One thing sticks out about the apartment building fire that engulfed the construction site of controversial developer Geoff Palmer’s 1.3 million-square-foot wooden Da Vinci complex early yesterday morning: the immediate announcement of the possibility of arson. It is extremely unusual for Los Angeles fire department officials to raise the possibility of arson on the same […]
Category: LA Magazine
Geoff Palmer’s Faux-Italian Renaissance Goes Up in Flames
The downtown construction site of developer Geoff Palmer’s Da Vinci apartment complex—and two nearby buildings—caught on fire early Monday morning. Much of the Da Vinci structure on Fremont Avenue was destroyed, according to an early report, and arson investigators were called to the scene, although an official cause of the blaze has not yet been […]
What the Da Vinci Complex Loss Means to Construction Across the Country
There are still unanswered questions in the December 8 fire that devastated a large part of developer Geoff Palmer’s half-built downtown Da Vinci apartment complex, but some new information is trickling in. Federal and local officials declared the fire was an act of arson on Dec. 18, but it’s still unknown who set the fire and […]
Marcie Edwards Leads the DWP in a Future of Massive Challenges
I began working in the public affairs division of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power in 1987, writing press releases and answering media questions. Then as now, much of the public outright disliked the nation’s largest municipal utility. Even if its power was the cheapest in California, the DWP often seemed to be a […]