Precursor Prior to Broadway Mart Center, the SW corner of Broadway and 4th Street was the site of the three-story Hallett & Pirtle Building, designed by
Frederick Rice Dorn and built in 1895. The following year,
Arthur Letts bought
The Broadway, located in one of the building's storefronts. By 1904, The Broadway occupied the entire ground floor, and in 1905, it acquired the upper floors as well.
Broadway Mart Center In 1912, The Broadway announced plans for a new nine-story building to replace the Hallett & Pirtle Building. This building, the Broadway Mart Center, was designed by
Parkinson and
Bergstrom, the architectural duo responsible for several buildings on
Broadway, including
Trustee Building,
Yorkshire Hotel,
Bullock's Building, and
Metropolitan Building, and was built in 1913-1915. The company claimed they "ransacked the earth for merchandise" to fill their new building, which when completed contained five entrances (three on
Broadway, one on
Fourth Street, and one on
Hill Street), eleven passenger and four freight elevators, and of space. Broadway Mart Center's first phase of construction involved acquiring of space in the
Clark Hotel, which backed up to The Broadway. Then, the departments in Hallett & Pirtle Building's southern half were transferred here. For the second phase of construction, Hallett & Pirtle Building's now-empty southern half was demolished, then the southern half of the Broadway Mart Center was built in its place. This half, which measured , opened on August 10, 1914 and carried the departments previously located the northern half of the original store. For the third and final stage of construction, the northern half of the Hallett & Pirtle Building was demolished, then the northern half of the Broadway Mart Center was built in its place. This half opened on June 25, 1915, although its formal inauguration occurred September 16, 1915, during Fashion Week. The Broadway occupied the Broadway Mart Center in its entirety from its construction to November 1973.
Vacancy After The Broadway vacated Broadway Mart Center in 1973, the building was extensively vandalized and damaged by unsuccessful remodel attempts.
Junipero Serra Building The
State of California bought the building in 1995 and reopened it four years later as the Junipero Serra Building, the lowest-cost state office building in California in the previous thirty years. The State received a
Conservancy Preservation Award in 2000 for their work on this building. this building is one of 56 managed by the
California Department of General Services and one of two (the other being the
Ronald Reagan State Building) located in Los Angeles. ==Architecture and design==