andalucia, and similar to its neighbor to the south, the Barcelona Apartments built in 1924. On Union itself, directly across the street from Brantwood, a smaller mixed use building is under construction with office on the first two floors and five larger units above, looking over the Fuller campus. This building is named after one of Pasadena’s early Arts & Crafts architects, Louis B. Easton. A future column will talk about Easton, one of Pasadena’s unsung heroes.
With the park commencing construction at Union and El Molino, and the lovely Polyzoides apartment on the opposite corner, there’s a lot of transformation in the Village. 2022 portends a lot more inhabitants in the Village, helping the City re-open.
Andalucia Apartments