The California Broadway Trade Center, commonly called the May Company Building, was the flagship store of the May Company department store chain. It is a contributing property to the NRHP-listed Broadway Theater and Commercial District. It is located at 801 S. Broadway.
History
By the start of the twentieth century, A. Hamburger & Sons had even outgrown their Spring Street location, which had 520 employees working on five floors. The Hamburger family decided to build a much larger store at the southeast corner of Broadway and Eighth, a location that was outside of then current retail district. Construction started in 1905 with a grand opening held in 1908. This location, which was also known as The Great White Store, was the largest department store building west of Chicago at that time and would eventually became the flagship location for the May Company California. At the time that the Great White Store was opened, the store could boast of having one of the first escalators on the West Coast, several restaurants, a drug store, grocery store, bakery, fruit store, meat market, U.S. post office, telegraph office, barber shop, a dentist, a chiropractor, a medical doctor, an auditorium, an electricity and steam power plant in the basement that was large enough to support a city of 50,000 inhabitants, a private volunteer 120 men fire brigade, 13 acres of retail space, and 1200 employees. The Los Angeles Public Library was also located on the third floor from 1908 until it was forced to move to a larger location when it outgrew the Hamburger space by 1913. For a short time, Woodbury Business College briefly was also located on the fifth floor.
In 1925, the Hamburgers sold their store to the May family of St. Louis for $8,500,000. Thomas and Wilbur Mays, sons of the founder of the May Company, were sent to manage the former Hamburger store. One of the first things that they did was to expand the store again by building adjacent additions on the other parts of the city block. After several more years, the May Company store eventually occupied almost the entire block between Broadway and Hill and between Eighth and Ninth Streets. The old Hamburger store was officially renamed The May Company in 1927.
The department store closed in 1986 and the building was turned into retail on the ground floors and a garment factory on the upper floors.
Future
In 2014 it was announced that Waterbridge Capital had agreed to buy the building for an estimated $115–130 million; L.A. City Council member Jose Huizar indicated plans for a mixed-use development to include offices, a hotel, stores and/or apartments or condominiums.
