Development WELCOME HOME

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.

Downtown stakeholders breathed a collective sigh of relief last February, when developer G.H. Palmer - he of freeway-adjacent, “fauxtalian,” infamy - revealed more contextually appropriate plans for a mixed-use development near the Ace Hotel. That historically-themed design will soon be put to the test, as the Beverly Hills-based developer has finally begun work on the the project known as Broadway Palace. Crews are currently demolishing an existing building and surface parking lot at the southeast corner of Broadway and Olympic Boulevard, clearing the way for the first of the complex’s two buildings.

Feast your eyes on the latest shiny object to sprout from the ashes of Howard Hughes’s once expansive empire. According to multiple sources, the Los Angeles Jewish Home has officially broken ground on the Fountainview at Gonda Westside, an upscale senior housing development in the Playa Vista neighborhood. The $100 million complex will feature a series of low-rise structures, offering a total of 175 independent living units and 24 assisted living/memory care units.

As the long-awaited revival of Fig Central finally starts to rev its engines, architectural firm Harley Ellis Devereaux has retooled the look of a neighboring high-rise proposal. 1200 Fig - revealed in July by Curbed LA - will feature a pair of elliptical, 36-story towers with 648 condominium units and 50,000 square feet of ground-level retail and restaurant space. Updated renderings of the project portray the twin buildings with horizontal window patterns, giving them an appearance which would be right at home in Downtown Miami.

Take a first look at Eighty Cool Rooms, the so-called “European Style Luxury Boutique Hotel,” that intends to set up shop down the street from the Hollywood/Western subway station. The aptly-named development would consist of 80 guest rooms and 867 square feet of restaurant space, rising in a six-story structure designed by Westwood-based Atelier V Architecture. Guest amenities would include an outdoor deck on the low-rise building’s second level, offering both a fire pit and a swimming pool.

Located at the southwest corner of 7th and Hill Streets, the Foreman & Clark Building was once a pillar of Downtown Los Angeles’ pre-war retail scene. Now, the owner of the mid-rise structure has proposed a mixed-use conversion that could restore the art deco gem to its former stature. According to plans submitted to the city last month, the discount jewelry stores which currently occupy the 13-story tower’s ground floor would be given the boot, to be replaced by two restaurants and a bar-lounge.

Thanks to a plan from a locally based investor, a blighted property on the eastern fringe of Koreatown is slated to be replaced by a mixed-use residential community. Century West Partners, developer of the K2LA apartment complex, is proposing a similar project immediately west of Lafayette Park. Planned at the southeast corner of 6th Street and Virgil Avenue, the development entails a seven-story structure with 399 rental apartment units and 20,000 square feet of ground floor commercial space.

A half-block of modest apartment buildings and strip malls on Koreatown’s southern fringe may have a date with the grim reaper. According to plans submitted to the city in late September, a 1.6-acre site at 3076 W. Olympic Boulevard is slated for demolition, to be replaced by a low-rise residential-retail complex. The mixed-use development, which would rise between Kingsley Drive and Ardmore Avenue, calls for a four-story structure featuring 226 residential units, ground-floor commercial space, and a two-level subterranean parking garage.

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 planned residential-retail complex near the southern terminus of the Harbor Freeway is moving full steam ahead, according to a recent article from the San Pedro Beacon. West Hollywood’s Charles Company, developer of the three-story building at 335 North Gaffey Street, intends to break ground on the $1.5 million project sometime during the first half of 2015. The Gaffey Street Apartments, slated for a currently vacant lot at Gaffey’s intersection with Sepulveda Boulevard, will offer 28 residential units and 4,800 square feet of ground-level retail space above a partially underground garage.