Steven Sharp WELCOME HOME

With so much attention focused on the new Frank Gehry designs for Parcel Q, it’s easy to forget that the Grand Avenue Project already has one residential building under construction. The 19-story Parcel M Tower broke ground in late 2012, and is now topped out just south of the Walt Disney Concert Hall. The Arquitectonica designed building carries a $120 million price tag, and is slated to open its 271 apartments late this year.

Stranded north of the 101 Freeway, Chinatown has largely missed out on the Central City’s post-millennial renaissance. However, with the arrival of new mixed-use developments and a $20 million remodel of the Cornfield Park, it appears that Downtown’s northernmost nabe has finally hit its stride. Now, the stage is set for Chinatown to welcome an ambitious project that could literally stand head and shoulders above the neighborhood. EVOQ Properties, owner of the Arts District’s Alameda Square complex, plans to construct a mixed-use development that would replace a vacant 5.24-acre property near the Cornfield Park.

For decades, the Los Angeles Convention Center was neighbored by sprawling surface parking lots and decrepit commercial structures. Now, the explosive growth of the South Park district is quickly transforming previously desolate blocks into a thriving mixed-use community. The latest addition to the development pipeline is a low-rise residential-retail complex, proposed for an approximately half-acre parking lot at 1400 S. Figueroa Street. Check out the details, via a document from DLANC’s Planning and Land Use Management Committee.

Nine months after revealing plans for a new residential tower in South Park, Carmel Partners is switching up the playbook. According to a memo issued earlier this month by the Department of City Planning, the San Francisco-based developer’s proposed high-rise building at 801 Olive Street has been redesigned by a new, unspecified architect. Although the fundamentals of the project remain the same (363 apartments above 10,000 square feet of ground-floor commercial space and a four-level parking podium), the retooled development plan calls for a tower that is both taller and slimmer than previously approved.

On the heels of multiple industrial-to-residential conversions in the Downtown Fashion District, a small building just south of Santee Village may be looking to get in on the action. Last week, developer Uri Harkham filed plans with the City of Los Angeles to convert a small commercial building at 823 S. Los Angeles street into 12 live-work apartments. The low-rise structure, located mid-block between 8th and 9th Streets, already features ground-level commercial space.

It looks like a new senior housing development is on its way to Playa Vista, with design work from architectural firm Gensler. The 199 unit Fountainview at Gonda will offer a laundry list of on-site amenities, described by Playa Vista Today as follows: The ground floor of the Fountainview at Gonda will be called the Gallery and features many areas for interaction and engagement with community amenities including multiple dining venues, create arts studio, theater, library, salon, card room, lounge and cafe oriented around a large interior courtyard.

Playa Vista may have lost out on Riot Games to West LA, but it looks like the massive lease has whet the appetite for additional creative office space on the Westside. Next up is a project located on the far eastern edge of the Playa Vista’s sprawling campus. A triangular shaped parcel, bounded by Centinela Avenue, Artisans Way and Bluff Creek Drive, is the proposed site of a trio of low-rise office buildings.

Seems like it took forever getting here, but the long delayed 40-story tower at 10000 Santa Monica Boulevard is finally ready to get off the ground. Or more accurately, into the ground. Earlier today, the Department of Building and Safety gave developer Crescent Heights the go-ahead to start excavation and shoring work for the tower’s two-level underground parking garage. The 2.4 acre lot, positioned across the street from Beverly Hills’ western border, has awaited re-development since 2006.

West Los Angeles, an autocentric place where mixed-use developments were unthinkable just a few years ago, now seems to have them popping up all over the place. The dust has started to settle over the controversial Casden West LA proposal, but another project also has the neighborhood up in arms. Owner Daniel Saparzadeh is seeking to turn his land at 11421 Olympic Boulevard into a six-story development known as Olympic and Butler.

Last month, we looked at a small apartment development proposed near the Expo Line’s under construction Palms Station. Now, we have renderings of the proposed building through the Serrano Development Group, the company hired as developer of the project. The Hughes Apartments, designed by HB Architects, are scheduled for completion in October 2014. Future residents will have to wait at least one year for convenient Metro Rail access, as the most optimistic opening date for Phase II of the Expo Line is late 2015.