Steven Sharp WELCOME HOME

Following a unanimous vote by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, Vancouver, Washington-based real estate firm Holland Partner Group is expected to build a mixed-use development on the 1.8-acre site that houses the abandoned San Pedro Courthouse. Although exact plans have not been revealed, an agenda item from a past meeting of the Board of Supervisors notes that the land could yield up to 250 market rate apartments above ground-floor commercial space.

Earlier today, the Los Angeles City Planning Commission unanimously approved expansion plans for the Los Angeles LGBT Center in Hollywood, paving the way for up to 235 units of affordable and permament supportive housing for seniors and homeless young people. The new Anita May Rosenstein Campus, slated for a debut in early 2019, will also serve as the LGBT Center’s headquarters and offer ground-floor retail space at Santa Monica Boulevard and McCadden Place.

The City of Los Angeles intends to sell a former Community Redevelopment Agency property in Boyle Heights to a private firm that would develop a project featuring some combination of affordable housing and retail space. The development site, located at 110 S. Boyle Avenue, is an approximately 14,000-square-foot lot located across the street from Mariachi Plaza and the Boyle Hotel. Various redevelopment and community plans in recent years have designated the lot as an opportunity site for public parking, low income housing and commercial space.

Over two years after quietly filing for construction permits for a high-rise office building in Baldwin Hills, husband-and-wife developers Frederick and Laurie Samitaur Smith expect to break ground on the project within the next four months. According to the Los Angeles Times, the 17-story (W)rapper development is currently on track to begin construction in early 2017. At completion, the building would offer approximately 160,000 square feet of office space with a monthly asking rate of approximately $4 per square foot.

After nearly three years of construction, AvalonBay Communities is finally wrapping up work on the former Movietown Plaza development in West Hollywood. The mixed-use complex, which has been renamed Avalon West Hollywood, is located on a nearly three-acre site at 7300 Santa Monica Boulevard. At opening, the project will feature 293 market rate apartments and 77 units of senior affordable housing. The apartments would be seated above 30,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space, which will be occupied by a Trader Joe’s.

Legacy Partners, a private real estate firm headquarted in the San Francisco Bay Area, has completed work on the first phase of a $65-million renovation of the former Mariners Bay apartments in Marina del Rey. The low-rise complex, originally built in the mid-1970s, is being rebranded as the Wayfarer Apartments + Marina as it undergoes upgrades to its residential units and common areas. Phase one has improved 57 apartments with central heating and air conditioning, as well as new fixtures and appliances.

With the release of its final environmental impact report, minor revisions have emerged for the plan to redevelop the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza shopping mall with two million square feet of apartments, office space, hotel rooms and pedestrian-oriented shops and restaurants. Capri Capital Partners, the Chicago-based real estate investment firm behind the project, intends to construct new mid-rise buildings on the parking lots flanking the shopping mall, which dates back to 1947.

A camera perched high above South Park provides live updates on Circa, a $500-million high-rise development rising across from the Los Angeles Convention Center. Last year, a development team lead by Jamison Services and Hankey Capital broke ground on the two-tower development at 1200 S. Figueroa Street, which will create 648 apartments and approximately 40,000 square feet of ground-floor commercial space. The twin 36-story buildings, designed by architecture firm Harley Ellis Devereaux, will rise above an eight-level podium clad with glass and electronic signage.

After a year-and-a-half of construction, glass has finally begun wrapping developer J.H. Snyder’s $70-million office building in Hollywood. The long-delayed project, located at 1601 Vine Street, consists of an eight-story building which will feature 110,000 square feet of leasable floor space above ground-floor retail and five levels of underground parking. Renderings of the finished product, which was created by a team featuring architecture firms Gensler and Ware Malcomb, portray a contemporary mid-rise structure.

South of the Fourth Street Bridge in the Arts District, the steel skeleton of a low-rise office building is nearing completion. Chalmers Equity Group, a local real estate firm specializing in industrial properties, broke ground on the four-story structure at 500 S. Santa Fe Avenue this past summer. At completion, the building will feature 100,000 square feet of office space, 199 parking spaces and a rooftop amenity deck. The project site sits immediately north of the headquarters of Lucky Brand Jeans, which is housed in a similar building modeled after a 1930s train station.