
After several years of planning, in January 2024 the Warner Grand Theatre finally closed for renovations that are to include “restroom upgrade with ADA accessibility, new elevator for accessibility access, stage lift, VIP lounge with wheelchair lift”; “Heating Ventilation Air Conditioning, electrical, and Fire Life Safety system upgrades”; and “the complete renovation and restoration of various historic elements.”
But work did not get underway for 11 1/2 months. The Bureau of Engineering (BOE), the City of L.A. department in charge of the project, won’t talk about why, nor will they address contradictory claims about how long the project will take. And they failed to comply with state law requiring them to turn over public records that might provide insight.
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After receiving only two bids for the proposed renovation, in May 2024 the Bureau of Engineering’s Architectural Division recommended approval of a bid from 2H Construction (the lowest of the two submitted). However, the City did not award the contract to 2H until September 18.
Back in July 2024, Councilmember Tim McOsker, whose 15th District includes the Warner Grand, expressed concerns with “how bureaucratic and slow the city can be on public improvement projects” but said he had “great confidence in my ability to stay on this project — make sure it closes at the right time, that we do the work expediently, and that we get the thing open as quickly as possible.”
Now, however, he admits that things have gotten off track.
“I’ve been disappointed by the delays, but also working hard to reach the point where we are today,” he says. “We’ve had weekly coordination meetings with the team on this project to stay on top of the different entities and steps involved. Without those meetings, the timeline would certainly have been even further off track. Over the last year, my team and I have pressed continuously to address a variety of obstacles and move this matter forward.”
He says that one contributing factor to the delay has been that “the cost of the project was underestimated and underfunded,” a shortage that has since been rectified mostly by securing an additional $4.2 million in the City of L.A.’s FY2024–25 budget. The project was originally put out to bid at $16.1 million, but 2H’s low bid was just shy of $18 million, with additional costs bringing the total to an estimated $22.2 million.
He also says that “the construction contractor evaluation, selection and qualification took too long, but we are finally through all those steps. Now, we will be staying on top of the selected contractor to ensure that it adheres to the contract timeline.”
But the City has been wildly inconsistent with the construction timeline. Between 2020 and 2023 the City generally estimated that the project would take “18 to 24 months.” However, in July 2024 the Bureau of Engineering’s Mary Nemick told Random Lengths News that the project would take “approximately 500 calendar days” — a figure that was reflected in the public Project Information Report (PIR) — even though in October 2023 project manager Marcus Yee estimated it would take two years. When this was pointed out to Nemick, the PIR was updated to reflect Yee’s estimate.
In November, Nemick again stated the project will take “approximately 500 calendar days” — the same figure that appears in the City’s contract with 2H Construction — despite the fact that at the time the PIR said “Expected Duration: From 9/20/2024 to 11/1/2026,” or approximately 770 days.
Nemick declined to address the discrepancy, but in January the PIR was changed to correspond to the “500 calendar days” in the 2H contract. (2H Construction did not respond to repeated requests for comment.)
While Nemick also declined to address why the theatre was closed so far in advance of the start of construction, McOsker says that “critical work has been done over the last year […] including an asbestos survey for the safety of the workers.”
But is there more to why there has been so much delay in beginning construction and so much discrepancy in how long it will take? It’s an open question, considering that Random Lengths News has determined that the BOE has failed to comply with California law concerning production of public documents.
As a matter of course, on November 21 Random Lengths News filed a request for “any and all records, communications, correspondence, etc. — whether interdepartmental, intradepartmental, or with outside parties — pertaining to the refurbishment of the Warner Grand Theatre [… f]or the period August 15 to November 20, 2024,” which are considered public records under state law. On December 9, the City closed the request after supplying only a solitary memo (the “Notice to Proceed” with construction) from Mayor Bass’s office — which meant that the BOE was implicitly claiming that not a single e-mail had been sent to or from anyone within the BOE regarding this $22 million project for over four months while the contract was being signed and the start date pushed back.
When the unlikeliness of this being the case was pointed out to the City, our request was re-opened, after we were provided with (in addition to my e-mails with Nemick regarding this article) four e-mails regarding the December 17 groundbreaking. The request was again closed on December 26, and although it was reopened when RLn again suggested the unlikelihood of there being no other records, on January 6 the request was closed for a third time, with the BOE claiming, “We have again verified with our divisions and the Bureau of Engineering has no additional records to provide at this time.”
But Random Lengths News is in possession of several e-mails to/from multiple people within the BOE that the City has failed to disclose — this despite Deputy City Attorney Bethelwel Wilson stating that she had “exhaustive communications with the BOE regarding this request and the determination that was arrived after numerous searches is that you have been provided all responsive records and there is nothing further for BOE to provide.” When RLn cited one such supposedly non-existent record — namely, a November 15 e-mail from Nemick on a thread with the subject heading “Re: WGT Renovation Project – Rare Public Relations” — Wilson relented. “In light of your latest email I have asked BOE to conduct a more comprehensive search of staff emails,” she stated on January 9. “Stay tuned for a future production estimate.”
Nemick did not respond to questions regarding why the BOE has repeatedly made the false claim that the undisclosed e-mails at issue — including her own — do not exist.