Koreatown WELCOME HOME

Yesterday, the office of Second District Supervisor Mark Ridley Thomas announced that Los Angeles County has issued a request for proposals for the redevelopment of multiple dilapidated properties in Koreatown. The government-owned parcels - located on Vermont Avenue between 4th and 6th Streets - are currently developed with more than a half-million square feet of office space housing the Los Angeles County Departments of Mental Health (DMH), Parks and Recreation, Community and Senior Services and Children and Family Services.

A striking multi-family residential building is now taking form in the Pico Union neighborhood. The project, located at 1038 South Mariposa Avenue, consists of a five-story wood-frame structure featuring 32 residential units, an underground parking garage and a rooftop amenity deck. It is currently unclear whether or not the development is being built as rental apartments or for-sale condominiums. Mariposa, designed by Lorcan O’Herlihy Architects, is described as “deriv[ing] from a pure square exruded upward to fit tight on its lot.“ The building’s exterior walls curve inward, while its balconies protrude outward to provide unique city views.

In an always familiar story for Southern California’s most densely populated neighborhood, construction is underway on a new residential complex in Koreatown. The five-story building from developer Marione, LLC is rising from a nearly half-acre site at 105 South Mariposa Avenue. Plans filed with the City of Los Angeles. Plans filed with the City of Los Angeles call for a total of 40 two-bedroom apartments and garage with parking accommodations for up to 90 vehicles and 45 bicycles.

An environmental report published by the Los Angeles Department of City Planning has revealed new details for an upcoming mixed-use complex in Koreatown. The proposed development, slated for an approximately .8-acre property at 627 S. Vermont Avenue, would consist of a seven-story structure featuring 179 apartments above 12,000 square feet of ground-floor commercial floor area. Plans from developer Century West Partners call for a mixture of studio, one- and two-bedroom dwellings, supplemented by communal amenities including a fitness center, a seventh floor deck, a swimming pool and a spa.

City Century, the Los Angeles-based subsidiary of Shanghai real estate developer ShengLong Group, has quietly unveiled plans for multiple high-rise complexes in Central Los Angeles. The developer’s website was recently updated with new renderings of two condominium towers they plan to build at the intersection of 12th Street and Grand Avenue in the South Park neighborhood of Downtown Los Angeles. Renderings portray two glass, balcony-laden structures perched atop podiums, with a design aesthetic not dissimilar from the neighboring Evo tower.

Yet another Koreatown strip mall has bit the dust for a residential-retail complex. The latest development, located at 940 S. Western Avenue, is a six-story building which will feature 79 residential units above ground-floor commercial space and three levels of underground parking. According to the website of Grace Partnership, Inc., the design of the low-rise development was inspired by Hanok, a traditional style of Korean architecture. This concept is represented in the mixed-use complex through the staggered and colorful protrusions which extend diagonally across its facade.

CGI, a Woodland Hills-based real estate investment firm, has broken ground on a low-rise apartment complex at 2867 Sunset Place in Koreatown. The project, which replaces a surface parking lot south of Wilshire Boulevard, will feature 60 apartments above a two-level subterranean garage. Residential amenities will include a rooftop deck, bicycle parking, a fitness center and a lounge area. According to an elevation plan filed with the Los Angeles Department of City Planning, designs from Michael Ball Architects call for exterior finishes including smooth plaster, tepered glass and anondized aluminum.

In what has become a common occurrence on the western edge of Koreatown, an auto-oriented shopping center is slated to give way for a dense mixed-use development. Last weeks, plans were filed with the City of Los Angeles for the construction of a new residential-retail complex on a 2.2-acre property at 3525 W. 8th Street. According to a case filing from the Department of City Planning (LADCP), the project will consist of a seven-story structure featuring 367 residential units and an unspecified quantity of ground-level commercial floor area.

AMCAL Multi Housing Company, an Agoura Hills-based real estate developer, has broken ground on an affordable housing complex near the Red Line’s Vermont/Beverly Station. The Meridian Apartments, located on a roughly one-acre site at 215 N. Vermont Avenue, will consist of a four-story structure featuring 100 studio, one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments above approximately 4,100 square feet of ground-floor commercial space. According to a document from the State Treasurer’s Office, units in the mixed-use development will be restricted to families making between 30% and 50% of the Los Angeles area median income.

Later today, the Los Angeles City Planning Commission will review a proposed development which would add a new hotel to an existing commercial complex in Koreatown. The Grand Spa Hotel, slated for a nearly half-acre parking lot at 6th Street and Commonwealth Avenue, would consist of a six-story building designed by Los Angeles-based SBL Architecture. Plans call for 99 guest rooms on the building’s four upper levels, a spa and fitness center on the second floor, and an at-grade and below-grade parking garage capable of accommodating 144 vehicles and 85 bicycles.