Westchester WELCOME HOME

Two tower cranes now stands high above Westchester’s Howard Hughes Center, as construction for a market rate apartment building from Mill Creek Residential Trust kicks into high gear. The Village at Howard Hughes Center, now rising from a once vacant lot at 5901 Center Drive, will offer a series of six-story buildings featuring 375 apartments, 1,500 square feet of commercial space and a variety of communal amenities. Van Tilburg, Banyard & Soderbergh, a Santa Monica-based architecture firm, is designing the project.

Developer CIM Group is now in the midst of construction on a multifamily residential complex in Westchester, a short distance from Los Angeles International Airport. The La Tijera Apartments, now rising from a triangular one-acre site and La Tijera Boulevard and Sepulveda Eastway, will feature 136 rental units in addition to amentities such as a fitness room, a club room, a rooftop deck, underground parking for 221 vehicles and 136 long-term bicycle parking spaces.

Yesterday, Metro released a draft environmental impact report detailing plans for the long-sought light rail link to Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). The proposed Aviation/96th Street Station, slated for an approximately 9.5-acre site one mile east of LAX, would be a multi-modal transportation center featuring: In a separate project, Los Angeles World Airports is in the planning stages for a 2.25-mile automated people mover system which would connect Aviation/96th Street Station to the LAX central terminal area, as well as two separate ground tranpsortation hubs and a consolidated rental car facility.

Exterior work is nearing completion the nearly 100,000-square-foot expansion of the Otis College of Art and Design’s primary Westchester campus. The main component of the project - a five-story structure along the western perimeter of the campus - consists of separate residential and academic wings linked together by a 300-seat auditorium. When completed, the building will offer housing for up to 234 students, a library, academic space, a student union and a resource center.

According to documents from the Neighborhood Council of Westchester and Playa Del Rey (NCWP), a mostly vacant plot of land in Westchester is set for some big changes. Marina Del Rey based Trical Construction has plans for 7407 La Tijera, a large, mixed-use development located just a short walk from the 405 freeway. Here’s what to expect: 7407, 7401-7501 S. La Tijera Boulevard, 5630 W. 74th Street The construction, use and maintenance of a new five-story, mixed-use building, containing 140 residential units, 2,600 square feet of ground floor retail space, 241 parking spaces (including 227 residential spaces and 14 retail spaces), and located on a 51,990 square-foot lot….Of the 140 units, 127 units will be market rate and 13 units will be restricted to Very-Low Income Households….The project will provide 18,104 square feet of open space, composed of a courtyard, a rear yard, amenities (gym and recreation room), and private balconies.

Get ready for more stucco clad mixed-use apartments in Westchester, as the second phase of Decon Properties’ Playa Del Oro springs up on Manchester Boulevard. The $67 million Playa Del Oro North, designed by Eduardo Cespedes Architecture, will create 260 residential units and 5,000 square feet of ground floor retail when completed in fall 2014. The building will be served by a 515 stall underground parking garage, with amenities such as a fitness center/sauna, a “resort-style pool,” a game room, a dog park, and a screening room.

Less than one mile north of LAX, developer Decron Properties is pushing towards the finish line on a $105 million mixed-use development. Playa Del Oro West, consisting of 260 luxury apartments and 5,000 square feet of ground floor commercial space, is topped out at 7270 Manchester Avenue, replacing a formerly vacant lot one block west of Lincoln Boulevard. Designed by Van Tilburg, Banyard & Soderbergh (Picasso Brentwood, 3670 Wilshire), the seven-story structure will be clad in exterior materials including cement plaster and stone veneer.

After years of delays, long awaited plans to add hundreds of residential units to Westchester’s Howard Hughes Center are finally moving forward. Earlier this year, ground was broken on a new apartment complex, located on a formerly vacant lot at 6040 Center Drive. Rising six stories, the building will contain 218 apartment dwellings above two levels of underground parking. Permit filings from the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety indicate that a second six-story residential complex is also planned across the street at 5900 Center Drive.

With thousands of residential units flooding into the massive Playa Vista campus, it appears that the lucrative multi-family action has started flowing south towards LAX. Courtesy of TCA Architects, take a first look at Altitude, a low-rise residential development now under construction at Westchester’s Howard Hughes Center. Consisting of two six-story buildings at 5900 and 6040 Center Drive, the project from Equity Residential will offer a combined total of 545 studio, one and two-bedroom apartment units.

As the first step of Loyola Marymount University’s new campus master plan, construction is underway on a $110 million academic facility that shall serve as the cornerstone of the Frank R. Seaver College of Science and Engineering. Known as the Life Sciences Building, the three-story structure will contain 34 teaching and research laboratories, 7,300 square feet of lab support space, 50 faculty offices, classrooms, underground parking, and a 292-seat auditorium. The approximately 100,000 square foot project is seeking LEED Silver certification, and will utilize environmentally friendly features such as storm water retention planters, drought-tolerant plants, and a green roof.