Port of Los Angeles Selects EE&K Architects/Gafcon to Design and Implement San Pedro Waterfront; Team Emphasizes Community Input and Local Context in Developing the Plan.

Business Editors

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 9, 2003

The Port of Los Angeles Board of Harbor Commissioners selected the Ehrenkrantz Eckstut and Kuhn Architects (EE&K)/Gafcon team to create a Development Plan for the 7-mile San Pedro Waterfront - stretching from the Vincent Thomas Bridge at the north to the federal breakwater at the south.

Yehudi Gaffen, principal of Gafcon, and Stan Eckstut, FAIA, founding principal of EE&K Architects, will serve as principals-in-charge for the San Pedro Waterfront Development Plan and Downtown Promenade/Plaza. Vaughan Davies, ISAA, principal-in-charge of EE&K Architects' Los Angeles office, will lead the design efforts.

"With 400 acres of land adjacent to the water, this is a huge endeavor, and I believe that the Port selected a team that can get a project of this scope implemented", said Nicholas G. Tonsich, President of the Board. "We also have chosen a team that is locally-based, which understands this community and has a strong sense of our historical identity".

Stan Eckstut's Guiding Principles for Waterfront and Large-scale Designs emphasizes starting with a Water Plan, "We believe that the Water Plan should generate as much excitement and economically viable activities in the water as on the ground, whether for port, recreation, entertainment or education related issues. It is, after all, the water and the uniqueness of San Pedro as a working harbor that distinguishes this place from any other".

Also critical to the project's success is community participation in the design process, and the EE&K/Gafcon team has scheduled five all-day public which will be supplemented by presentations to the community approximately every three weeks. The first of the public workshops will be held commencing 8:30 a.m. on Saturday, October 25 at the San Pedro Sheraton.

At Ehrenkrantz Eckstut & Kuhn Architects we design and build that which makes a city from the buildings and fabric of everyday life: homes, schools and retail to its icons, such as: courthouses and college campuses. We add life and luster to our historic treasure and find new and exciting uses for old friends. We seek to design at all scales of the urban environment, from the smallest bus shelter to the largest redevelopment plan. We have created such urban and waterfront landmarks as Battery Park City, New York, Baltimore's Inner Harbor East, Queensway Bay downtown/harbor and retail development in Long Beach, CA, the large scale mixed-use urban center of Paseo-Colorado in Pasadena, CA, Gateway inter-modal transit center, L.A. as well as providing advice on large scale mixed use urban design related to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey's ongoing Engineering and Transportation Planning of Lower Manhattan and the World Trade Center site. Established in 1959, we provide STRATEGIC innovative, visionary and sensitive ARCHITECTURE that transforms places into experiences.