Despite a slow pandemic recovery and office inventory challenges that led to the closure of the iconic Ace Hotel in December, downtown Los Angeles is still a destination for new luxury retail developments.
Now open in the Arts District, Signal has been more than three years in the making and is a forward of stylish food, beauty and homewares purveyor Flamingo Estate, SoCal interior design darling Lawson-Fenning, and menswear shop M5 Studio, which stocks Aspesi. Includes police stations. , Engineered Garments and Sunspel, among other brands.
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It all started when serial retailer Raan Parton and developer Paolo Carini first noticed an old industrial building on Traction Boulevard and saw its potential as a neighborhood gathering spot for events, food and fashion. He was among the many in the early 20’she The warehouses and industrial buildings of the 19th century have now become the headquarters of creative companies such as Fear of God, Warner Music Group and Re/Done. Nearby, Spotify occupies 155,000 square feet of space filled with 18 audio studios.
Built in 1910, the building at 821 Traction Avenue originally covered 25,000 square feet. Its most recent incarnation was a district of 15 creative office workspaces. “I was really inspired when I saw this building because it had such good bones and just the right amount of land to create the ratio you see today,” Carini said.
The first thing you notice when you enter Signal’s large courtyard is an Australian bottle tree with a bulbous trunk and long green branches.
It looks like a piece of sculpture designed by nature to overshadow everything on which it rises. And it comes with a bit of history. Parton and Carini were determined to have an Australian bottle tree in the middle of their yard. Searching everywhere, they found about 10 bottle trees at a nursery in San Diego. But it was already promised to another buyer. So the search continued.
“Finally we had to find a tree [via a plant collector] “He comes from a private home south of San Diego, near the Mexican border,” said Carini, who grew up in Italy and worked as an attorney before joining Est4te Four Capital and moving to the United States. “This tree is kind of our mascot,” Parton said.
The Signal partners were determined to preserve the building’s structure, but created a total of 40,000 square feet of space over two floors. The second floor is occupied by Greycroft Partners, a New York venture capital firm. Its investments include The RealReal, Goop, Bumble, Anine Bing and Venmo. Greycroft’s lease for just over 19,000 square feet of space includes a large conference hall, offices and shared co-working space for portfolio companies.
Downstairs, the reimagined, Mediterranean-inspired building features a curated group of shops and an upcoming café called Concierge. Paperwork Newsstand will be available on February 20th. One of the anchor stores on the main floor is Alchemy Works, part of the small chain founded by Parton and her husband, Lindsay, in 2013. The store displays a variety of clothing, accessories, homewares and jewelry. Alchemy Works has three other locations in California, in Newport Beach, Napa and Los Angeles’ beachfront Playa Vista neighborhood, and a fourth store in Denver.
Adjacent to Alchemy Works is Flamingo Estate, Richard Christiansen’s lifestyle brand selling candles, soaps, honey and other food products, much of which is sourced from the Flamingo Estate estate not far away. Nearby is M5 Studio, a concept store specializing in luxury menswear, with many Japanese and Italian brands.
Out front is Lawson-Fenning, a maker and curator of vintage and locally made furniture. Its arched windows overlook the courtyard and the towering Australian bottle tree. Nearby is Period Correct, the home for everything that touches on automotive nostalgia, including books, accessories, t-shirts, fleeces, hats and outerwear.
Departamento, the L.A. men’s concept store run by Andrew Dryden, a former Selfridges buyer, and Joseph Quinones, who has catered to Drake, Frank Ocean and other luxury fashionistas, will move from its nearby Santa Fe Boulevard location to Signal on March 1. Please Do Not Enter, the art and design-focused store curated by French owners Emmanuel Renoird and Nicolas Libert, will also move into the space, opening on March 1.
With its white stucco exterior, curved windows and artistic landscaping, Signal was designed by the Klein Agency, founded by Jon and Masa Kleinhample, who have a design studio nearby.
Originally, the complex was going to be called Free Market, after the two Free Markets that Parton and Carini founded with a department store-within-a-store concept that first launched in 2019 at the Dairy Block in downtown Denver. Three years ago, a second Free Market opened in Playa Vista as part of a larger commercial redevelopment called Runway that included Whole Foods, CVS pharmacy and retail stores.
But Parton and Carini felt the Free Market formula worked better alongside a larger trading center. “We wanted to be branded as an independent destination that didn’t have to depend on existing co-tenants,” Parton explained.
Carini said they wanted the project to be extremely carefully selected, with carefully selected tenants to live and thrive together. “When we develop something we focus a lot on asset. “So we started with the design, keeping in mind who the eventual tenants would be,” he explained.
The result is an inviting structure not far from the famous Hauser & Wirth art gallery and across from the Arts District Brewing Co. “I think we brought out our own voice,” Carini said. “We wanted to create a little oasis.”
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