L'Oreal USA has announced the opening of a second headquarters in El Segundo, confirming reports that first began circulating six months ago. 

The company, which is the largest subsidiary of L'Oreal Group, will relocate its California-based brands NYX Professional Makeup, Urban Decay and Pulp Riot under a single roof at 888 N. Douglas Street.  The facility will also include an academy offering educational courses to professionals working in makeup and hairstyling.

"We are fortunate to be in a position to invest in the expansion and future of our business," said L'Oreal USA president and chief executive officer Stéphane Rinderknech. "California has become a global stage for creativity, innovation, trends, diversity and talent in the beauty industry – and, as a result, it has become a driving force of our business. We are excited at the prospect of our brand teams coming together to build the future of beauty in the Los Angeles area."

The company's 100,000 square foot El Segundo hub will be located in a former Northrop Grumman facility which has been converted into 390,000 square feet of offices by developer Hackman Capital Partners.  Plant-based food maker Beyond Meat has already inked a lease for a 280,000-square-foot space at the campus, which will serve as its new corporate headquarters.

L'Oreal USA, which has been headquartered out of the Hudson Yard's development in New York since 2016, expects to open its El Segundo office in early 2022.

FourFortyFour South Flower StreetWikimedia Commons

Engineering firm Syska Hennessy will relocate its West Coast headquarters from Culver City to FourFortyFour South Flower Street in Downtown Los Angeles this summer, building owner Coretrust Capital Partners announced this week.

Under the terms of the 15-year lease, Syska will occupy approximately 14,000 square feet of space in the office building, which sits across the street from the Los Angeles Central Library, and was used as the setting for the television series L.A. Law.

Coretrust acquired the roughly 915,000-square-foot tower in 2016, and has since invested $25 million in upgrades to the building.

The Colorado Center in Santa MonicaGoogle Street View

Streaming hardware maker Roku Inc. has signed a signed a 10-year lease for 72,000 square feet at Santa Monica's Colorado Center, reports the L.A. Business Journal.  The Los Gatos-based company already has office space at the neighboring Water Garden complex. 

Colorado Center, a 1.2-million-square-foot office complex at 2425-2501 Colorado Avenue, is owned by Boston Properties, Inc.

Things to read from the past week:

A Walk Along L.A.'s Original Borders Reveals Surprising Remnants from the City's Past "For many on the #LA4Corners walk, completing a trek around the original boundary of the City of Los Angeles led to a deeper understanding of the city before cars dominated the landscape. Experiencing the two different street grids — the Spanish and American — by walking each border helped to peel away the layers of history that have been paved over, and sometimes erased, by the built environment. There are a number of reasons to walk the city's original border and one of them was best expressed by Los Angeles Walk staffer Daisy Villafuerte: 'I hope that people really understand that a lot of these neighborhoods that sometimes we just pass through are not just places that we should just pass through. But are places that people have rooted into…and hopefully [this will] build a greater understanding and connection with people who live in these communities.'" (KCET)

Judge hits pause on request for L.A. to immediately put up $1 billion for homelessness "Carter on Sunday agreed to stay his order targeting the money and instead gave the city 60 days to come up with a plan showing how the full $1 billion would be spent on homelessness. His action does not affect the appeals [from L.A. City and L.A. County], which were filed with the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals." (LA Times)

View of Los Angeles Union StationWikimedia Commons

Oscars Face Criticism Over Union Station Closures: "Transit Riders Got the Short End of the Stick" "With the west entrance on Alameda closed, commuters were sent walking down East Cesar E Chavez Avenue to the east entrance; the detour is largely under a dark overpass with narrow sidewalks and ranges from a half to three-quarters of a mile depending on destination....Meredith also pointed out the hypocrisy in the Academy nominating Crip Camp for best documentary but not making enough accommodations for disabled people with the closures." (The Hollywood Reporter)

LA Times Editorial Board: Eliminate parking requirements: Housing people is more important than housing cars  "By eliminating parking mandates, California would be making it easier and cheaper to build more homes near transit. That kind of construction is essential if we’re going to alleviate the crippling shortage of housing, and it would be a big help for smaller, less expensive projects sited on pockets of undeveloped or underdeveloped urban land." (LA Times)

L.A. councilman takes aim at money for Valley homeless housing project "The push to rescind funding from the Chatsworth project has again drawn interest beyond the immediate neighborhood: Alan Greenlee, executive director of the Southern California Assn. of Nonprofit Housing, said the bid to rescind money from the Topanga Canyon Boulevard project 'endangers all the other HHH deals, calls into question the city’s ‘commitments’ and will erode public and private investors’ confidence in doing business with the city in the future.'" (LA Times)

Streetsblog L.A. Editor Joe Linton Talks Freeway Expansion on KPCC’s AirTalk "Avila noted how freeway building has been part of so-called 'slum clearance' efforts. Estrada spoke of the excesses of land dedicated to the tangle of freeways that carve up Boyle Heights and East Los Angeles. Mantle touched on how freeways carved up west Pasadena, historically and presently a predominantly Black neighborhood. Several speakers noted that Southern California freeway construction proceeded through lower-income Latino and Black areas, while whiter and more well-off places, including Beverly Hills and South Pasadena, were able to block planned projects." (Streetsblog LA)

Screen grab from 2021 Update on LA Metro ProjectsYouTube

2021 Update on LA Metro Projects The first in a series of videos breaking down where things stand with Metro's slate of bus and rail transit projects (Nick Andert YouTube)

Behind the new show ‘Them’ is the ugly and true history of L.A.'s racist housing covenants "In 1917, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that governments couldn’t officially enforce racial segregation but wink-wink, nudge-nudge, the door was still wide open for private neighborhood segregation, one deed at a time — a 'covenant' of agreement that, for sure, I won’t sell to any of those people, will you, Bob? No sir, not me; Tom, are you with us?" (LA Times)

Traffic Was Historically Low In 2020. The Death Toll On LA's Streets Was Not "The basic philosophy behind Vision Zero is that humans will make mistakes on the road and crashes will happen, but by redesigning streets to reduce speeding and better protect vulnerable road users, those crashes don’t have to cause severe injuries and deaths. But as the data has shown in recent years, L.A.’s current approach is not working." (LAist)

A map of Pasadena's 10 proposed bike corridorsCity of Pasadena

Pasadena Studying Four North-South Bike Boulevard Corridors "The city is looking to implement bike boulevards on El Molino, Wilson, Sierra Bonita, and Craig Avenues. An update on the study, also called the Greenway Traffic Analysis and Implementation, was presented to the Pasadena’s Transportation Advisory Commission on April 22." (Streetsblog LA)

Eli Broad, billionaire who poured wealth into reshaping L.A., dies at 87 "With a fortune estimated by Forbes at $6.9 billion, the New York native who made California his home more than 50 years ago flourished in the home construction and insurance industries before directing his attention and fortune toward an array of ambitious civic projects, often setting the agenda for what was to come in L.A." (LA Times)

California's Rent Moratorium Is Due To Expire June 30. What's Next Is Unclear "...Now, with two months left before that extension itself expires on June 30, there is no proposed legislation to give renters more time before the moratorium ends, and lawmakers expressed uncertainty that there will be." (LAist)

Preview June bus service changes and new Metro Micro zones at May Service Council meetings (The Source)

The High Cost of Clearing Tent Cities "In many ways, the standoff in Echo Park illustrates the complexity of a problem that city leaders and residents struggle with across the country. Among the factors in play: dignity for unhoused people, political pressure from neighbors, concerns for safety and sanitation and stopgap solutions that seem futile against the backdrop of an affordable housing crisis. The strategy that cities have adopted — clearing and closing encampments, with varying levels of support for people living in them — comes with high costs and mixed results." (CityLab)