San Pedro’s long-vacant courthouse will finally come down.
Demolition work on the decades-old building is set to begin next month, eventually paving the way for an 8-story residential-commercial development that will be built in its place on the northwest corner of Sixth and Centre streets in the downtown shopping district.
Demolition will start at 10 a.m. Feb. 9 and the public is invited to watch — at a safe distance.
Work to knock down the building is expected to take 30 to 50 days, with construction on the new development set to begin in late summer. The construction project will take two years to complete.
The new development will also bring landscaped open space and a food hall into downtown. The upper floors will include 300 apartments, with 20% of the units designated as affordable.
“This is a project that we have been looking forward to for a long time,” Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn said in a written statement, adding that much of the work has been ongoing “behind the scenes.”
“The demolition,” she said, “means the public is actually going to see progress and that is exciting.”
The San Pedro courthouse operated from 1969 to 2013 and was among the county courthouses closed because of budget constraints. The building was declared surplus property in 2016, which opened the way for discussions on redeveloping the 1.8-acre, block-long parcel at 505 S. Centre St.
Asbestos abatement, primarily involving floor tiles, is now underway inside the 1960s courthouse building, said Bill Cockrum, senior managing partner and president of developer Genton Cockrum Partners.
The parking area has now been fenced off after remaining open through the holidays. Genton Cockrum Partners, at the request of Hahn and the community, reached an agreement with the city of Los Angeles to leave the lot unfenced during the holidays, Cockrum said; for years, the lot had been used for public parking for the various restaurants and shops in the immediate area.
The project was formally launched in 2017 when the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved buying the property for $5.2 million.
The new development, one of several midrise, mixed-use projects in San Pedro that are already built or on the way, will offer 20,000 square feet of ground floor retail. Half of that space will be devoted to a food hall where the public can order meals from multiple vendors and use communal seating areas.
A labor museum has also been proposed for the ground floor, Hahn said.
Initial drawings drew some criticism from community members as not reflecting the more historic, Art Deco design elements that dominate the downtown blocks. Some of San Pedro’s most historic storefronts and buildings are found along Sixth and Seventh streets.
Responding to the critics, designers revised the plans to include an exterior, ground-floor brick facade for the retail section and a new window design.
The upper-floor apartments, Hahn said, will be ones “people can afford.” And that, she said, will help bring more people and spending into the downtown shopping district.