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9/27/23
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Wayne Ratkovich, a Los Angeles-based real estate developer who dedicated his career to improving the quality of urban life in his beloved Los Angeles, died on Sunday, September 24, 2023, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California. He was 82 years old. The cause of death was complications from an aortic aneurysm. From the foothills of the San Gabriel Valley to the skyscrapers of downtown and from the coastline of Playa Vista to San Pedro, Ratkovich shaped Los Angeles for the better.
Throughout his career, Ratkovich had an uncanny ability to identify opportunities that others overlooked. He often saw the future in a piece of the past, even if others ignored it. Ratkovich is credited with reimagining numerous landmark projects, including 18 historic buildings throughout the Los Angeles area, starting with his redevelopment of the James Oviatt Building in downtown Los Angeles – the project that put The Ratkovich Company (TRC) on the map. Ratkovich’s passion for taking on bold redevelopments lives on in his last project, West Harbor, which is re-envisioning and reimagining the Los Angeles waterfront.
Among other notable projects Ratkovich steered include the historic Pellissier Building and adjoining Wiltern Theatre in the Miracle Mile neighborhood. The theater – which opened as the flagship, showpiece movie house for Warner Bros Entertainment – had become decrepit by the late 1970s. The work of preservationists including the Los Angeles Conservancy saved the property from the wrecking ball until Ratkovich could purchase it in 1981. After a four-year renovation, the Wiltern reopened with a run of shows performed by the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, followed by a major Tom Petty concert a few months later. Today, it remains one of L.A.’s most significant performance venues.
Seeing a blueprint for success and driven by a new passion for transforming core urban developments, TRC would go on to reimagine several landmark projects throughout the Los Angeles area, including The Fine Arts Building, Chapman Market, and 5900 Wilshire, a 30-story office tower across from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art as well as a 40 acre mixed-use development, “The Alhambra,” in the heart of the San Gabriel Valley.
One of the firm’s most notable urban developments in the Los Angeles area is The Bloc, a dramatic transformation of the former Macy’s Plaza in the heart of downtown Los Angeles. Ratkovich saw a way to truly integrate this formerly closed-off, fortress-like complex into its downtown neighborhood, creating the first direct underground connection of a private community to a subway station and allowing The Bloc’s tenants and visitors to seamlessly connect with L.A.’s transit system.
Ratkovich is also responsible for the Hercules Campus in Playa Vista, an 11-building complex of historic former Hughes Aircraft Company hangars that counts Google as its main tenant. Howard Hughes and his team of engineers devised and assembled the Hughes H-4 Hercules – better known as the “Spruce Goose” – in those buildings, which was the largest airplane ever built at that time. By the mid-1990s, several of those hangars were being used for one of L.A.’s other foundational industries: sound stages for movies including “Titanic.”
TRC’s latest project is a 42-acre site on the Los Angeles waterfront in San Pedro called West Harbor, which Ratkovich coined as a “festival-style” dining and entertainment destination. In one of his last visionary deals, Ratkovich helped convince the iconic Hollywood restaurant Yamashiro to open its first-ever satellite location at that property.
Wayne Ratkovich is survived by his wife JoAnn, son Milan and daughters Anna and Lindsay, and five grandchildren.
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