City department rents space in Los Angeles Times building

The Los Angeles City Employees’ Retirement System has agreed to lease a floor in a vacant downtown Los Angeles office building owned by The Times.

LACERS, as the city department is known, will rent 35,000 square feet for 10 years, according to real estate brokerage Studley. The department will move its headquarters to the fifth floor of 220 W. 1st St. this summer from a nearby building in Little Tokyo where it is spread over a similar amount of space on five floors.

LACERS provides retirement benefits to the civilian employees of the city.

Terms of the deal with Los Angeles Times Communications were not disclosed, but the landlord has been asking for about $1.50 per square foot a month, according to real estate brokers not involved in the transaction.

The six-story building at 1st Street and Broadway was completed in 1973 and served for decades as the headquarters of Times Mirror Co., parent company of The Times and other media outlets and companies.

Times Mirror was acquired by the Tribune Co. in 2000 and administrative functions were moved to Tribune’s Chicago headquarters.

The lease to LACERS “is consistent with our strategy to maximize our assets and to increase revenue, which ultimately supports our core journalistic mission,” said Chris Avetisian, chief financial officer of the Los Angeles Times Media Group.

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