From Old Boxing Arena to a House of Worship

During its more than 70 years at Grand Avenue and 18th Street, the Grand Olympic Auditorium gave millions of Angelenos memories -- of boxing world championships, wrestling matches, rock concerts and high school graduations.

Built as a venue for the 1932 Olympics, the “Mecca of Boxing” became an emotional landmark with a history of closure and revival.

Now, the 7,000-seat auditorium is about to start a new chapter of its life. A Korean American church recently bought the property and is poised to make it home for a different kind of mission: Christian worship and outreach.

Glory Church of Jesus Christ, whose congregation has grown from 10 to more than 2,000 in six years, plans to move in during October after renovations. “It’s a miracle; God worked out all the details,” Senior Pastor Richard Seunghoon Shin said of the acquisition. “We are so grateful.”

The church bought the hall from real estate tycoon Steve Needleman, owner of the Orpheum Theatre and other downtown properties. Needleman declined to comment on specifics of the sale, saying the parties signed a confidentiality agreement. Several church members say the price tag was $25 million.

“There is no question there is some sadness,” said Needleman, whose family bought the building in 1980 from the Los Angeles Athletic Club. But there also is a “tremendous amount of excitement” about the property’s future and satisfaction that the new owners have promised not to raze it.

The Olympic Auditorium is a humongous concrete structure painted beige with taupe, blue and cantaloupe trim on the outside. Today, 12,000 square feet of open floor space is bereft of a boxing ring, though its seating remains in an amphitheater arrangement. On one wall are the signatures of boxers who fought there. Also on the five-acre property is a gym.

“It was the showplace of boxing,” said boxing promoter Don Chargin, who put together weekly fights at the venue from 1964 to 1984. “I am sorry to see the Olympic go. It’s a shame.”

Facing smaller crowds and competition from other facilities, the Grand Olympic Auditorium closed in 1987 except for occasional concerts and filming. In 1994, after a $5-million renovation, it reopened with Oscar De La Hoya facing Jimmi Bredahl of Denmark. But large attendance was not sustained.

The road to ownership has been trying for the immigrant congregation begun by Shin and 10 supporters in January 1999 in a Koreatown office.

Today, the church holds four Sunday worship services, three weekday evening services and a 5:30 a.m. prayer service, Monday through Friday, all in Korean. In addition to Bible classes, the church also offers various social services, mostly in Korean.

To accommodate the growing congregation, the church moved eight times in the last six years.

In 2002, church leaders thought they had finally found a permanent home by buying an eight-story building on Wilshire Boulevard near downtown for $9.1 million.

But soon the Los Angeles Unified School District obtained the site through eminent domain to build a school and, after a court battle, paid the church $11.1 million, according to court records.

Since last year, the church has been renting two downtown sites for its growing congregation, according to Chris Lim, a deacon who heads the church’s building committee.

What had been a wrenching experience turned out to be a blessing in disguise, members now say.

“We realize now that God had a bigger plan for our church,” said Lim, a developer who pressed Needleman to sell.

“God gave us a 7,000-seat auditorium,” he said. “Can you imagine trying to build an auditorium with 7,000 seats now? Can you imagine the bureaucratic red tape you’d have to go through?”

Shin, a businessman who had a dramatic conversion at the age of 33, attended Talbot Theological Seminary at Biola University and then went to Kenya as a missionary, sees the Olympic Auditorium as a strategic location for reaching out not only to Korean immigrants who live in nearby Koreatown, but also to people of all ethnic backgrounds and to the poor who live in the downtown area. The church, he said, sets aside 30% of its budget for overseas missions.

The church is renaming the auditorium the Glory Vision Center and the adjacent gymnasium the Hope Center.

With this purchase, the church joins a list of congregations that have moved into landmark non-church edifices.

Los Angeles University Cathedral operates out of the United Artists Theater downtown. Faithful Central Bible Church worships in The Forum in Inglewood, former home of the Lakers and Kings.

Elsewhere, the nondenominational Lakewood Church, in Texas, reportedly the nation’s largest congregation, holds services in the Compaq Center, once the home of the Houston Rockets.

Last month, Lim; Shin and his wife, Jenny, a former missionary nurse; and a contractor renovating the auditorium visited Lakewood Church to learn about that facility’s experience.

Glory Church of Jesus Christ has big plans for its site, including low-income apartments and a daycare center for children and adults. Leaders said the auditorium will be available for community events at affordable prices. “We are in the area of the city with so many needy people,” Lim said. “We want to minister to them.”

Los Angeles Councilwoman Jan Perry, whose district includes the property, said the church “will be a very interesting addition to the area.” Perry, who used to practice kickboxing at its gym, said she has asked church representatives to ensure that the gym stays or is replaced, because it was one of the few affordable places to breed new talent in boxing and martial arts.

The church is remodeling the gym for offices and classrooms, and plans to replace it with a new gym.

Raising the money for the property has meant sacrificial giving and a big leap of faith for a congregation that “is not affluent,” Shin said.

During one prayer offering, a congregant who described herself as a grandmother put a gold ring in her envelope with a note addressed to God and Pastor Shin. “I am sorry I cannot give more. This ring is all I have,” she wrote.

A fifth-grader named Daniel Chung gave his entire savings: $1,000.

A couple about to marry said they would donate the money they had planned to spend on their wedding reception.

The prospect of turning a place where people fought and bled to win medals into a spiritual center is exciting to Lisa Chang, a church member from Torrance.

“Before, it was for boxing and rock concerts -- all secular,” she said. “Now we want to make it a God-worshiping place.”