West Los Angeles WELCOME HOME

While Pico Boulevard east of Sepulveda is an inviting, walkable street flush with retail options, it’s a different story on the opposite side of the 405. Highlights on this stretch of Pico include the loading dock of the West LA Best Buy (which greets the street like the back end of a DVD player) and the Fantasy Island strip club (a venerable Westside landmark with googie signage and a lighthouse). As luck would have it, some positive changes could be on the way.

Travelers along the 405⁄10 interchange may have noticed a wood structure sprouting up on the vacant lot next to Sepulveda Boulevard’s kitchy, mid-century IHOP. This would in fact be a mixed-use development from Century West Properties, dubbed “The 2900.“ The six-story structure features 48 residential units above roughly 1,500 square feet of ground floor office space. Upper levels consist of two-story loft units, offering private sundecks with sweeping views of the Westside (seriously, check out the picture below).

Feast your eyes on grainy, black and white renderings of 1836 Colby, the latest residential project to draw the ire of development averse Westside residents. The four-story, 49-unit building would rise at the intersection of Colby and Missouri Avenues, with architecture from Glendale-based Uriu & Associates. As is the norm with any new development in West Los Angeles, the neighbors are not happy. A group of homeowners in adjacent 1830 Colby are up in arms over the project, citing a variety of factors including the building’s height, the deleterious effects of living next to a construction site, and the potential loss of “a row of 8 beautiful, mature Eucalyptus trees between property lines.“ Oy vey.

Just as one of West Los Angeles’ abandoned car dealership prepares for a mixed-use conversion, a similar development plan is emerging at the same intersection. According to a recent case filing from LADCP, a quarter-acre lot at the corner of Santa Monica Boulevard and Westgate Avenue is slated for a new residential-retail development. Plans call for a four-story building, consisting of 39 apartments and ground-level commercial space. The apartments and retail stalls would be served by a three-level subterranean parking garage.

As reported by car-blogger Todd Bianco, West Los Angeles’s Buerge Ford closed its doors this Spring after nearly 100 years of business. However, the former car dealership’s 1.3 acres of Santa Monica Boulevard will not sit vacant for long. According to plans submitted to the city late last month, the property will soon be converted into a mixed-use apartment complex. As indicated by the project’s LADCP case filing, the proposed development would rise four stories, containing 157 dwelling units and slighty over 44,000 square feet of ground floor retail space.

A sea change is underway on the Westside, where multiple neighborhoods are reorienting themselves around phase two of the $1.5 billion Expo Line. The 6.6-mile light rail extension, spanning between Downtown Santa Monica and Culver City, has already spurred an uptick in development activity near several station sites. However, due to the freight railway which once traversed the Expo Line’s route, many station-adjacent parcels feature zoning that is inconsistent with the walkable, mixed-use communities that the city seeks to create.

A draft environmental impact report published by the Los Angeles Department of City Planning has revealed new details about Martin Expo Town Center (METC), a large mixed-use development proposed in West Los Angeles. The project, designed by architecture firm Togawa Smith Martin, would create three low-rise and mid-rise structures with a combination of office, residential and retail uses. Located at 1201 W. Olympic Boulevard, METC would rise from the current home of Martin Cadillac, just one block north of a future Expo Line Station at Bundy Drive.

Santa Monica Boulevard’s nascent construction boom is slowly pushing eastward. According to a case filing from the Los Angeles Department of City Planning, a new low-rise apartment complex is slated for a nearly half-acre property at 11407 West Santa Monica Boulevard. The project calls for a five-story building, featuring 51 residential units above 1,500 square feet of ground-floor retail space. An unspecified number of units would be reserved as either affordable or low-income housing.

With completion of the Expo Line’s Santa Monica extension inching ever close to reality, another mixed-use development has cropped up just south of its future station at Bundy Drive. Yesterday, plans were filed with the City of Los Angeles to construct a new residential-retail complex at 11900-11916 West Pico Boulevard. According to a case filing from the Department of City Planning, the proposed development would consist of 100 apartments and an unspecified quantity of ground-level retail space.

When the West Los Angeles institution known pejoratively as “Ghetto Vons,” shut its doors nearly two years ago, redevelopment rumors immediately began to swirl around its 2.67-acre property at 11660-11674 Santa Monica Boulevard. Now, a proposal has finally surfaced for a large residential-retail complex on the site. According to plans filed earlier this week with the City of Los Angeles, the property is to be redeveloped with a mixed-use structure that would feature a 55,000-square-foot grocery store with 24-hour operations.