Glendale OKs designs for Armenian American Museum, surrounding park

Glendale’s future Armenian American Museum took a step forward last week when the Glendale City Council approved preliminary designs for the building and surrounding Glendale Central Park.

Urbanize LA reports the council is moving ahead with negotiations to lease city property near Brand Boulevard and Colorado Street, where the museum would rise, to the Armenian American Museum and Cultural Center of California. The 95-year lease is $1 dollar per year for the first 55 years.

Berdj Karapetian, chairman of the museum’s executive committee, called the benchmark an “historic milestone.”

Designs by Glendale-based Alajajian Marcoosi Architects show a roughly rectangular building, with a dynamic and jagged exterior. The facade of the museum is meant to echo both the Verdugo Mountains in Glendale and the mountains of Armenia.

The three-story museum would be served by a three-level parking garage, to be built under the structure.

The block surrounding the museum would be reworked to create more park space as part of an interconnected but ultimately separate project called the Central Park Block master design.

Via City of Glendale

Led by SWA Group, the plan proposes replacing some surface parking on the block and adding landscaping and park features to create 92,000 square feet of open space within the block. (That would also help to make up for the grassy space lost by building the museum.)

A handful of different designs for the block are in the mix right now, but all of the proposed updates include a play area for kids, a central grassy open space, a “sculpture walk,” and on-site stormwater treatment to clean rain runoff as it flows through the space.

Both projects are scheduled to return to the City Council in this summer.

• Glendale City Council Approves Armenian American Museum Design [Urbanize LA]