Westlake/Macarthur Park WELCOME HOME

Tucked away on the western edge of McArthur Park, a mixed-use development will rise on Wilshire Blvd. The New York based Somerset Group has been working out details with the LA City Council regarding construction of the Wilshire Coronado Condominiums, a 7 story mixed-use building featuring 154 luxury condominiums and 8,500 square feet of retail. The project will have studio, one and two bedroom units, set to open in Fall 2015.

Construction on Valencia, a new residential-retail complex from developer Sonny Astani, continues to progress in Westlake. The $60 million mixed-use development, located at 1501 Wilshire Boulevard, will eventually consist of a six-story edifice featuring 218 residential units, 4,400 square feet of ground-level retail space and 258 underground parking spaces. Plans call for a mixture of studio, one- and two-bedroom apartments with amenities such as a gym, a swimming pool and landscaped interior courtyards.

A presentation from the California Strategic Growth Council’s Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities Program has revealed a new rendering for a proposed transit-oriented development (TOD) above Metro’s Westlake/MacArthur Park Station. The nearly $50 million project, which is being developed by McCormack Baron Salazar (MBS), would consist of a five-story structure containing 82 residential units, 83 underground parking spaces and approximately 7,000 square feet of ground-floor retail and restaurant space. The proposed building would rise atop the subway station’s existing north entrance, which would be closed and replaced with a new portal on Westlake Avenue.

According to a document from the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, the nonprofit LINC Housing Corporation intends to build a new multifamily residential development in Westlake. The project, dubbed Mosaic Gardens at Westlake, would rise from an underutilized property at 1416 West Beverly Boulevard. Plans call for a low-rise structure featuring a total of 125 residential units, including 63 units set aside for formerly homeless households. Prior to the recession, the approximately 1.25-acre development site was slated for a larger seven-story complex which would have featured 153 dwelling units.

In the latest example of investment dollars spilling outside the Central City freeway ring, construction has started on another mixed-use development in Westlake. Last month, Los Angeles-based Canfield Development broke ground on a low-rise apartment building on a vacant half-acre lot at 1329-1419 West Seventh Street. The residential-retail complex, first reported in 2013, will consist of a seven-story structure featuring 87 studio, one-and-two-bedroom apartments above nearly 1,000 square feet of ground-level retail space.

According to a Facebook post from earlier this month, the Skid Row Housing Trust has broken ground on the Six Apartments, a new 52-unit affordable housing complex in the Westlake neighborhood. Keeping in trend with several of SRHT’s other recent developments, the project packs quite a bit of architectural punch. Designed by Brooks + Scarpa Architects, renderings portray a white hued low-rise structure, featuring a street facing urban window and lush ground level landscaping.

The resurgent Westlake neighborhood is about to get another influx of market rate units, this time courtesy of Sonny Astani. As reported by the Downtown News, the Beverly Hills-based developer plans to start construction later this year on Valencia, a mixed-use development to be located at 1501 Wilshire Boulevard. Designed by Santa Monica-based Killefer Flammang Architects, the six-story building will contain 218 apartment units, 18 of which shall be reserved for low income households.

When we last checked in on Good Samaritan Hospital’s Medical Plaza and Outpatient Pavilion, steel had barely progressed to the second level above ground. Flash forward six months, and the frame of the 190,000 square foot structure is mostly complete. Standing seven-stories tall, the $80 million expansion project topped out in a January ceremony. The state-of-the-art facility will eventually house the hospital’s radiology and oncology departments, in addition to an ambulatory surgery center.

Strange as it is to say, it seems like developers have recently zeroed in on the residential neighborhood south of Wilshire Boulevard’s Lafayette Park. Last month brought the news that a new 60-unit apartment building would be replacing a surface parking lot on Sunset Place. Now, plans submitted to the city indicate that a vacant lot on 7th Street will give rise to a much larger mixed-use complex. Located just west of Hoover Street, the new six-story building would consist of 158 apartment units above an uspecified amount of street level commercial space.

It might be a little behind schedule, but development is finally coming to K.O. the underutilized space atop the Westlake/MacArthur Park subway station. According to a document from the Los Angeles City Council, Metro and developer McCormack Baron Salazar are gearing up to start work on the second phase of their $45 million MacArthur Park transit oriented development. Set to rise five stories in-between Alvarado Street and Westlake Avenue, the Torti Gallas/Roschen Van Cleve-designed structure will contain 81 low-income apartments above approximately 17,000 square feet of ground floor retail space.