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[Zhengi]

So, any ideas what could have caused this? Arson?

I think this is very likely. There was another fire that broke out at another location while firefighters were fighting the first one.

 

[Sobriquet]

I think this is very likely. There was another fire that broke out at another location while firefighters were fighting the first one.

Whoa, really? Was it another Palmer building?

 

[Foxy Fox 39]

You forgot one

Batman lives in Gotham, a fictional Chicago or New York.

 

[Zhengi]

Whoa, really? Was it another Palmer building?

It's here in the news report:

http://ktla.com/2014/12/08/large-building-burns-in-downtown-la/

They haven't linked any connection between the two, but it's very suspicious, imo.

 

[Booshka]

I think this is very likely. There was another fire that broke out at another location while firefighters were fighting the first one.

Sounds like a mission in GTA V, working with some shady politician or other developer and starting a fire at a rival project.

I was asleep and had no idea this was going on, I live in the South Bay so it will have no real affect on me, but damn was that one massive fire.

 

[Escape Goat]

Batman lives in Gotham, a fictional Chicago or New York.

That doesn't sound right.

 

[Foxy Fox 39]

That doesn't sound right.

It's based off New York but I understand some Chicago references often are apparent as well.

Chris Nolan based the look of Gotham on New York, Chicago, Tokyo and Detroit.

 

[jamesinclair]

This article was published two weeks ago. It was not very friendly to this developer and this particular building.

http://www.lamag.com/citythinkblog/geoff-palmers-faux-italian-renaissance/

The featured image was the building that was on fire

Its an interesting read, and might show motive as why this may have been intentional

Theres also this from November

7 Awful Stories About the Man Destroying Downtown LA
Tuesday, November 25, 2014, by Adrian Glick Kudler

Developer Geoff Palmer has built more apartments in Downtown Los Angeles than anyone else (more than 3,000) and they're all fucking terrible. His squat, nearly-identical fortresses, with embarrassing names like the Visconti and the Medici, aren't just ugly (although they are very ugly), they're vacuums designed to suck the life out of a neighborhood that has worked so hard to become lively in the past decade. "Fortress" isn't really a metaphor—Palmer's buildings take up full city blocks but face entirely inward. They're notorious for the skybridges that keep tenants off of the streets and sidewalks; their street-level retail spaces sit mostly empty; their many basketball courts and libraries and green spaces (in one case, a one-acre park) are not even a little bit open to the public. And they're spreading: while most of Palmer's buildings are practically on top of the 110 Freeway, his latest will add more than 650 units on the action-packed block of Broadway between Ninth and Olympic.

http://la.curbed.com/archives/2014/11/7_awful_stories_about_the_man_destroying_downtown_la.php

 

[AcridMeat]

Friend in LA just shared this with me. Those videos are absolutely crazy, scary stuff.

Seeing that it was all a big unfinished project by Palmer makes the story pretty suspect. I think it was arson as well. Didn't a witness say it was like a bomb going off and there's blown out windows in one of the neighboring buildings?