Historic Core WELCOME HOME

Last month, architecture firm Omgivning granted us a first look at the transformation underway at 801 S. Broadway, a historic building in Downtown Los Angeles which was most recently known as the Broadway Trade Center. The mid-rise structure, formerly a flagship May Company department store, is being converted by real estate firm Waterbridge Capital into a 1.1-million mixed-use complex in the model of New York’s Chelsea Market. When completed in 2018, the 108-year-old building will include 400,000 square feet of office space, a boutique hotel and pedestrian-oriented commercial space.

Remember when the Downtown News reported that Izek Shomof wanted to build a 22-story, 400 unit residential tower at the southeastern corner of 4th and Broadway? Turns out that the veteran Historic Core developer is a bit more ambitious than that. Plans were submitted to the Department of City Planning earlier this month for the construction of a new 34-story mixed-use tower over a subterranean parking garage at 400 S Broadway.

When San Francisco-based MacFarlane Partners announced their intent to purchase the former Park Fifth site, they indicated that their plans halved the square footage of the original proposal. Now we actually get a look at what they have in mind, via a presentation to the DLANC. Once intended to give rise to skyline altering towers of 76 and 43 stories, the surface parking lot across from Pershing Square will instead birth a 24-story residential tower and a low-rise apartment building.

It’s not everyday that Downtown’s Historic Core sees the possibility of ground up construction, let alone for a high-rise. Nevertheless, veteran developer Izek Shomof intends to construct a 34-story residential building at the intersection of 4th Street and Broadway, just one block east of the Pershing Square subway station. Dubbed “Broadway @ 4th,” the project would consist of 450 residential condominiums above approximately 7,000 square feet of ground floor retail and restaurant space.

More than one year after plans were announced to convert Downtown’s Pershing Hotel into affordable housing, little remains of the 125 year old structure beyond its Victorian facade. The approximately $15 million project, developed by the Skid Row Housing Trust, will eventually consist of 69 studio and one bedroom units, ranging from 350 - 500 square feet. Designed by Killefer Flammang Architects, the New Pershing Hotel Apartments will rise five stories, with upper floors set back from the historic facade.

Downtown stakeholders breathed a collective sigh of relief last February, when developer G.H. Palmer - he of freeway-adjacent, “fauxtalian,” infamy - revealed more contextually appropriate plans for a mixed-use development near the Ace Hotel. That historically-themed design will soon be put to the test, as the Beverly Hills-based developer has finally begun work on the the project known as Broadway Palace. Crews are currently demolishing an existing building and surface parking lot at the southeast corner of Broadway and Olympic Boulevard, clearing the way for the first of the complex’s two buildings.

One year after announcing ambitious Downtown expansion plans, Barry Shy is officially putting his money where his mouth is. Over the past several weeks, SB Properties has filed plans with the city for four new residential developments, including multiple high-rise towers and an adaptive reuse project. The four mixed-use complexes are being designed by Los Angeles-based DT Architects, and will invigorate current pedestrian dead zones along Broadway, Main and Hill Streets with approximately 1,000 market rate apartment units and street-level commercial space.

Yesterday, the Downtown News reported that Holland Partner Group had recently paid $12.5 million for a parking lot at the intersection of 8th and Spring Streets, with still unrefined plans to build apartments. According to a recent case filling from the Department of City Planning, the Vancouver-based company intends to join the the burgeoning trend of high-rise development in Downtown’s Historic Core. Plans for the property at 737 South Spring Street call for a 24-story tower, containing 320 apartment units and ground-floor retail uses.

Less than one year after unveiling substantially downsized plans for Downtown’s erstwhile Park Fifth site, developer MacFarlane Partners has opted to rework the entire project. The San Francisco-based investment management firm will give a first glimpse of the redesigned - and slightly upsized - development program to the Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council’s Planning and Land Use Committe this Tuesday. Like the previous Harley Ellis Devereaux-designed proposal, the retooled Park Fifth complex will consist of mid-rise and high-rise components.

One month after the massive blaze which destroyed half of the unfinished Da Vinci apartments, developer Geoff Palmer is preparing to begin work on yet another Downtown residential-retail complex. Earlier this month, grading and shoring permits were issued by the Department of Building and Safety for the second half of Broadway Palace, a mixed-use development planned near the border between South Park and the Historic Core. The project, located at 928 South Broadway, would create 439 studio, one-and-two bedroom apartments in a low-rise and mid-rise.