Her Ex to be converted

Downtown's shuttered Herald Examiner building at 11th Street and Broadway is going to become offices and condos, with a surrounding residential complex featuring a pair of high-rise towers designed by architect Thom Mayne. Preservation architect Brenda Levin, whose work includes City Hall, the Wiltern Theater and Grand Central Market, will oversee the Herald Examiner rehab, the Downtown News says. The Mission Revival-style landmark opened in 1914 for William Randolph Hearst's Los Angeles Examiner. It housed the Hearst-owned Herald Examiner until the paper closed in 1989. Julia Morgan, California's first female architect, designed the building and Hearst later tapped her for his castle at San Simeon (and, reportedly, love-nest apartments for him and Marion Davies in the Los Altos on Wilshire.) Mayne's contribution to the new complex will be a 37-story condo tower at 120 W. 12th St. and a 23-story building at 1108 S. Hill.