Shubert to Be Razed, Tower To Replace It.

The Shubert Theatre will be shut down and the entire ABC Entertainment Center razed to make, way for a new $280 million office building that Trammell Crow Co. plans to develop on the prime Century City parcel, sources told the Business Journal.

Lee Silver, a spokesman for the Shubert Organization in New York, confirmed that the 1,800-seat theater would cease operations Sept. 30, 2002.

"The Shubert Organization is saddened and disappointed the ownership of the ABC Entertainment Center has decided to replace the existing complex with a new office building," Silver said, reading from a prepared statement. "The Shubert Organization built the theater and operated the building since its opening in July 1972."

Silver declined to elaborate.

Trammell Crow officials also declined to discuss the project, choosing to reserve their comments until plans are submitted to the Los Angeles city planning department. That submission has been planned and rescheduled several times in recent weeks, and could come as early as this week.

Westside real estate sources familiar with the proposal said it calls for demolition of the theater, two five-story office buildings and the limestone plaza and fountains that make up the ABC Entertainment Center. The proposed development has been tentatively designed to consist of two 15- or 16-story buildings with combined space of about 800,000 square feet.

One distinctive aspect of the design is that the ground floor and two top floors would run the entire length of the building, while each of the middle floors would be bisected into two smaller sections on either side of the structure, leaving the center open.

"You create, essentially, a donut hole," said Hunt Barnett, a senior managing director at Insignia/ESG, who has seen the plans.

"They've been using the term 'icon,'" he said, referring to Trammell Crow's desire to create another signature building to define the Century City skyline. Also joining the Century City mix in the coming years is Constellation Place, a $250 million high-rise currently under construction on Constellation Boulevard and Century Park West.

As the name of the development suggests, ABC had been the major tenant at 2020 and 2040 Avenue of the Stars until it vacated in 2000 and moved to a new headquarters building in Burbank. Although ABC has no one in the building, the network will pay rent through next fall. Only miscellaneous office tenants remain, Barnett said.

The complex also has a retail area that has seen only spotty success over the years -- especially on weekends when many of the shops are not even open. Various efforts have been made to revive the mall-like complex to little effect.

Shubert's L.A. run

Barnett noted that the Shubert has not been very busy of late and only pays rent in the neighborhood of 70 cents a foot, monthly -- and only when it is hosting a production.

The Shubert has posted a very mixed financial performance since its 1972 opening. Originally created for limited runs of shows in a subscription series, it began hosting longer runs when "A Chorus Line" took off in 1976 and ran for 18 months.

Reading from his prepared statement, Silver ticked off the theater's list of hits over the years: "Evita," "Annie," "Cats," "City of Angels," "Les Miserables," "Sunset Boulevard" and "Ragtime."

But "Ragtime," which closed in spring 1998, was the last big production. And it reportedly lost money. A year later, the Shubert and other local live theater venues lost their bids to stage "The Lion King," which ended up at the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood, where it is currently playing.

The Shubert Organization, meanwhile, returned to its subscription concept and has hosted "Mamma Mia!," "Dame Edna: The Royal Tour," "Saturday Night Fever" and "Kiss Me, Kate," which opened Aug. 24 and is slated to run through Oct. 13.

As for Trammell Crow's proposed building, Barnett said it would be shorter than nearby high-rises so it can fit within the existing center's footprint, and so the existing subterranean parking at the site could be retained. Another constraint to the proposed project's size is the Century City North Specific Plan, which stipulates how many automobile trips can be generated by the project.

Trammell Crow's proposal calls for 50,000 square feet of retail space at ground level, Barnett said, which would be a sharp reduction from the 200,000 square feet of retail space in the ABC Entertainment Center.

Barnett further said Trammell Crow wants to attract two destination restaurants to the project, including one that would be housed in a standalone building on the site.

Another Westside broker, Gary Weiss of Credit Suisse First Boston Realty, said space at the new project likely would rent for between $4 and $5 per foot, per month.

Perpetual demand

"The market has always had a demand for Class-A trophy space, regardless of when the buildings go up," Weiss said. "Plus, it's going to be the last building."

The same was said of Constellation Place prior to its groundbreaking, but that assumed no existing structures would be torn down. References to the "last building" are based on the fact that any additional buildings, without existing ones being razed, would cause the specific plan's cap on automobile trips to be exceeded.

Weiss said Trammell Crow, which would build the project for the partnership of JP Morgan and pension funds for General Motors Corp. and AT&T Corp., plans to install a park-like open space in place of the existing limestone plaza that the ABC Entertainment Center shares with the Century Plaza Towers.

If Trammell Crow gets the necessary approvals from the city and is ready to begin demolition when leases at the current project expire in October 2002, the developer could deliver the new building by 2005, Barnett estimated.

Meanwhile, the community will have to put up with the disruptions and inconvenience of yet another construction site. Perhaps the most inconvenienced would be tenants in the Century Plaza Towers who will lose their views when the new, higher buildings are in place at the site.

Barnett said he already has a tenant considering leasing space in the proposed building. Investment banking giant Bear Stearns & Co., currently a tenant in the nearby SunAmerica Center at 1999 Avenue of the Stars, is interested in taking as much as 100,000 feet, he said.

Weiss added that Trammell Crow is looking for even bigger tenants than that and wants to find a major tenant to lease most of the project. Barnett said Trammell Crow officials had approached Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. about anchoring the project before MGM signed its 425,000-square-foot lease at Constellation Place.