Jamison Expanding Office-to-Resi Portfolio in Los Angeles

Jamison Services, a Koreatown-based developer in Los Angeles that specializes in office-to-residential conversions, is undertaking it largest adaptive re-use project to date.

The company is planning to convert a 17-story office building at 6380 Wilshire Boulevard into 210 apartment units, Urbanize Los Angeles reported.

The project will retain the 144K SF office building’s mid-1960s style windows and glazing, while adding a rooftop penthouse and upgrading an existing parking garage by adding windows.

The converted building will offer studios and apartments with up to three bedrooms, and it will feature 27K SF of shared amenities, including a theater, a fitness center, a yoga studio, a golf simulator, a sky lounge and a rooftop swimming pool.

Jamison has converted seven office buildings Los Angeles, encompassing 1,200 units. Last month, the company filed plans to convert a 95K SF office building located 520 South La Fayette Park Place into apartments. The building, which opened in 1971 in Westlake, is a in proximity to the Wilshire/Vermont Metro station.

Last summer, Jamison filed plans to convert the 13-story Pierce National Life building, located at 3807-3815 Wilshire Boulevard in Koreatown, into a 176-unit apartment tower.

The plans for the Pierce National Life conversion include ground-floor shops and restaurants as well as a rooftop swimming pool deck with a 7,100K SF lounge. The building, which sits on the northwest corner of Wilshire and Western Avenue, was built in 1965.

Last year, a Rand Corp. study identified 2,300 underused office and hotel properties in Los Angeles County that are suitable for conversion to housing. Most of the properties targeted in the study were older office buildings.

If all of these buildings were converted, it would create up to 113,000 new housing units, the Rand study said. Most of the conversion opportunities are located in DTLA, the city’s oldest office market.

Vacancies in the Greater Los Angeles market hit 20% in the first quarter as net absorption was negative 1.3M SF, according to CBRE’s market report. Sublease availability accounted for 16.3% of overall availability in Los Angeles, increasing by more than 1M SF in the first quarter to an all-time high of 10.7M SF.

“Despite office space being listed and vacated in high volume, asking rents remain relatively unchanged as landlord’s offset the historically high rates with hefty concession packages in an effort to drive leasing activity,” CBRE’s report said.

Greater Los Angeles recorded 2.2M SF of leasing activity in Q1 2023, the lowest level since Q4 2020, CBRE said.