The nearly century-old Desmond building is undergoing a $13 million renovation. When the work is finished next spring, the old warehouse at 11th and Hope streets will be home to AEG's live entertainment and technology divisions.
The two divisions have more than 500 employees. The building is a couple of blocks away from AEG's headquarters at L.A. Live
"They looked for more open, creative work space than some of the traditional office space we had elsewhere," said Ted Fikre with AEG. "We had to spend a lot of time making sure we came up with a plan that they all felt good about."
The city of Los Angeles is banking on AEG's move downtown to bring other business to the area. In fact, the city is working on making the process easier to move downtown.
"A lot of changes to adaptive reuse buildings, commercial reuse to try and streamline the process, make it a lot easier to go through the permitting, so that they can get their buildings up and running quickly and in a safe manner," said Paul Habib, chief of staff for Councilman Jose Huizar.
"It will show that downtown as a whole is open for business and a great place for creative office tenants to be. And we want creative, we want traditional we want every office tenant we can get," said Carol Schatz with the Central City Association.
Schatz says there are a number of other old downtown buildings being renovated for office use. Along with those projects, she says there are currently 5,000 apartments and condos under construction in downtown L.A. According to the city, there are more than 50,000 downtown residents.
"It's time to be a metropolis and compete with San Francisco, New York, or Chicago, those kind of big cities," said Stephen Ma, who lives downtown. "We have all the elements that make up a big city, we have all the people, now we just have to have that hub that holds us all together."