Santa Fe Freight Depot
Santa Fe Freight Depot is a quarter-mile-long building in the industrial area to the east of Downtown Los Angeles, now known as the Arts District. The Southern California Institute of Architecture converted the structure into its campus in 2000. The building's use as a school has helped revitalize a neighborhood previously considered "a gritty corner of downtown".
For the former freight depot in Fort Worth, Texas, see Santa Fe Freight Building.Location
970 E. 3rd St., Los Angeles, California
1922
Leonardt, Carl; Albright, Harrison
Beaux Arts
January 3, 2006
Use as a freight depot[edit]
Built in 1907, the depot was designed by Harrison Albright, a pioneer in the use of reinforced concrete, as a railroad freight depot. The Santa Fe Coast lines secured the property along the Los Angeles River and spent approximately $300,000 building the enormous concrete building.[2]
The depot was built to replace a freight center that had burned to the ground, and the narrow steel-reinforced concrete structure became a local landmark.[3] For half its length, the building is only 37 feet (11 m) in width but, at 1,250 feet (380 m) in length, it is as long as the Empire State Building is tall.[4][5][6] The building had 120 bays with opening on both sides, allowing freight cars to unload on one side while trucks were loaded on the other side.[5]
Historic designation[edit]
The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2006.