Since Tower's demise in the United States in 2006, the building has struggled to find a tenant that could do it justice. In fact, the current owners wanted to demolish the building and replace it with a three story office building, but city preservationists rallied to keep the wrecking ball from falling.
The building has finally found what could be the perfect fit in Gibson, who plan to use it has its West Coast showroom. The company has signed a 15 year lease and plans to spend around $1 million in renovations.
While most people think of Gibson as just a guitar manufacturer, the company has become much bigger than that, now owning music brands like Epiphone, Tobias, Slingerland, Baldwin and Wurlitzer. But that's not all. Recently Gibson has made consumer electronics acquisitions as well, and now owns Teac, Onkyo, Integra and Esoteric as well as well as Philips Home Entertainment, the company that helped bring you the cassette tape, CD and DVD.
Gibson has long had a showroom in Beverly Hills, but the new larger Tower Records building allows for additional event space which the company plans on taking full advantage of, as it plans to feature live performances with up and coming artists. Say what you want about Gibson as a company, but it's great to have this building back in the music business again.
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2 comments:
Gibson also bought Cakewalk/Sonar DAW
Coming from a die-hard Gibson Les Paula'holic that's great news MTG, as I also love Cakewalk Sonar Producer X3.
By the way, would it be crazy to hope Gibson keeps the famous Tower Records signage intact in some way?
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