Mitsui Fudosan Gets Approval for Los Angeles Apartment Tower

The Los Angeles Planning Commission has approved Mitsui Fudosan America’s plan to build a retro-style 50-story apartment tower in Downtown Los Angeles.

The project—to be known as Park Terrace at 8^th Grand & Hope (it’s located on north side of 8^th Street between Grand Avenue and Hope Street)—will feature architectural elements intended to evoke L.A.’s Mid-Century modern homes.

The building envelope of the 562K SF Gensler-designed tower will incrementally shift its mass back from Hope Street as it rises, receding in a series of terraced amenity decks will fairly large trees on them, giving the tower a unique profile that will be sheathed in glass, concrete, aluminum and stone, according to a report in Urbanize LA.

The building will rise on a site currently occupied by a parking garage, in proximity to a Whole Foods store.

Mitsui Fudosan’s Park Terrace project had to withstand three appeals before receiving the green light from the Planning Commission. The project still must gain approval from the City Council.

The appeals, all of which were rejected by the Commission, were filed by SAFER, an affiliate of Laborers International Union of North America Local 270, and Creed LA, an alliance of several construction trade unions. The two unions are frequent appellants of large projects seeking discretionary entitlements before the City of Los Angeles, according to Urbanize LA.

The unions were joined by Digital Realty, the owner of an adjacent parking garage which is planning to build a 13-story data center on that site. All three appellants alleged that the project’s environmental impact report failed to consider construction noise and impacts to surrounding historic properties.

The 8^th Grand & Hope apartment tower will encompass 580 units, including studio, one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments about 7,500 SF of ground-floor retail and parking for 640 vehicles.

Although the project includes above-grade parking in a podium on its lower floors, the garage levels would be built without a slope, meaning that they could be converted into an additional 189 residential units at some time in the future.

Mitsui Fudosan America, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Mitsui Fudosan, has been a property owner in DTLA for decades, recently expanding into ground-up development.

The 8th Grand & Hope building would be the firm’s second apartment tower in the neighborhood. A building is nearing completion on 8^th and Figueroa, about two blocks away.

Directly west of the site across Hope Street, National Real Estate Advisors is pursuing entitlements for a high-rise tower with 466 apartment units.