[UPDATED] For the first time in almost a century, the cavernous first floor of the iconic former bank building at 595 E. Colorado Blvd. will be available for lease.
The Swig Co. has confirmed it has begun marketing approximately 15,000 square feet on the ground floor and mezzanine level of the historic bank and office building.
Cory Kristoff, senior vice president in charge of asset management for The Swig Co.’s Southern California portfolio, sees the availability as an opportunity for a wide range of tenants looking for a unique prime downtown Pasadena location along the Rose Parade route.
“This is the first time this unique space has been available since the original bank occupied the space in 1928 and it will appeal to a wide range of tenants from banks and financial services companies to technology firms looking for creative office space with lofty ceilings and high speed connectivity,” she said.
The Swig Co. has owned the office since 2011. The property is currently occupied by Bank Of The West, which has chosen not to renew its lease, according to Kristoff.
The space features 30-feet high coffered ceilings and includes a mezzanine as well as a basement with a fully functioning 7,800 square-foot bank vault.
“Their lease is expiring in January of 2022, and they have made the decision to downsize their space requirements for their banking facility. They’re actually moving down the street to the Paseo Colorado, into what I’m told is about 3,500 square feet. So it’s a little bit large for most banks today, who are reducing their footprint size.”
According to a newspaper report, the structure was built in 1928 and has been renovated twice over the years.
According to Kristoff, Swig has put quite a bit of capital into the building, and currently some of the plumbing is being redone.
“We’re doing some as we speak as we come across pipes that might need repair or whatever we just do it as kind of on an as needed basis,” she said.
“The building doesn’t need to be rewired. It has several choices for Wi-Fi. We’ve brought in telco companies so that the tenants have a wide array of choices of telco companies to work with. “
“For a building like this, you don’t really want to remodel it to new modern standards,” Kristoff said. “So the remodeling that we did in the lobby we did to keep in with the historic grandeur [of] the building.”
The first-floor space features historic murals painted by artists John B. Smeraldi and Alson Skinner Clark. Smeraldi painted the famed ceiling frescoes at Los Angeles’ Biltmore Hotel and Clark, a local impressionist, painted the fire curtain at the nearby Pasadena Playhouse.
Clark’s murals were completed in 1929 and depict four major Southern California economic drivers: oil drilling, citrus farming, the film industry, and shipping. The building’s original earthquake support system was designed by professor R.R. Martel, who taught at nearby Caltech.
The property at the northeast corner of Colorado Boulevard and Madison Avenue is located in the Pasadena Playhouse District, less than a mile from Caltech, and just east of Old Pasadena and The Paseo.
The building is surrounded by many popular restaurants and tenant amenities. It is close to on and off ramps for the 134 and 210 freeways and just blocks from the Metro Gold Line to downtown L.A.
The eight-story structure opened in 1928 and is listed on the National Register of Historical Places.