Beneath the intersection of 2nd Street and Broadway in Downtown Los Angeles, construction is in full swing for a subway station that will allow Metro passengers to board trains to Santa Monica, Pasadena, and Long Beach. After that station makes its debut, it could be capped by a high-rise tower featuring office space, multifamily residential units, and street-fronting retail.

Yesterday, the Los Angeles Department of City Planning published a draft environmental impact report for a proposed 30-story development at 222 W. 2nd Street. The project - spanning the full length of 2nd Street between Spring Street and Broadway - would feature 107 residential units, approximately 534,000 square feet of office space, and 7,200 square feet of ground-floor retail.

Renderings of the proposed development, which is being designed by Gensler, portrays the nearly 450-foot-tall building as a series of stacked, glassy boxes hovering above the entrance to the subway station. The offset masses of the tower are used to create a series of terrace decks for residents and office tenants. Additional open space is planned in the form of a paseo cutting between Spring and Broadway, providing access to an adjoining garage.

The proposed tower site, as well as the abutting parking garage, were once appurtenant to the Times Mirror Square complex - home to the Los Angeles Times until 2018, when the newspaper relocated to El Segundo. Tribune Media Company - the Chicago-based conglomerate that owned the Times until 2014 - is developing the tower through its subsidiary Tribune Real Estate Holdings. Though it spun its publishing arm into a separate company, Tribune retained ownership of many of the buildings which its former newspapers occupied.

Contingent on city approvals, the Tribune hopes to break ground on the tower in 2022 and complete construction by 2025. However, this timeline is also subject to the pace of work below ground. The project's environmental impact report anticipates completion of the $1.8-billion Regional Connector subway in 2021, but Metro staff informed the Metro Board's Construction Committee this week that work is currently on pace to conclude in April 2022, although steps are being taken to speed that timeline.

The proposed tower at 2nd Street and Broadway is one of a handful of tall buildings potentially coming to the blocks surrounding Los Angeles' Civic Center.

Directly across the street, Onni Group - which purchased Times Mirror Square from Tribune - intends to replace a William Pereira-designed expansion of the complex with two residential towers, despite the efforts of preservationists to save the 1970s building. Two blocks west, construction began late in 2018 for The Grand - a $1-billion Frank Gehry-designed tower project that will create apartments, a hotel, and retail space facing the Walt Disney Concert Hall.

New high-rise buildings are also planned within the Civic Center itself - the former LAPD headquarters Parker Center is being demolished to make way for a 27-story office building, and the new Civic Center Master Plan anticipates additional towers.