Steven Sharp WELCOME HOME

Construction on the Expo Line’s bridge over Venice Blvd. In a few short years, this bridge help carry thousands of passengers every day between Downtown Santa Monica and Downtown Los Angeles.

Century City will never be a walker’s paradise, even when it does get its long awaited subway station (hopefully less than 15 years from now). It’s cold and aloof, with buildings that (for the most part) refuse to meet the sidewalk. Generous accommodations for the automobile are strewn about. Its retail accommodations are almost exclusively encompassed by the fortress like Westfield Century City mall. Nonetheless, Century City is on pace for a massive amount of construction activity in the coming five years.

DEMO FAST FOOD REST. GPA FROM LIGHT MANUF TO COMNTY COMM AND ZC FROM M2-2 TO C2-2 TO ALLOW 92 RES UNITS W/ 25,000 SQ FT 1ST FLOOR RETAIL AND 25,000 SQ FT 2ND FLOOR OFFICE. 6 STORIES, 286 SUB PARKING. 286 parking spaces seems excessive for a location directly across the street from the Blue Line’s Grand Ave. Station, but I suppose the developer deems it necessary to make the retail and office space attractive.

In light of Metro’s series of workshops on their Master Plan for Union Station, I thought it would be nice to really take stock of what the future holds for the centerpiece of Los Angeles’ rail and bus network. Metro has made it clear that transit will be the main emphasis of this study, but the future of Union Station also holds implications for the surrounding neighborhoods. From a developer’s standpoint, there is a lot of land potentially up for grabs depending on the options chosen.

Scouring the LA City Planning Department’s bi-weekly filings, this gem presented itself: LEVEL OF BASEMENT PARKING All of this just a quick walk from the Purple Line’s Wilshire/Normandie station (which makes the two levels of parking worrisome). If it seems like I mention Koreatown a lot in this blog, there’s a good reason for that. 535 S Kingsley joins a glut of new 5-7 floor residential buildings, including one behind the Wilshire Professional Building, Southwestern Law School’s new student housing, and the second phase of Century West’s K2LA development.

Just when all was quiet on Downtown Los Angeles’ adaptive re-use front, the Department of City Planning sends out this notice. ”…the Adaptive Reuse of an existing nine-story plus basement, mezzanine and penthouse, 46,709 square-foot light manufacturing building with ground-level retail uses, into a mixed-use building containing 54 joint live/work dwelling units and ground-level retail uses The Grayco Building has 100 years of history within its walls, and soon it will also have dozens of permanent residents crammed into tiny apartments.

In mid-July, the Park La Brea News announced that Shalhevet High School was planning to rebuild its campus and add an adjacent mixed-use development. Now that some more information on the project has been made public, we can get a better look at what’s to come. For the purpose of this blog, I don’t have much interest in the school building. Sorry Shalhevet, it’s not personal (just business). So we’re going to focus on the residential structure, the specs of which read as follows: …a mixed-use residential project with approximately 149 residential dwelling units and approximately 4,280 square feet of ground floor commercial space on the south parcel.

Crescent Heights made a big splash via Curbed LA when they announced plans for a two high rise development on the massive surface parking lot behind the Hollywood Palladium. Now as the proposal moves through the planning process, we are getting a chance to flesh out what to expect. First up, the specs on the two buildings: …two new buildings which would be up to 28 stories and approximately 350 [feet] in height.

Development is on its way for one of the few remaining vacant parcels of land on Wilshire Blvd west of the Los Angeles Country Club. Check out this filing from August 1st, gleaned from the Department of City Planning: DIR-2013-2348-DRB-SPP 860 S DEVON AVE, LOS ANGELES CA, 90024 THE CONSTRUCTION OF 33 DWELLING UNITS WITH AN APPROXIMATE HEIGHT OF 75 FEET. PROJECT AREA: 14,369 SQ. FEET. The design for the building appears to be coming from Culver City based RTK Architects, Inc.

Back in May, rumors pointed to the development of a high rise hotel on the surface parking lot at the southeastern corner of Olympic Blvd and Grand Avenue. Unfortunately for tall building enthusiasts and Downtown LA boosters, a new Hilton will not be coming to the intersection. Instead, this is what we have in the works: 8/9/2013 1000 S GRAND AVE 90015 PROPOSED CONSTRUCTION OF A 7-STORY MIXED-USE PROJECT CONSISTING OF APPROXIMATELY 274 DWELLING UNITS AND 12,000 SQ.