The former Laurel Plaza shopping center is making way for a new massive mixed-use project. NoHo West re-imagines the retail site with 300,000 square feet of new retail space, 235,000 square feet of creative office—located inside the former Macy's—and 600 apartment units. Merlone Geier Partners is developing the office and retail portions while Trammell Crow is tackling the apartment units. The office and retail portion of the project is set to open early next year, while tenant build outs could start as early as August.

“If you were looking to find a development site in Los Angeles for the ultimate live-work-play mixed-use environment, this is it,” Patrick Church, a broker at JLL who is handling leasing at the project, tells GlobeSt.com. [It is challenging] to find a project that could deliver 235,000 square feet of brand new creative office space and 300,000-square-feet of support retail along with multifamily.”

Development sites, particularly of this size and scale, are difficult to find and even harder to secure in Los Angeles. To close the deal, Merlone Geier Partners moved quickly and quietly. “It was a long process to acquire this site from Macy's. It is a large parcel with a single Macys,” Stephen Logan, VP at Merlone Geier Partners, tells GlobeSt.com. “We tried to get this done under the radar without the community knowing that this was an opportunity that would be available for purchase.”