Access to water played a critical role in the development of Los Angeles into one of the country’s largest cities. In 1900, it covered 61 square miles and had 102,000 residents.
Phil Washington grew up on the South Side of Chicago in public housing with a single mom caring for a family of six. “The people building infrastructure in my community did not look like me,” he says. “I wondered, ‘Why can’t I get a job helping to build my own community?’”
Considering that Richard “Dick” McLane “fell into engineering,” it seems appropriate that he ends up digging deeply into a project both literally and figuratively.
Tunneling through an urban environment like that of Los Angeles is complex enough. Add to that a medley of poor soils (including tar pits); a variety of dangerous gases; and two seismic faults and it becomes a task that until not so long ago was impossible.
California agencies with tens of billions of dollars of construction joined more than 40 other groups in a movement to drive contracting opportunities for historically underutilized businesses.
Located in the Downtown Los Angeles Arts District, a one-of-a-kind tenant improvement project marks the new Southern California headquarters for this creative client.