DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES: News and Updates

[dragonsky]

Architects’ proposed design for Arts District skyscrapers would transform neighborhood

To paraphrase Ronald Reagan by way of Basel, Switzerland, it’s morning again in the Arts District.

At least that’s the upbeat sales pitch suggested by the name of a massive mixed-use development proposed for downtown L.A.’s booming Arts District by the Swiss architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron.

Called 6AM — for its location along 6th Street between Alameda and Mill streets — the project includes 1.96 million square feet of residential space as well as shops, offices, a pair of hotels, room for a charter school and parking, most of it underground, for more than 3,400 cars.

Produced with the Irvine-based developer SunCal and covering 14.5 acres, the complex would be crowned with a pair of 58-story towers along Alameda. Each topping 700 feet, these would be the first skyscrapers in the largely low-rise Arts District.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment...htmlstory.html

[CaliNative]

Originally Posted by dragonsky

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment...htmlstory.html

That would be amazing to see. Something like that should be built in Chinatown area too. Do they have financing, or is it just a proposal?

[dragonsky]

Enormous project with two 58-story towers proposed for Arts District
http://la.curbed.com/2016/9/20/12990...ine-extension-

[dragonsky]

Developer buys sprawling LA Times plant near Arts District for $120M

The Tribune Company-owned printing plant south of the Arts District is now the property of a partnership lead by Harridge Development Group. The Real Deal reports Harridge spent $120 million to acquire the 26-acre property, which prints the Los Angeles Times. It sits between Eighth Street and Olympic Boulevard off of Alameda Street, and it came on the market in November of last year.

http://la.curbed.com/2016/9/29/13108...district-sells

[dragonsky]

Crane Watch: South Park's Apex II

Holland Partner Group has taken construction vertical for the second phase of Apex, a high-rise development in the South Park neighborhood of Downtown Los Angeles.

The project, located at 9th and Figueroa Streets, would consist of 341 apartments and approximately 11,600 square feet of retail space in a 28-story, LEED-Silver building. Plans also call for a rooftop amenity deck and an underground parking garage.

http://urbanize.la/post/crane-watch-south-parks-apex-ii

[dragonsky]

'A very, very hot market': Downtown L.A. high-rise sells for $50 million as residential building boom

A prominent Bunker Hill high-rise has changed hands for a premium price topping $50 million, signaling that downtown Los Angeles’ residential renaissance is boosting the area’s long-soft commercial office market.

A Los Angeles investment group purchased the 15-story Chase Plaza at 888 W. 6th St. from a partnership that included the Somerset Group, a New York City real estate firm. The deal closed Thursday.

Phillip Sample, a real estate broker with CBRE Group who represented the seller and buyer, said the building sold for around $540 per square foot, a price that he estimated was the highest for a downtown office building in at least 10 years.

“Downtown is a very, very hot market,” said Sample, who noted that investors want to be in the city center as millennials move downtown and the region’s public transportation network expands.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-f...nap-story.html

[dragonsky]

Rendering vs. Reality: Lennar's Olympic & Olive Development

The project, designed by KTGY Group, consists of a six-story building at the southwest corner of Olympic and Olive Streets. When completed in 2017, the podium-style structure will offer 201 apartments and 4,000 square feet of retail space, seated above underground parking for 228 vehicles and 221 bicycles.

Olympic & Olive represents one of the final components of a recent building boom along South Park's Olympic Corridor, adding to projects from the Hanover Company and Geoff Palmer. Farther down the line, high-rise developments at Hill Street and Broadway could continue this momentum.

http://urbanize.la/post/rendering-vs...ve-development

[dragonsky]

• Video Link

LA looks pretty urban in its first-ever film appearance

Dorothy Parker famously said (though she probably didn’t) that LA is "72 of suburbs in search of a city." It’s a common criticism of this sprawling metropolis, but a 25-second film from 1897 tells a different story.

As KCET notes, the short movie was the first ever made in what would soon become the center of film production worldwide. It shows a city with a bustling downtown, full of walkers, bicyclists, horse-drawn carriages, and trolleys. All easily share the street and sidewalks in a chaotic but practiced type of choreography.

http://la.curbed.com/2016/10/3/13155...rban-old-movie

[dragonsky]

Here’s the rendering for eye-popping skyscraper planned at Pershing Square

Developer Jeffrey Fish released this morning a rendering for the crazy skyscraper he wants to build at Pershing Square, right next to the building that houses popular rooftop bar and restaurant Perch.

As the rendering shows, glass lap pools would jut out from the top half of it, so brave swimmers could splash around while looking straight down and out over LA’s skyline. Among the views they might take in: a made-over Pershing Square. Theses types of floating pools are called cantilevered pools, and they have been built in homes and hotels in other cities for years, but would be making their first appearance here in Los Angeles if Fish’s project goes forward.

The suspended pools would hang from condos. Fish’s plan is to either fill the 5th and Hill streets skyscraper, which would rise 55 to 57 stories, with either 100 condos and 200 hotel rooms and 27,500 square feet of commercial space or just 142 condos and slightly less commercial space.

The rendering also gives us a better look at the "sky lobby," an open, communal deck area (with a traditional, non-death-defying pool) that would be level with the top of the building next-door. Floors of condos would rise from stilts above the deck. It looks like some of the condos will be offset. That, along with the dangling pools, give the building, as Urbanize LA has noted, too, a kind of Jenga-look.

http://la.curbed.com/2016/10/7/13202...ershing-square

[dragonsky]

Warner Music Group will relcoate from boring Burbank to ‘exciting’ Arts District

Is the Arts District is going corporate? Billboard reports today that Warner Music Group—whose labels include labels Warner Bros. Records, Atlantic, and Rhino—is relocating its West Coast headquarters from Burbank to the so-trendy-that-rents-are-too-high-for-artists Downtown neighborhood.

Billboard obtained an internal memo from CEO Stephen Cooper announcing the move into the old Ford factory, set to take place in early 2018. In the message, Cooper tells employees he, "wanted an exciting space that enables us to preserve our unique company cultures."

The factory building at 7th Street and Santa Fe most recently housed a creepy army of American Apparel mannequins, but it is being converted to hold about 254,000 square feet of creative offices, plus retail space. Owner Shorenstein Properties has said it wants "cool retail" on the ground-floor, not chain stores.

http://la.curbed.com/2016/10/7/13207...moving-burbank

[dragonsky]

South Park High-Rise Quietly Revived

Fulton Street Ventures, the American subsidiary of Chinese real estate firm R&F Properties, held a groundbreaking ceremony this weekend for a long-delayed high-rise development in Downtown Los Angeles. The small gathering was first spotted by Downtown-based entrepreneur Andy Rosillo.

The project, 1133 S. Hope Street, is a proposed 28-story residential tower located east of Staples Center and the L.A. Live entertainment district. Plans call for an approximately 330-foot building would contain roughly 200 condominiums, 5,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space, a parking garage and residential amenities.

Renderings portray a contemporary glass tower, featuring outdoor decks above its podium and rooftop, as well as a green wall masking above-grade parking levels along Hope Street and towards the adjacent Flower Street Lofts. The project is being designed by the Vancouver-based Chris Dikeakos Architects.

http://urbanize.la/post/south-park-h...uietly-revived

[dragonsky]

Greenland USA Tops off Second Metropolis Condo Tower

Last Friday, Greenland USA officially topped-off the second residential tower at Metropolis in Downtown Los Angeles. The 40-story building, which is on pace for completion in 2018, will feature 514 condominiums and pedestrian-oriented retail space near the intersection of 8th and Francisco Streets.

Designed by architecture firm Harley Ellis Devereaux, the 461-foot tower will feature a combination of studio, one- and two-bedroom floor plans, some of which will include private balconies and terraces. The tower will also entail a full array of residential amenities, including a gym, an outdoor swimming pool and a 1.5-acre outdoor area known as Met 9.

The $1-billion Metropolis development encompasses a 6.3-acre site near the Harbor Freeway. A full buildout of the project for 1,250 residential units, ground-level commercial space and a 350-key Hotel Indigo in four towers ranging from 18-to-56 stories in height. The first of the three condominium towers, an adjacent 38-story structure, has reportedly pre-sold more than 70% of its 308 units. Prices for both buildings range from $600,000 to more than $2 million.

http://urbanize.la/post/greenland-us...is-condo-tower

[dragonsky]

First Look at 2222 Figueroa
Mixed-use complex to sit between MyFigueroa and Expo Line.

Four years after the completion of the Expo Line, a full city block near LATTC/Ortho Institute Station could be reborn as a mixed-use, transit-oriented development.

The property - bounded by Figueroa, Flower, 22nd and 23rd Streets - is being reinvisioned as 2222 Figueroa, a collection of rental and for-sale housing above pedestrian-oriented commercial space. The project, which was filed with the City of Los Angeles earlier today, would be highlighted by 1,063 residential units - including 645 condominiums, 364 market rate apartments and 5% low income housing. Plans also call for amenities such as a swimming pool, bicycle accommodations, a beach volleyball court and multiple fitness centers.

Located midway between Downtown Los Angeles and the USC campus, the 2.3-acre development site is flanked by the Expo Line to the east and the MyFigueroa Streetscape Improvement project to the west. Accordingly, owner 2222 South Figueroa, LLC has proposed an active streetfront with 20,000 square feet of commercial space facing both Figueroa and the adjacent light rail station.

http://urbanize.la/post/first-look-2222-figueroa

[dragonsky]

Two-Tower DTLA Development Readies for Construction

Fresh off an impromptu groundbreaking ceremony for 1133 S. Hope Street, another Downtown development has suddenly begun prepping for construction.

Onni Group, a Canadian real estate developer, has set up protective fencing around a surface parking lot at 1212 Flower Street. The approximately 1.5-acre site, which abuts Pico Station, is slated for a pair of high-rise towers featuring 730 residential units, 8,000 square feet of retail space and parking accommodations for 830 vehicles.

Documents on file with the Los Angeles Department of City Planning call for towers that would rise to heights of 40 and 31 stories above street level. The glass and steel structures are being designed by Vancouver-based Chris Dikeakos Architects.

http://urbanize.la/post/two-tower-dt...s-construction

[dragonsky]

A new look at snazzy pedestrian bridge that will connect the Broad to the subway

The Regional Connector will link up the Blue, Expo, and Gold lines and add three new subway stops in Downtown, one of which will hook up to the Broad Museum via an elevator and a pedestrian bridge over Hope Street. The look of that bridge might be a little different than previously imagined, new renderings first spotted today by Urbanize LA show.

http://la.curbed.com/2016/10/10/1323...estrian-bridge

[dragonsky]

New Renderings for Eight-Story Westlake Project

The website of design visualization studio Archeon Light has revealed additional renderings for a proposed mixed-use development in Westlake.

In July, Urban View Investments, LLC submitted plans to the city to raze a series of small residential buildings on a one-acre property bounded by Hartford Avenue, 5th and Witmer Streets. In its place, the Los Angeles-based firm plans construct an eight-story, 174,000-square-foot building featuring 182 market rate apartments and 36 units of affordable housing.

The proposed development, which is being designed by Reed Architectural Group, appears as a contemporary mid-rise building clad with glass, metal panels and stucco.

http://urbanize.la/post/new-renderin...stlake-project

[dragonsky]

Park Hyatt Coming to DTLA's Oceanwide Plaza

According to the Wall Street Journal, Park Hyatt has signed on to operate the hotel component of the $1-billion mixed-use development, which is now rising across the street from Staples Center in Downtown Los Angeles. The project, which is the first U.S. venture of the Beijing-based Oceanwide Real Estate Group, will consist of three high-rise buildings that include 504 condominiums and a 153,000-square-foot open-air galleria featuring shops and restaurants.

This will be the first Los Angeles area location for Park Hyatt, which is the top-tier brand of Hyatt Hotels Corporation. The company has sought a Los Angeles County location for more than a decade, and was lured to Downtown by the array of new destinations such as L.A. Live.

http://urbanize.la/post/park-hyatt-c...ceanwide-plaza

[dragonsky]

Renderings Galore for Oceanwide Plaza
http://urbanize.la/post/renderings-g...ceanwide-plaza

[dragonsky]

New Details for Proposed 8th & Fig Tower

An initial study published by the Los Angeles Department of City Planning offers up new details for the Fig & 8th development, a proposed high-rise development that would replace one of Downtown's most prominent parking lots.

Mitsui Fudosan America, the U.S. subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Mitsui Fudosan, has owned the one-acre subject site at 8th and Figueroa Streets for more than 20 years. They plan to remove the existing parking lot to construct a 42-story high-rise edifice that would feature 436 residential units, approximately 10,000 square feet of ground-floor commercial space and a 479-car garage with four below-grade levels and four above-grade levels.

The proposed 489-foot tall tower is being designed by Johnson Fain, the Chinatown-based architecture firm behind recent Downtown developments such as Blossom Plaza, College Station and the La Plaza Cultura Village. Renderings of the finished product portray a shimmering glass and steel tower, rising above a podium. Outdoor amenity decks would be situated at both the rooftop and above the building's parking garage.

http://urbanize.la/post/new-details-...-8th-fig-tower

[ozone]

^^^^ Looks good! Love the sick renderings of Oceanwide Plaza too. Very skeptical about the Arts District proposal though.