Los Angeles Nonprofit The Music Centre Opens $41 Million Plaza
The Music Center today joined with civic and community leaders to dedicate The Music Center Plaza, opening the newly renovated, accessible outdoor urban space and recognizing it as "The Plaza for All."
The plaza was closed for 20 months for its $41 million makeover, which added a host of new features, including glass-covered elevators on both sides of the main staircase off Grand Avenue, a wine bar, a welcome center, a coffee shop, and permanent restrooms. The makeover also flattened and widened the space, doubling its capacity for events from 2,500 to 5,000.
"The Music Center Plaza is a key component of the renovation plan for Downtown Los Angeles, securing Grand Avenue as a multicultural corridor and destination where L.A. County residents and visitors are welcome," said Los Angeles County Supervisor Hilda L. Solis, who represents the First District, which includes the Music Center. "The renovation of The Music Center Plaza encourages greater access and enables everyone to more fully experience the wide breadth and diversity of the arts, culture and music of L.A. County and the First District."
Music Center CEO Rachel Moore said that post-reboot, the open space was now “a plaza for all” that is much better equipped to host the largely no-cost or low-cost public programming that the Music Center plans to present here.
The Music Center also announced that it had secured $14 million to go toward public programs in the new plaza, thanks in large part to a private gift.
The 55-year-old outdoor space sits between the Mark Taper Forum and the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in the Music Center complex, which also includes the Ahmanson Theater and, across the street, the Walt Disney Concert Hall.
The Ahmanson, the Mark Taper, and the Dorothy Chandler were all designed by Welton Becket, architect of the Capitol Records building and the Cinerama Dome. Becket worked with landscape architecture firm Cornell, Bridgers and Troller on the design for the original plaza.