Development WELCOME HOME

After a half-year of excavation (and finding the Zanja Madre in the process), developer Forest City is now ready to go vertical in Chinatown. Earlier this month, a tower crane sprouted at Blossom Plaza, the once-stalled residential-retail complex that will sit adjacent to the Gold Line’s elevated Chinatown Station. Rising five stories, the Johnson Fain-designed project will feature 237 apartment units, 20,000 square feet of street-level commercial space and a 449-stall parking garage.

Last summer, SB Properties overlord Barry Shy announced bold plans for a slew of new projects that would erect high-rise towers in and around Downtown’s Historic Core. Earlier this month, the veteran developer officially put words into action, submitting plans for a 32-story condominium tower on a parking lot behind Broadway’s popular Ace Hotel. Located at 920 South Hill Street, the building would contain 239 residential units, ground level commercial stalls and a parking garage.

Thanks to CityGrows, take a first look at 950 Third, the mixed-use development slated for the vacant lot adjacent to SCI-Arc. The low-rise project - originally slated to break ground this summer - is being developed by a team consisting of Ohio-based Associated Estates Realty and Glendale-based Legendary Development. Renderings from Kava Massih Architects portray multiple brick-clad structures, standing between five and six stories in height. Residential buildings would contain a total of 472 apartments, centered around a 922-vehicle parking garage.

The crane may have just come down last month for Williams & Dame’s Courtyard Marriott/Residence Inn, but construction workers have wasted little time in finishing up the cladding on the building’s eastern facade. The 23-story tower, designed by GBD Architects, will create 393 new hotel rooms when it opens in summer 2014. While the Marriott Tower was Downtown’s lone high-rise bright spot when it broke ground in March 2012, an array of new and revived projects have emerged in South Park during the past year.

Passers by may have noticed the recent addition of a mobile crane to the massive Wilshire Grand construction site. Perhaps Turner Construction is about to install a larger stationary crane? Or maybe it has something to do with tomorrow’s “bottoming out,” ceremony. Crews have now excavated the site down to 106 feet below street level, capping off a demolition process which began late in 2012. Soon afterwards, the Wilshire Grand begins a three year climb to its 1,100 foot apex.

Here’s a better look at the KTGY Group’s design for the proposed Olympic & Olive mixed-use development, with credit to the Downtown LA Neighborhood Council’s Planning and Land Use Committee. The seven-story project from Lennar Multifamily Investors would contain 201 apartments and just over 4,000 square feet of ground floor retail to South Park. Not to mention a reasonably sized 228 car underground garage, supplemented by 221 bike parking spaces. As mentioned in previous coverage of this project, Olympic & Olive would fall just inside the eastern boundary of Councilman Jose Huizar’s proposed interim control ordinance prohibiting wood-frame construction.

A Chinatown parcel that once harbored high-rise ambitions instead may give way for something much shorter. Earlier this month, LA City Planning received an application for a mixed-use development at the northwest corner of Cesar E Chavez and Grand Avenues. The project’s case filing calls for a seven-story building, containing 225 residential units, 8,000 square feet of ground floor retail, and a two-level subterranean parking garage. Back in 2006, the Downtown LA News reported that siblings Larry and Ralph Cimmarusti were working on plans for a 31-story mixed-use tower at this location.

All of a sudden, real estate around Chinatown Station seems to be a hot commodity. Forest City finally started work on the long delayed Blossom Plaza back in October, and now another nearby mixed-use development has shown its first sign of life in years. T.A. Patty Development is currently seeking the approval of a vesting tentative tract for the Chinatown Lofts, pegged for the triangular shaped parcel at 1101 N Main Street.

The first move-ins aren’t expected at the Art’s District’s One Santa Fe complex until Fall 2014, but construction crews are now busy attaching alabaster hued cladding on the $160 million project’s eastern facade. The quarter-mile long structure will feature 438 apartments, 80,000 square feet of ground floor retail, and perhaps a direct link to a future Arts District extension of Metro’s Red and Purple Lines. While the residential population of the Arts District is not yet large enough to sustain a heavy rail station, a couple of nearby projects currently in the works will help change that.

A dinosaur has come back to life in the red-hot Arts District. Five years ago, the AMP Lofts endeavored to create 182 condo units with ground floor retail near the intersection of Santa Fe Avenue and 7th Street. Like many real estate developments that emerged during the Great Recession, the Koning Eizenberg designed project sat dormant while awaiting sunnier economic conditions. Rainy skies may gloom above Los Angeles today, but it looks like the numbers finally pan out for the long awaited residential development.