Development WELCOME HOME

Two years after unexpectedly reviving the project, developer UDR, Inc. has completed work on the $107-million 3033 Wilshire development. The 18-story tower, located at the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Virgil Avenue, features 190 residential units above 5,500 square feet of street-fronting commercial space and a parking garage. The project’s amenity package boasts a fitness center, a swimming pool and a rooftop garden. According to its official website, rents at 3033 Wilshire start at $2,200 per month for a studio apartment to $9,950 for a two-bedroom penthouse suite.

Since spinning off its struggling publishing division, Tribune Media Company has gone to work monetizing its national real estate portfolio. The Chicago-based corporation made one of its first moves in Los Angeles last month by filing plans to redevelop a parking lot near the Los Angeles Times Building as a mixed-use tower. The proposed development, which would sit atop Metro’s future 2nd/Broadway Station, calls for the construction of a 30-story building featuring 107 condominiums, 534,000 square feet of commercial offices and approximately 7,200 square feet of ground-level retail space.

An initial study published by the Los Angeles Department of City Planning offers a first glimpse of the redesigned Hollywood & Gower development. 6104 Hollywood, LLC - a subsidiary of Colorado-based UDR, Inc. - has proposed the construction of a mixed-use tower on a parking lot at Hollywood Boulevard and Gower Street, at the eastern edge of the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The project would consist of a 23-story building, featuring 220 apartments above nearly 4,600 square feet of neighborhood-serving commercial space.

Yesterday, a cadre of local officials and former athletes joined NFL Commissioner and Rams owner Stan Kroenke to break ground on the Rams’ highly anticipated Inglewood stadium. The $2.66-billion project, located at the former Hollywood Park racetrack, will seat over 70,000 spectators for NFL games starting in 2019. The Los Angeles Times reports that the facility could also play host to events such as the NCAA Final Four, the College Football Playoffs and events for the LA 2024 Olympic bid.

Another year has passed, and Downtown’s elusive Grand Avenue Project still remains stranded on the distant horizon. Next week, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors will consider a fifth amendment to the agreement between the developer Related California and the Grand Avenue Authority, a joint powers authority helmed by the County and the City of Los Angeles. Among other changes, the revised agreement would delay the groundbreaking deadline for Parcel Q, the project’s original first phase, to November 1, 2018.

Alliance Realty Partners, a national developer of multifamily residential complexes, is in the midst of construction for Broadstone Fairfax, a mixed-use building in Mid City Los Angeles. The five-story building, now rising at the intersection of Fairfax Avenue and San Vincente Boulevard, will consist of 149 residential units and nearly 4,300 square feet of ground-floor retail space. According to the website of the Cuningham Group, design architect for the project, the low-rise complex will employ renewable energy and reduce water use through photovoltaic panels, green roofs, low-flow plumbings and a greywater system.

Los Angeles-based developer IMT Capital has filed plans with the City of Los Angeles for a new multifamily residential development in Van Nuys. The project, which is slated for a 1.22-acre site at 6500 N. Sepulveda Boulevard, would consist of a podium-style building featuring 160 residential units - including seven for very low income households - in addition to 274 automobile parking spaces and 176 bicycle parking stalls. A rendering from the IMT website portrays a contemporary six-story structure.

An industrial property in Glassell Park could be repurposed as a multifamily residential development. Earlier today, plans were filed with the City of Los Angeles to construct a 370-unit apartment complex at 2910 W. San Fernando Road. The project, slated for a 4.8-acre site adjacent to the Glendale Freeway, would set aside 31 residential units for very low income households. The development site sits across an active railroad right of way from a similar mixed-use development designed by Rios Clementi Hale Studios.

Tomorrow, the Los Angeles Department of City Planning (LADCP) has scheduled a hearing to obtain testimony on potential changes to bicycle parking regulation in new developments. Current policy, adopted in 2013, allows developers to swap out up to 20% of required automobile parking for less costly bicycle parking spaces. For new buildings located within 1,500 feet of a rail transit station, the percentage is increased to 30%. Although the Bicycle Parking Ordinance has been used to great success, particularly by developers in the Downtown area, feedback to LADCP has lead to the conclusion that several components of the current regulations either lack clarity or require additional flexibility: According to a notice posted to the LADCP website, proposed changes include: Changes to the rules governing the location of bicycle parking include: Finally, design standards for the parking stalls themselves would be modified as follows: New developments submitted prior to the adoption of the amended bicycle regulations will not be subject to them.

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.