California Historical Building Code

Ford Factory
arts district, Los Angeles, California

Chattel prepared a Historic Resource Assessment (HRA) for environmental clearance of the 1914 Ford Motor Company Assembly Plant (Ford Factory) in downtown Los Angeles, finding it eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places, California Register of Historical Resources, and designation as a City of Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument for its association with the Ford Motor Company, and as a Beaux-Arts styled daylight automobile assembly plant. Under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), when a project is expected to cause substantial adverse change to a historical resource, environmental clearance for the project would require mitigation measures to reduce impacts.

Mitigation measures for the Ford Factory included design collaboration and construction monitoring, which applied the California Historical Building Code. Chattel’s role through design development with owner Shorenstein and project architect Rockefeller Kempel Architects was to ensure continued conformance with the Secretary's Standards. Thus, environmental impacts of the Ford Factory were reduced to a less than significant impact, and new creative office and retail spaces were enabled for tenant Warner Music Group.