ATTACHMENT E BANKAMERICARD PLAZA 101 S. Marengo Avenue Pasadena, CA HISTORIC RESOURCES EVALUATION Prepared for: Rising Realty 523 W. 6th St., #600 Los Angeles, CA 90014 Prepared by: November 10, 2015 BANKAMERICARD CENTER, 101 S MARENGO AVE, PASADENA NOVEMBER 10, 2015 HISTORIC RESOURCES EVALUATION TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................. 2 1.1 Methodology ..................................................................................................................................... 2 1.2 Results of Study ................................................................................................................................. 2 2. PRIOR EVALUATIONS ..................................................................................................................... 3 3. ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION ...................................................................................................... 6 4. HISTORIC CONTEXTS .................................................................................................................... 10 4.1 Background: Development of BankAmericard Center .................................................................... 10 4.2 Edward Durell Stone ........................................................................................................................ 11 4.3 Redevelopment and Corporate Headquarters in Pasadena ............................................................ 14 4.4 BankAmericard and the Modern Credit Card Market ..................................................................... 16 4.5 Architectural and Landscape Design Context .................................................................................. 21 5. REGULATIONS AND CRITERIA FOR EVALUATION .......................................................................... 25 5.1 National Register of Historic Places ................................................................................................. 25 5.2 California Register of Historical Resources ...................................................................................... 26 5.3 City of Pasadena Criteria for Designation of Historic Resources ..................................................... 26 6. EVALUATION OF SIGNIFICANCE ................................................................................................... 28 6.1 National Register of Historic Places ................................................................................................. 28 6.2 California Register of Historical Resources ...................................................................................... 28 6.3 City of Pasadena Designation of Historic Resources ....................................................................... 30 7. FINDINGS .................................................................................................................................... 31 8. RESOURCES ................................................................................................................................. 31 8.1 Publications and Reports ................................................................................................................. 31 8.2 Archival and Newspaper Sources .................................................................................................... 32 ARCHITECTURAL RESOURCES GROUP 1 BANKAMERICARD CENTER, 101 S MARENGO AVE, PASADENA NOVEMBER 10, 2015 HISTORIC RESOURCES EVALUATION 1. INTRODUCTION Rising Realty Partners has requested this Historic Resources Evaluation to inform the potential purchase and future adaptive reuse of the office building at 101 S. Marengo Ave. in Pasadena. Completed in 1974, the building is a late work of the well‐known American Modernist architect Edward Durell Stone. As a part of due diligence for the purchase, Architectural Resources Group was asked to examine the potential historical significance of the property. While the property has not been fully evaluated in the past, it has been identified in surveys as potentially historically significant. The building’s provenance as the work of a well‐known architect and its large size in a prominent position in the Pasadena Civic Center has served to raise its profile. 1.1 Methodology To complete this Historic Resources Evaluation (HRE), ARG performed the following tasks: Made site visits to inspect and photograph the exterior and surroundings of the property. Conducted local research at the Pasadena Public Library Centennial Room (special collections) and the Pasadena Museum of History, as well as extensive on‐line research in the Los Angeles Times. Performed research specific to the building in the Edward Durell Stone Archives at the University of Arkansas, the main repository of Stone’s work. Located and reviewed as‐built plans for the building. Applied the criteria for evaluation of the National Register of Historic Places, California Register of Historical Resources, and City of Pasadena landmarks. Identified the character‐defining features of the building. This evaluation was prepared by Jennifer Trotoux, Associate (Project Manager), Evanne St. Charles, and Katie Horak, Principal (Principal in Charge). All are Architectural Historians and Historic Preservation Planners with ARG. The Project Manager has been with ARG for nine years and has nearly twenty years of experience in the evaluation of historic resources in Southern California. All meet the Secretary of the Interior’s Professional Qualifications Standards in History and Architectural History. 1.2 Results of Study As a result of the research and analysis that ARG undertook for this report, we found that the property is not eligible for designation as a historic resource under the criteria of the National Register or the California Register, or as a City of Pasadena Landmark. A detailed analysis of the historic contexts in which the building was considered and a discussion of the application of the criteria follows. ARCHITECTURAL RESOURCES GROUP 2 BANKAMERICARD CENTER, 101 S MARENGO AVE, PASADENA NOVEMBER 10, 2015 HISTORIC RESOURCES EVALUATION 2. PRIOR EVALUATIONS Due to its unmistakable presence at the juncture of the Old Pasadena and Civic Center areas of Central Pasadena, the 1974 BankAmericard Center is a high‐profile building in Pasadena’s urban environment. It is also associated with a prominent architect, Edward Durell Stone. The building was a project of Pasadena’s Community Redevelopment Agency and completed at the time of a number of other corporate development projects that began to transform the commercial landscape of Pasadena during the early 1970s. As a result of this prominence, the building has been identified in local surveys of historic resources two times in the past decade despite its age of less than fifty years. In 2004, the City of Pasadena enacted its Central District Specific Plan in order to “provide for systematic implementation of the General Plan, as related to the properties within the boundaries of the Central District Specific Plan area.” As part of the plan, a reconnaissance survey was conducted to identify potentially historic properties within the boundaries of the Central District. The subject property was included in a 2007 survey, and was given a status code of 7N, meaning that the property “needs to be reevaluated.”1 The preliminary evaluation, written at the time by a senior planning staff member, noted that the property should be considered in the contexts of the work of Edward Durell Stone, the Community Redevelopment Agency, and late‐modern corporate architecture. All three are addressed in this report. In 2007, the City of Pasadena received a Certified Local Government (CLG) grant from the State Office of Historic Preservation (SHPO) to commission a Historic Context Report for the city’s Cultural Resources of the Recent Past. The report, completed by Historic Resources Group and Pasadena Heritage, identified Edward Durell Stone as one of the significant architects whose work from the study period, 1935‐1965, is found in Pasadena. BankAmericard Center was noted as one of these works, and described as “the first major success” of the City’s redevelopment efforts. In 2011, Pasadena received another CLG grant for the Historic Designed Gardens of Pasadena project to undertake a Historic Context Statement, reconnaissance survey, and Multiple Property Documentation form. This project included the corporate plazas of Pasadena through 1975 within its purview, so the subject property was included. The reconnaissance survey gave the plaza (separate from the rest of the property) of the BankAmericard Center an evaluation code of 3S, a property that is individually eligible for the National Register of Historic Places. Presumably, the fact that the plaza was known to be designed by a prominent firm, was characteristic of an identifiable period in Pasadena’s development history, and remains unaltered were enough to gain it the highest evaluation in the survey. It should be noted, however, that a reconnaissance survey, by its nature, leaves for the future the level of intensive evaluation that is necessary to understand a resource and its place in a community’s history. 1 RTKL Associates, Inc., Central District Specific Plan Appendix E: Survey of Historic Properties, prepared for the City of Pasadena Planning and Development Department, Nov. 2004. ARCHITECTURAL RESOURCES GROUP 3 BANKAMERICARD