The $40-million renovation of the Title Insurance Building has made its most visible signs of progress yet, with the addition of a protective scaffolding along the perimeter of the building.

Rising Realty Partners - in coordination with Lionstone Investments and Industry Partners - is midway through transforming the 11-story Art Deco structure at 433 S. Spring Street into approximately 300,000 square feet of creative office space.  The same team is responsible for similar upgrades that turned the PacMutual Center at 6th and Olive Streets into one of Downtown's most desirable office buildings.

Built in 1928, the Title Insurance Building is perhaps the last domino to fall in the rebirth of Spring Street, which saw its host of grand bank headquarters left mostly vacant after the mid-20th century, as companies decamped from the former "Wall Street of the West," for the modern towers of Bunker Hill.  The passing of the adaptive reuse ordinance in 1999 eventually lead to many of those ornate buildings seeing new life as apartments and condominiums, although the Title Insurance Building remained stubbornly vacant.

Previous owners had pondered a similar residential transformation, but those plans were set aside after Rising acquired the property.

The building stands at the eye of the storm in a changing Downtown Los Angeles, with high-rise developments sprouting from longtime parking lots on nearby blocks.  One such project - a potential 34-story apartment tower - is slated for the corner of 4th Street and Broadway, almost immediately northwest of the Title Insurance Building.

Another parking lot across the street - once slated for a hotel tower - has instead been repurposed as a public park.

For a look inside the Title Insurance Building prior to its renovation, check out this photo tour with Hunter Kerhart.