Palisades Capital Gets Green Light to Build 3 Towers in LA

Santa Monica-based Palisades Capital Partners has received approval from LA’s city council to build a cluster of high-rises, including 737 apartments and a 180-room hotel in LA’s Echo Park neighborhood near Chinatown.

Plans for the site at 1111 Sunset Boulevard include 49-story, 30-story and 17-story buildings as well as two- and four-story bungalows on a 5.5-acre site once owned by Metropolitan Water District.

The towers will be the first high-rises in an LA neighborhood with buildings no taller than eight stories. Prior to the city council’s approval, the area located near the interchange of Route 101 and 110 had not been zoned to permit high-rise buildings.

In addition to the hotel and multifamily units, the $600M, 1M SF mixed-use project will include 48K of office space and 95K of retail, including shops and restaurants, with parking space for 900 cars.

According to reports, the company may add more units to the multifamily part of the development if it decides not to proceed with the hotel.

James Corner Field Operations, who previously designed NYC’s High Line park, will design the landscaping for the project, which will include two acres of open space along with courtyards and a view of LA’s burgeoning downtown.

According to a report in the Los Angeles Times, the project, which designates 76 units for affordable housing—about 10% of the total—is generating some backlash from the Echo Park community.

Community activist Eunisses Hernandez, who has been elected to a seat on the city council, told the LA Times that the project doesn’t meet the needs of the community for more affordable housing.

“We’re in a moment where we really need to prioritize deeply, deeply affordable housing, and 10 percent is not enough in my eyes,” Hernandez said

A group known as Chinatown Community for Equitable Development, which sent a letter to the city council complaining that Palisades’ plans for the mixed-use complex represents “gentrification and displacement.”

“We definitely view it as another mega-development that’s not community serving. What we need is affordable housing in large quantities, not market-rate housing,” Patrick Chen, an organizer for the group, told the LA Times.

The group also said the large shadows cast by the planned high-rise buildings will affect the ability of senior citizens living in the area to “stay physically and mentally healthy.”