A huge former department store on Broadway in downtown Los Angeles is being sold to a New York real estate investment firm that intends to pump new life into the old building and its rebounding neighborhood.

The century-old flagship of the May Co. contains 1.1 million square feet of space surrounded by Broadway, Hill Street and 8th Street. The commercial district was once one of the best in the Southern California, but fell on hard times in the late decades of the 20th century.

Waterbridge Capital has agreed to buy the property now known as Broadway Trade Center, city officials and property brokers said. The price was not disclosed, but experts familiar with the downtown real estate market expect the property to garner $115 million to $130 million.

The Beaux-Arts-style building owned by Beverly Hills investors is probably too big to be converted to any single purpose and is likely to end up having multiple uses.

A Waterbridge representative said the company does not comment on pending transactions, but L.A. City Council member Jose Huizar said in a statement that Waterbridge plans a mixed-use development that may include offices, a hotel, stores and apartments or condominiums. There was no announcement about potential tenants.

The property is one of the largest available on the West Coast for conversion to new uses and many investors were interested in getting in on the comeback of downtown's historic district, real estate broker Phillip Sample of CBRE Group Inc. said.

"The rarity of a redevelopment opportunity in this size range, especially in a downtown core like Los Angeles that is clearly on an upward trajectory, created a tremendous level of interest from both private and institutional capital from all over the world," said Sample, who represented the seller.

Waterbridge's plan to combine several uses in one big historic building "will be a game changer for downtown L.A.," Sample said.

No building quite like that exists downtown. Historically, however, the old structure has been many things simultaneously.

It opened in 1908 as the Hamburger department store, and in addition to selling clothing and home furnishings it had an 80-foot-long soda fountain, a restaurant, a grocery store, a post office and a roof garden. The third floor housed the L.A. Public Library for a few years.

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Former May Co. building in downtown L.A. to get revived after sale

A company that makes specialized parts for electric guitars is relocating to downtown Tacoma, bringing 15 employees with plans to hire several more.

For the past several months, Jason Lollar and Stephanie Lollar have been overseeing the rehabilitation of a 102-year-old building on A Street just off South 24th.

After 15 years working on Vashon Island, the business partners soon will quadruple their space and be a 10-minute walk from the Tacoma Dome and all the guitar technicians and players who perform there. The Lollars believe that proximity will make it easier to work with professional musicians.

You cant get a tour bus on the ferry boat, said Stephanie Lollar, the companys financial officer and business manager.

Lollar Pickups plans to move in to its new headquarters at 2312 A St. in May. The company is driven by the creative ideas and design of Jason Lollar, who started the business in the garage shop on Vashon after tinkering for years on his own guitars.

The relocation of this homegrown specialty manufacturer is the latest feather in downtowns cap, in addition to major employer State Farm insurance, a new YMCA on the University of Washington Tacoma campus, and the Tacoma Art Museums new wing.

First, some definitions: A pickup is a key part of an electric guitar that affects the sound. Pickups are located under the strings, between the bridge and the neck. They capture, or pick up, string vibrations and convert them into an electronic signal that is sent to the amplifier.

Car lovers rebuild engines for fun. Guitar players tinker the same way.

In pickups, hearing is believing, said Steve Bild, an electric guitar specialist at Ted Brown Music Co. in Tacoma. Its like different flavors of vanilla ice cream. Which one is better?

Players are particular.

Link:
Lollar Pickups moving guitar part manufacturing business to Tacoma

Brian Gray bought his band a drone a few weeks back.

The lead singer of the Casper metal outfit Deadpass plunked down about $300 for the quad copter, which is controlled via a cell phone app. It will be perfect, he says, for getting video of people throwing down in the mosh pit.

Gray will tell you this casually, as if it's no big thing for a band to possess its own drone. But then considering his grander visions, a quad copter isn't all that extraordinary.

The 32-year-old has already succeeded in one goal booking the metal band to play the Beacon Club, the closest thing Casper has to a country-music landmark. Deadpass plays the club Monday.

As far as Gray is concerned, thats only an appetizer. The full meal includes a storefront recording studio, a practice space for other bands and a downtown Casper music venue.

I want to bring music back, Gray says. I want to bring metal back, for sure.

A grandiose statement perhaps, especially since his band has played a grand total of two gigs since forming in January 2013. But Gray isnt bashful about his plans -- or his group.

We've been running our mouth, he says. We've been out there telling everybody we are the best damn band in Wyoming. And if you don't believe it, come see it when we book the show.

Deadpass formed when Gray's childhood friend and former bandmate, Gene McCrimmon, contacted him about starting a new project. They recruited 42-year-old Tommy Lee Strange, a lifelong musician whose father is in the Rockabilly Hall of Fame,to play drums.

The band grew to a five-piece with the additions of Colton Krohn, a 19-year-old guitarist, and bassist Lane Dennison, who came on board after his girlfriend received a tattoo from Gray.

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Iron ambition: Casper metal band readies big sound, big plans and its drone

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The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival has unveiled this year's schedule, and with it a couple of new additions to the bill. Pixies and Julian Casablancas are now slated to perform at Coachella 2014, which takes place in Indio, California, over two weekends (April 11 through 13 and April 18 through 20).Nicolas Jaar, already booked with his duo Darkside, will now also play a solo set.

Every festival of this size has its share of wrenching set time conflicts, but organizers have mostly managed to schedule different-sounding acts alongside each other. And the overlaps are rarely exact.Arcade Fire, Jhen Aiko,Disclosure, Duck Sauce, or Motrhead? Well, that all depends on whether you picked Disclosure over the end of Beck, or Beck over the end of Lana Del Rey. Neutral Milk Hotel or Little Dragon? Blood Orange, Superchunk, or Rudimental? Eclectic hip-hop croonerChance the Rapper or wry garage rocker Courtney Barnett? Muse, Nas, Dismemberment Plan, Pet Shop Boys, or Skrillex?

Pixies, who famously reunited at Coachella a decade ago, will be performing ahead of their first album since 1991'sTrompe Le Monde, the Gil Norton-producedIndie Cindy, which is due out April 29. Julian Casablancas, who has been performing new material with backing band the Voidz, and he has hinted at September release plans. He recently crashed the stage of Arcade Fire, who, if their recent set listshold true, might play a location-specific cover what are the odds for Palm Desert rockers Queens of the Stone Age's "Make It Wit Chu"?

Check out the set times here.

Festlove 2014: Dates and Lineups for Coachella, Bonnaroo, Ultra, and More

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Coachella 2014 Adds Pixies and Julian Casablancas, Unveils Schedule

John Preble says he's always had a lot of stuff in his house.

"I'm from a family of collectors. My father collected stamps and rocks and his mother was an antique dealer of some sorts," he says.

Preble has a lot of hobbies - or jobs. He's a musician, composer, record producer, painter and ten years ago, the creator of the Mystery House in Abita Springs.

"The museum is sort of a hobby that got out of hand," Preble said.

The Mystery House has a large assortment of animals with alligator heads, sometimes with more than one head, a collection of old radios and barbed wire, paint by number art, a fortune teller and lots of other strange stuff.

"I don't want expensive things. I want things that are interesting. Someone brought me a bottle opener that looked like Jimi Hendrix. It was perfect."

Prebble already had a lot of stuff, but he hadn't thought about turning it into a museum. Then on a family vacation he stopped at a roadside attraction near Albequerqe, and that's where he got his inspiration.

"When we saw this, I was like I got all the same junk this guy has. I can open my own museum."

The signature piece is a 22-foot long bass-a-gator. It's part bass, part alligator. It's near the airstream trailer that once-upon-a-time was hit by a flying saucer. The aliens never left.

A 1920 barn has been turned into the house of shards decorated with 15,000 bits of glass and pottery.

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Heart of Louisiana: Abita Mystery House

GLENWOOD SPRINGS Big John Lindsey tried his hand at being a computer consultant and considered a few other second career options after he had to shut down his longtime lumber and hardware business on Devereux Road nearly three years ago.

That was one of the most difficult things Ive ever had to do, said Lindsey, who had owned and operated Big Johns Building and Home Center, including the local Ace Hardware affiliate, in the former 84 Lumber space, since 1988.

When he got word that his lease was ending and the building owner wanted to sell, he tried to buy the property.

The economy just wouldnt support it, Lindsey said.

He also looked at relocating the business, including taking a hard look at the vacant car dealership space on South Glen Avenue where, just a few short years later, he is about to re-enter the local retail market with his new Big Johns Ace Hardware store.

At that time, though, with my financial situation and the economy what it was, it just wasnt possible, he said from his new office in the 12,000-square-foot steel-frame metal building that is being converted into Glenwood Springs new hometown hardware store, in the words of the 6-foot-7 Lindsey.

It took a year living in Arizona with his wife, Meg, and their daughter, McKenna, to get the plan together. He even considered changing his focus to sporting goods rather than hardware, and talked to some local investors about that prospect.

But John, the son of hardware man and retired longtime Cedaredge Lumber owner Art Lindsey, said he ultimately decided that hardware was in his blood.

The other thing he knew for sure, especially after that short stint in the computer biz, was that hes meant to be a merchant.

A Colorado native, Lindsey managed his fathers store in the mountain town of Cedaredge for four years before opening his own store in Glenwood Springs at age 30.

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Big John readies for return to hardware market

After starting the year on a quick pace, construction activity in Plainview lagged seriously in March.

According to its March activity report, the city issued only 17 building permits during March with a combined value of $89,315.64. None was for new residential or commercial construction.

That brings the total for the first three months of 2014 to 48 permits valued at $418,607.03. Thats compared to 66 permits for the same period in 2013 with a combined value of $753,798.

For the months of January and February, construction in 2014 outpaced 2013 in dollar value by more than $150,000. The lead reversed in March, and the difference more than doubled to $335,191. Through the first three months of 2014 the city has issued 48 construction permits, compared with 66 for the same period in 2013.

Six permits were issued in March for residential additions with a combined value of $42,200, three for residential remodeling for $1,100, one residential demolition, two garage/carport projects at $4,300, one storage building valued at $5,000, three commercial remodel projects at $36,515.65 and one sign at $200.

For the year-to-date, the project breakdown includes eight residential additions, eight residential remodels, one residential demolition, one residential accessory structure, eight garages/carports, one commercial addition, seven commercial remodels, two commercial demolition and 11 signs.

To comment:

dmcdonough@hearstnp.com

806.296.1353

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Construction activity lags

Fat White Family. (facebook.com/FatWhiteFamily)

It's done! Spring Break's finished! Get back to work! We've got one more month before the tour de force of finals and graduation, so let's make it one for the books with our swell additions to rotation this week.

Fat White Family just might be the savior of this unholy genre we call garage rock. Straight out of South London, Champagne Holocaust is an insanely diverse collection of hobo jams, channeling everything from Mazzy Star to Nick Cave to The Sonics in the span of a 3-minute song. More than anything, Fat White Family brings a much-needed sense of dirt into their garage sound, flailing and howling their way through these songs like a deranged band of mental patients.

Liars have built their career on consistently trying new things, and their new album, Mess , continues this with a new-found flair for balls-out dance music. Harking back to their early days of Brooklyn dance-punk, the songs on Mess are an upbeat change of heart from their 2012 album WIXIW while still maintaining that work's electronic sensibilities. After several albums of Liars diving deeper into their melancholic world, it's nice to see them loosen up and just have a good time.

Former local-boys StaG have released the wondrous Difference, a dreamy collection of art-pop nuggets that takes their earlier, more droney efforts into sweetly catchy new territory. These handsome men have also recently wrapped up a tour opening for the Naked and Famous, so you can bet you'll be hearing more of their fantastical exploits for years to come.

Sam Goldner is the music director at Radio 1190. Email him at sam@radio1190.org.

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On-air next: Fat White Family, Liars, StaG

'Illmatic' is twenty years old, yet in that time few have come close to matching its status as one of hip hop's unimpeachable masterpieces.

With a lavish box set incoming, Nas is set to toast his seminal LP with a handful of special performances - including just one here in the UK.

Nas will play this summer's Lovebox, performing 'Illmatic' in its entirety. A no doubt celebratory set, the rapper is joined by the likes of Adam Beyer, Benji B, Kenny Dope, Norman Jay and more in the list of new additions.

Crossing genres, Lovebox is set to invite UK garage master DJ EZ to bring the noise, alongside a performance from legendary soundsystem collective Soul II Soul.

Tickets are on sale now.

Lovebox runs between July 18th - 19th. Line up so far:

ADAM BEYER, ADESSE VERSIONS, ANNIE MAC PRESENTS, A$AP ROCKY, BANKS, BENJI B, BEN PEARCE, BONDAX (LIVE), BONOBO (LIVE), BREACH, CHASE & STATUS (LIVE), CITIZEN, COTTAM, CRAIG CHARLES, CRYSTAL FIGHTERS, CYRIL HAHN, DAVID RODIGAN, DENSE & PIKA, DJ EZ, DOC DANEEKA, DOLAN BERGIN, DUFF DISCO, DUKE DUMONT, ELLI INGRAM, FORT ROMEAU, FUTUREBOOGIE, GASLAMP KILLER, GUY WILLIAMS, HANNAH WANTS, HERCULES & LOVE AFFAIR, HORSE MEAT DISCO, HOUSE OF DISCO, HUXLEY, JESS GLYNNE, JOEY BADA$$, JOY ORBISON, KALEIDA, KATY B, KENNY DOPE (DISCO FEVER SET), KID FIESTA, KIESZA, KLANGKARUSSELL (LIVE), KNYTRO, KOVE, MADLIB (DJ SET), MAXXI SOUNDSYSTEM, M.I.A., MIC NEWMAN, MNEK, MODERAT (LIVE), MONKI, MOUNT KIMBIE, NAS PERFORMS ILLMATIC 20TH ANNIVERSARY (UK EXCLUSIVE), NIHILISMUS, NORMAN JAY, NORMSKI, PAUL WOOLFORD, PBR STREETGANG, PETE HERBERT, RALPH LAWSON, RANDALL, ROOSEVELT, ROUTE 94, SCUBA, SHY FX & STAMINA MC, SON OF SUN (LIVE), SOUL CLAP, SOUL II SOUL, SPECIAL REQUEST, SUB FOCUS (LIVE), SUBMOTION ORCHESTRA, TAYO & TOPE, TENSNAKE, THE HORRORS, THE MARTINEZ BROTHERS, THE REFLEX, THROWING SNOW, TIMANTI, TOM EDGAR, TOM TRAGO, VISIONQUEST, VISIONS, WOODKID

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Nas To Perform 'Illmatic' At Lovebox

The next time you reach for your sweater, just think: In about the time it takes to see Divergent, you can be in Delray Beach, strolling Atlantic Avenue in your shorts.

Midway between Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale, this charming Florida beach town is easily accessible from either airport. For New Yorkers used to getting around without driving, its particularly convenient; it centers around one long activity-filled strip, Atlantic Avenue. If you are wearing your favorite Louboutins or just feel like taking it easy, free shuttle services run along the avenue day and night.

The town has changed dramatically in the last five years. It used to house a handful of dining options and mom-and-pop stores, but it has morphed into a vibrant area with over 80 restaurants and stylish shops. Since my last visit a year ago, lots of new places have popped up, and the overriding theme is fun. Two giant candy emporiums and a cupcake shop opened within a block of each other. And where there were once grungy meathead gyms, there are now upscale workout facilities including PrCycle, where I spotted Sofia Vergara.

The renovated Delray Beach Marriott has a chic Mediterranean vibe.Photo: CJ Walker Photography

The demographic here has become much younger and more affluent, says Burt Rapoport, who owns three Delray restaurants, including the waterfront dining spot Deck 84.

You can also taste creative Asian fare at Buddha Sky Bar, a prime slider on a truffled pretzel roll at Salt 7 or Italian at Vic & Angelos. At the new Greek spot Taverna Opa, staff and guests dance on the tables.

Palm Beach and Boca Raton may be quiet by 10 p.m., but in Delray restaurants stay open until 2 a.m. And dining can be a bargain; Florida is the home of the early bird special, after all. In Delray, that concept translates to happy hours like the one at Union, with lobster tacos and sushi rolls for half price, and three drinks with vodka gummy bears for the price of one. (When we said we could only handle two, they gave us tickets to come back later for the third round.)

The towns anchor has long been the Delray Beach Marriott (from $129), across from the ocean. It has always offered more than its name might suggest: Mediterranean dcor, a spa lit by chandeliers and a Clefs dOr concierge who knows more about the town than the mayor. This year the hotel rose to another level, thanks to high-end duplex villas with bathrooms bigger than most New York apartments. It also added 50 Ocean an upscale restaurant with an outdoor terrace and picture windows overlooking the water and Sandbar, an adults-only tiki bar that draws a late-night crowd.

Among other hotel options are Cranes Beach House, which has a low-key vibe that feels like Key West, and the chic Seagate Spa and Resort. Seagate has its own beach club, renovated golf club, lap pool and the Atlantic Grille restaurant, where exotic fish tanks bring you nose to nose with sharks and moon jellyfish.

South Florida has become a major player on the art scene, and Delray has an emerging district, Pineapple Grove, with galleries and Arts Garage, a cabaret-style theater that hosts plays, music and performance art.

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Delray Beach: South Floridas emerging it town