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Bixel Residences Rendering Revealed

3/12/2016

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Credit: Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council
By: Chad Kim

Bixel Residences is a proposed mixed use project located on a L-shaped lot where the street address of the proposed project is located at 675 S. Bixel Street and 1111 W. 7th Street in LA's City West district. The developer is Career Lofts LA, LLC. 
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Credit: Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council

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Picture Update of Circa, Metropolis, and Ten50

3/10/2016

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Metropolis. 38 story tower (part of Phase I in back) and front is what will become 56 story tower (part of Phase II)
By: Chad Kim

This is an on-going series providing picture updates of various major projects in DTLA. Last time, LAOCDB provided picture updates on 8th and Olive & 825 Hill. The previous article also provided a couple photos of Ten50 that showed what the building looks like so far from a distance. 

Today's picture update is with regard to Circa, Metropolis, and close up pictures of Ten50. Be sure to also check LAOCDB's Instagram to see picture previews that will later be published in future articles. 

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Wilshire Grand 'Topping Out' Ceremony Held 03/08/2016 (Picture Update)

3/9/2016

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Wilshire Grand stands tall. View from 7th and Grand.
By: Chad Kim

​According to the LA Times, Wilshire Grand reached a momentous occasion as a ceremony was held on 03/08/2016 to celebrate the tower 'Topping Out'. When the project is finished, the tower will stand a total of 1,100 feet tall including the spire. Within this massive mixed use tower will contain about 400,000 square feet of office space and 900 hotel rooms. The attached building will also contain convention space and also includes ballrooms. 

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Coalition to Preserve L.A. Targets Long-Stalled Koreatown Residential High-rise 

3/5/2016

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By: Oscar Gake

​Recently I found the Coalition to Preserve L.A.’s twitter account and I’ve had a fun time using it to point out the hypocrisy.
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For some reason they’ve written an article and held a press conference against the proposed 8th and Catalina tower in Koreatown, which has been in limbo for years. It seems unlikely this tower will be built any time soon but I still feel as though I must debunk their article, which is filled with faulty logic. Links to the article and another article about the tower are to the side.
8th and Catalina tower in Koreatown
Silly Nimbys
What in the heck is happening in Koreatown?
Community activists don’t want a 27-story, 269-unit residential high-rise to go up in a low-slung, working-class section of Koreatown. The city’s planning commission voted against the proposed skyscraper, with one commissioner describing it as “wildly inappropriate.” Yet Mayor Eric Garcetti, in a rare move, overturned the planning commission and approved the mega-project — but only after Beverly Hills developer Michael Hakim agreed to fork over $1 million to the city’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund.
Crazy, right?
​Nope. Not crazy at all. Koreatown is the densest and most transit connected neighborhood in the city. There are already a few residential high-rises in the neighborhood about the same size as the proposed one (although the neighborhood is mostly made up of mid-rise apartment buildings.) The only reason this one is more controversial is because it is located on 8th Street, rather than two blocks North on Wilshire like the rest.
The Coalition to Preserve L.A. always acts as if they support the middle and lower classes, when in fact they don’t care about them at all. If you needed proof they don’t, it’s in the second to last sentence. Mayor Garcetti's decision got the Affordable Housing Trust Fund one million dollars yet the author thinks that's a bad thing.

Today, Hakim is still trying to get final approvals for his mega-project with market-rate (meaning, “not very affordable”) housing. But, things are looking pretty darn good for him, and he can make millions and millions off the wildly inappropriate skyscraper.”
Well maybe market-rate wouldn’t mean “not very affordable” if groups like the Coalition to Preserve LA didn’t constantly stand in the way of residential development. They ignore or deny the fact that Los Angeles is in a severe housing shortage, causing rents to be very high. The only way to bring prices down again is to build more housing units and build them more densely. Simple economics.

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(By the way, take a look at the picture below of the proposed site. The skyscraper would rise another 20 stories above that first palm tree. That “wildly inappropriate” remark is wildly accurate. Wow!)
And that’s a problem why? What you really should notice is that the proposed site is partly just a vacant lot just sitting there and not benefiting the community in any way. 
The tower would also take up land that is currently comprised of a liquor store, a parking lot, and 3 apartment buildings which couldn’t comprise of more than 15 units by my estimate. Over all that’s a net gain of over 250 units which we badly need and $1 million for the city’s affordable housing fund, not to mention all the tax revenue it will generate for the city and the hundreds of jobs it will create for local labor.


“For this 27-story project to be built,” said Stewart at a press conference yesterday, “city officials will have to bend almost every rule in the book – but that happens every day at City Hall. The rigged system at City Hall rewards greedy developers and it is hard to beat. But the public can win and put new controls on reckless development if they vote for our measure when it gets on the ballot.”
Well Jill, you see the city’s zoning code is outdated as hell. If every rule in the book were followed, almost nothing would ever get built and rent and home prices in L.A. would be even higher than they already are. Although that’s what you want isn’t it? No growth and to screw over the poor. I’d respect you a lot more if you were honest and said that’s what the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative is actually about. Stop pretending that you and the Coalition actually care about anyone other than yourselves.

The Neighborhood Integrity Initiative will impose a two-year moratorium on development projects that seek height, zoning and General Plan amendments — and require special handling, rule-bending and council intervention to go forward, such as Hakim’s.
This line has some typos. Let me fix them for you. It should read: The NIMBY Integrity Initiative will impose ridiculously outdated rules on development projects that will provide homes, jobs, and taxes for the city - and cause home prices and rents in Los Angeles to reach San Francisco levels.

These are the kinds of flagrantly obnoxious projects that overwhelm our traffic, our neighborhoods and our environment.
First off, we need to stop worrying about development projects causing slight increases in traffic. Second, dense residential projects do not “overwhelm…our neighborhoods and our environment.” They can turn blighted vacant lots into clean and pleasant places to be.

During this review process, citizens will have new opportunities to shape the rules of the road and the destinies of their communities.
Well see, we already basically have this because if NIMBYs scream, complain, and sue enough, dense residential projects may be cancelled, or at least significantly downsized. The Coalition to Preserve and the La Mirada Neighborhood Association do this regularly in Hollywood with the help of NIMBY lawyer Robert Silverstein.

There’s a lot on the line with overdevelopment and horrible land-use policy in L.A.
You seem to not know what horrible land use is. Horrible land use is crappy auto-oriented strip malls taking up the bulk of land on Los Angeles’s major boulevards. We’re fixing this mistake by building mixed use residential projects on these blighted eye sores. I think you need to get your eyes checked because you see the solution as the problem, and the problem as something that needs to be protected.

In Koreatown, Yoo said at the press conference that Hakim’s mega-project will result in the destruction of more than a dozen rent-controlled units and cause even more wreckage.
Yoo is acting more like a child than adult here. Here me out. What do children do when they have a problem with someone about how to do something? They scream and complain saying it’s either their way or the highway. Adults compromise. If Yoo is concerned about the destruction of rent-controlled units, which reasonably she should be, she should work with the developer and the city council to get him to provide affordable units in his new high-rise, which the current tenants of these rent-controlled units could eventually live in.

“If this project is built,” Yoo warned, “it will have a domino effect on the rest of the area. All of these mom-and-pop apartment buildings will be swept up by developers. The working families living in them will be evicted, and the developers will put up luxury housing.”
I’ve got to give credit where credit is due here. One of the reasons Koreatown is one of my favorite Los Angeles neighborhoods is because of its great mix of cool apartment buildings from different eras. I’d hate to see the neighborhood lose that. What we should do however, is grant more of them historical status to save them from being redeveloped. Not block all new development entirely. One of the great things about L.A. right now is that we can build new residential buildings without displacing anybody. We can build them on areas currently zoned for single use auto-oriented commercial development.

Vasquez added: “I’m not against all development, just irresponsible projects like this one. Unfortunately, many developers don’t have the best interests of the community in mind, and they’re ruining our community and filling the streets with their traffic. In Koreatown, we have a traffic crisis and a parking availability crisis created by too much development. When I get home from work, it’s often almost impossible for me to find a parking space. Many times I have to walk alone several blocks in the dark from my car to my apartment, and it’s scary.”
Are you kidding me? A traffic crisis? That is perhaps the most ridiculous first-world problem I’ve ever heard. Also you realize this is Koreatown we’re talking about? The densest and most transit connected neighborhood in the city. Now I don’t know where Ms. Vasquez works, but chances are she can commute there from Koreatown by public transit, thereby avoiding the problem of having to park three blocks away. As for having to walk alone in the the dark, I can understand that’s scary. What might make it less scary is knowing that since Koreatown is so dense, someone is bound to see or here if something were to happen to her, and come and help or call the police. ​

Thanks for reading. You can follow me on twitter @boxbro39 for tweets of me debunking the Coalition to Preserve L.A.'s tweets, as well as other funny stuff. I'll be posting another article next Tuesday hopefully because Monday I will be attending a development review meeting for a proposed 14-story residential high-rise in Burbank, where I plan to speak in favor of the project.
My Twitter
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Mega Project Oceanwide Plaza is Installing Cranes!

3/5/2016

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Oceanwide Plaza construction site with construction cranes being installed. View of DTLA skyline with many cranes.
Oceanwide Plaza construction site. Can see the construction cranes being installed.
Updated: 03/08/2016

​By: Chad Kim

Oceanwide Plaza, formerly known as Fig Central, is finally getting its construction crane as the rebar construction continues at the northern most site (tallest tower of project site). After a lull in construction, Oceanwide Plaza is going full speed ahead towards its three tower project. 

In the picture above, you can see three cranes are being installed at once, and in the background you can see the other mega project, Metropolis, to the left and another mega project, Wilshire Grand, near the center of the photo. 

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Picture Update of 8th and Olive, Ten50, and 825 Hill

3/4/2016

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888 Olive LEVEL LA and 801 Olive 8th and Olive. in the middle future site of 825 Hill Tower by Onni Group
Future 825 Hill tower will stand tall next to LEVEL LA.
By: Chad Kim

Today's article provides a picture update on the 825 Hill, Ten50, and 8th and Olive projects. For this picture update, I decided to provide night time photos.

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5 Story Apartment Proposed in Echo Park

3/3/2016

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By: Chad Kim

According to the Los Angeles Department of City Planning's Case Information, a 5 Story apartment (67 feet tall) is proposed in Echo Park at 1750 N Glendale Boulevard by Applicant, Aragon Properties Corp.

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4 Story Boutique Hotel Proposed in Sherman Village Neighborhood

2/22/2016

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Credit: Ramcal Management Inc. and COE Architecture International
By: Chad Kim

​Developer Ramcal Management Inc. is proposing to build a 4 story boutique hotel, known as Hotel Sherman Oaks, in the Sherman Village neighborhood at 12828 W. Riverside Drive. 

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Izek Shomof's 34 Story Tower Broadway @ 4th Permit Application Submitted 02/02/2016

2/8/2016

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Credit: LADBS, HansonLA, Izek Shomof
By: Chad Kim

Urbanize LA reported about the proposed 34 story high rise (388 feet tall) from developer Izek Shomof back in March 20, 2014. The architect of the project is HansonLA. Currently, there is an existing one story commercial building that will need to be demolished in order to construct the tower project. 

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825 Hill 49 Story Tower by Onni Group Finally Breaks Ground

2/7/2016

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By: Chad Kim

Taking a visit to the 825 Hill project site, a Construction Site Notice from the City of Los Angeles was posted indicating the type of work to be performed at the project site. Aspreviously covered by LAOCDB, Onni Group was able to obtain their Grading and Shoring Permits on 01/12/2016. 

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Shenlong's City Century Updated Webpage on 1233 S. Grand Ave

2/4/2016

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New Rendering of 1233 S. Grand Avenue. Credit: City Century LLC, Shenlong Group
By: Chad Kim
Updated: 02/08/2016

​Urbanize LA first reported about the official city filling of the 1233 S. Grand Avenue project which the developer is from Shenlong Group. City Century LLC, which is a part of Shenlong Group, website showed three proposed projects in LA where each is shown to be undergoing website restructuring. Now, the Grand Avenue project webpage has been updated and includes new renderings of the project. 

Information on 1201 S. Grand Avenue, which is part of the Grand Avenue Project, on City Century LLC's webpage is still forthcoming. 

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Conversion of Industrial Building to Live/Work Residential near Arts District Proposed

2/2/2016

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537 Ceres Avenue is located in Downtown LA (DTLA) in eastern most side of Skid Row and is near the Arts District. 

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The Beginning of the Façade on Ten50

1/28/2016

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The under construction Ten50 project. Picture credit: Oscar Gake
The under construction Ten50 project. Picture credit: Oscar Gake

By: Chad Kim

A quick summary of the Ten50 project which is located in DTLA's South Park district at 11th and Grand Avenue (northeast corner). From a previous LAOCDB coverage on this project: 

"According to Trumark Urban's website, Ten50 would still retain its condominium type residences and also at a total of 151 condominium dwelling units. Retail space totals about 5,820 square feet. It also states the tower will stand at 25 stories.". For the previous segment on Ten50 please click on the following link: http://www.laocdb.com/la-development-news/ten50-in-dtlas-south-park-rising-up

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As shown from the picture above, the Ten50 project is now working on its façade while the tower continues its vertical growth. Here is another picture:
The start of the facade on the Ten50 project. Picture credit: Oscar Gake
The start of the facade on the Ten50 project. Picture credit: Oscar Gake
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Check out the Video of Wilshire Grand Tower and DTLA

1/28/2016

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Two videos recorded by Youtube user: Efrain Lopez shows the Wilshire Grand tower and skyline of DTLA, respectively. 

Wilshire Grand Tower: 
Credit: Efrain Lopez
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​The video, which is in awesome 4k quality, shows a good perspective of how tall the under construction tower is which obviously surpasses the height of the PWC tower and the 777 Figueroa tower. 

DTLA Skyline:
Credit: Efrain Lopez

​This second video shows the skyline of DTLA during night and also you can see the Cirque du Soleil Kurios site (tent). You can also see the under construction Wilshire Grand tower which is next to the tower with the green light at the top. In the earlier portion of the video, you can also see Dodger Stadium and LA City Hall. 

Many thanks to Efrain Lopez for allowing LAOCDB to share the videos. Be sure to check out Efrain Lopez's Youtube Channel for more great videos. 
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Proposed Apex II Tower to Appear in 1/28/2016 L.A. City Planning Commission Meeting

1/26/2016

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By: Chad Kim

Apex II, from applicant 900 South Figueroa Street Pad Investors,  is a proposed 28 story tower (317 feet tall), with a total of 341 residential condominium dwelling units (this is 60 more dwelling units than the original approval), that is the final and third phase out of the entire project. The third phase also includes 11,687 square feet of retail. The location of the project is 901 S. Flower Street and 700 W 9th Street. 

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