Miracle Mile Office Project Gets a Haircut

Museum Square Phase II, as designed by the Jerde Partnership (Image: Showcase.com)

Plans for a new mid-rise office building are still forging ahead on the Miracle Mile, albeit now in slightly truncated form.  This coming Thursday, the Los Angeles City Planning Commission is scheduled to review phase two of Museum Square, a 7.5-acre office and retail complex located at 5757 Wilshire Boulevard.  The proposed expansion calls for the construction of a new 13-story tower, which would add 250,000 square feet of Class-A office space on a current parking lot at 620 S. Curson Avenue.

However, it appears that some minor changes have occurred since we last heard from the project.  According to an agenda for the upcoming meeting of the City Planning Commission, Snyder has scaled down the proposed building's height to approximately 173 feet.  Earlier designs from the Jerde Partnership featured a 207-foot tall structure, thanks to generous 14-foot ceilings.

Other aspects of the Museum Square expansion have also decreased in scale.  The original plan called for new levels atop an existing five-story parking structure, augmenting its total capacity to 2,040 vehicles.  Although the project will still entail the addition of two floors to the garage, total parking accommodations will expand to just 1,843 vehicle stalls.  The Museum Square complex will eventually be easily accessible via Metro Rail, with a location midway between future Purple Line stations at Fairfax and La Brea Avenues.

Although an exact timeline for the office tower has not been revealed, a report from this past March indicated that Snyder was in negotiations with two specialty tenants, both of whom wished to lease the entire building.  That prospective tenant would then commission its own architect to redesign the tower to best suit its needs.

Massive Vermont Towers Finishing Up

Koreatown's Vermont Towers and their famously obtrusive parking podium are finally in the home stretch.  The mixed-use development from the J.H. Snyder Company is one of only a handful of high-rise projects to break ground in Los Angeles since the recession.  With towers of 29 and 23 stories, the Vermont adds 464 one and two bedroom units directly across the street from the bustling Wilshire/Vermont subway station.  Designed by the Venice-based Jerde Partnership, the $200 million project features residential amenities including an outdoor garden, heated swimming pool, gym and dog park with views of the Downtown skyline.  Despite its highly visible parking accommodations, the Vermont has also extended an olive branch to pedestrians.  The project has resulted in a variety of streetscape improvements along the western and northern sides of the property, including new palm trees and extra-wide sidewalks.  The towers will greet Wilshire Boulevard with a landscaped pedestrian plaza, centered around 40,000 square feet of retail space with room for a full service market.  After two years of construction, the towers are scheduled to open their doors in May of this year.  Mark it of on your calendars, everyone.

Watch Metro Build the Expo Line's Downtown Santa Monica Station

A few weeks ago, Transit Coalition Forumer Gokhan linked to a Santa Monica website featuring a live construction camera for the Expo Line's future Downtown Santa Monica Station.  This location will soon become an epicenter for pedestrian activity in Santa Monica, with the Expo Line expected to carry 64,000 passengers per day by 2030.  Downtown Santa Monica Station will be in close proximity to the Santa Monica Pier, Third Street Promenade and Santa Monica Place.  A slew of proposals for new mixed-use developments have also emerged within walking distance of the station.

Artist's rendering of the Downtown Santa Monica terminus of the Expo Line; Image from BuildExpo.

Several of the developments planned or recently opened near the Downtown Santa Monica Station.  Clockwise from the top right corner: Related California's Village at Santa Monica, Tongva Park, the proposed 15-story re-development of the Wyndham Santa Monica, 500 Broadway.  Images from Related California, City of Santa Monica, Jerde Partnership and Curbed LA.

• Transit Coalition Forum
• Expo Light Rail (City of Santa Monica)

Hollywood Office Campus Finally on its Way

959 Seward Street

It looks like a long stalled office development in Hollywood may get shovels in the ground soon.  Back in 2012, a representative from the J.H. Snyder Company told Businessweek that their project at 959 Seward Street was coming back to life.  Applications for construction permits have since been submitted to the Department of Building and Safety.  Here is what Snyder has in the works, according to the project's environmental impact report:

...construction of a 241,568 square foot entertainment campus including 237,568 square feet of office space and up to 4,000 square feet of employee commissary space.  The Proposed Project would provide valet surface parking and 735 parking spaces in an eight-level above ground parking structure.  The Proposed Project is designed to be an entertainment campus to cater primarily to entertainment-type users for offices, editing and post-production.  The project would be developed with three structures: "West Wing", "East Wing", and the parking structure.

The "West Wing," tops out at five floors and 76 feet above grade.  The "East Wing," would stand four floors and roughly 64 feet tall.  959 Seward's total area has been upped to 245,000 square feet according to the project's official website.

Snyder has enlisted architectural firm Jerde Partnership for the campus' design work.  The two companies have previously collaborated on a variety of projects including the Vermont Towers.  Check out some of Jerde's other renderings of 959 Seward:

View of the project site from Seward Street

Bird's eye view of the the "Event Garden"

Close up on the campus' Barton Avenue entrance

View of the project from Barton Avenue

Overhead map of the development

The current state of the project site.

And for some bonus eye candy, here is a video flyover of the project:

959 Hollywood video from Jones Lang LaSalle SW Region on Vimeo.

Plans for the office complex have been in the works since 2006, but the economic recession has delayed progress up until recently.  Businessweek noted that the project is being built "on a speculative basis," meaning that J.H. Snyder had yet to sign tenants as of August 2012.  The company expects Hollywood's allure and central location to steer potential lessees their way, especially since there is currently a dearth of Class-A office space in the neighborhood.

This certainly is a central location for the entertainment industry.  Several film and television institutions are located within a 1.5 mile radius of 959 Seward, including Paramount Studios.  Businesses specializing in film development, editing and preservation line the stretch of  Seward Street north of Melrose.

One of those businesses used to be Consolidated Film Industries (CFI), a film lab that called 959 Seward home until 2002.  When the land was to be sold in 2005, it turned out that decades of film processing chemicals had leaked into the soil below CFI's campus.  The site was required to undergo substantial soil remediation, with over 85,000 cubic feet of dirt removed from the lot and backfilled with crushed concrete.

An overhead view of 959 Seward from decades ago, when it was still home to Consolidated Film Industries.

In spite of mediocre vacancy rates throughout the city, J.H. Snyder seems to be quite bullish about the future of Los Angeles' office market.  In addition to 959 Seward, the company has two other large office developments set to start work in the near future.  The company recently agreed to take over development of 1601 Vine, an eight story, 114,000 square foot proposal near the Hollywood/Vine subway station.  The agreement stipulates that groundbreaking must take place by April of 2014.

1601 Vine

Snyder also has plans for a 13 floor, 250,000 square foot office building on the Miracle Mile.  The company informed the Park La Brea News that they tentatively hope to break ground on the Museum Square Office Tower in 2014.

Museum Square Office Tower

• 959 Seward (Official Website)
• Hollywood Seediness Fades as Developers Remake Media Hub (Businessweek)
• J.H. Snyder Co. Acquires Hollywood Property for Entertainment Industry Office Campus (Businesswire)

The Vermont Towers Take Form

The Vermont Towers

J.H. Snyder's Vermont Towers topped out back in June and have since seen blue tinted glass rise to the top of their 29 and 23 story frames.  When completed, the Vermont will bring 464 apartments and 40,000 square feet of retail to the intersection of Wilshire Boulevard and Vermont Avenue.  The development is accompanied by a 12,000 square foot pocket park on Shatto Place.

Unfortunately, the Vermont's most striking feature at ground level is its seven story parking podium.  Hopefully efforts are undertaken to conceal the concrete monstrosity before the buildings open in mid 2014.

The project as realized deviates significantly from the renderings presented in 2011, which depicted two translucent high rises towering above a whitewashed Koreatown landscape.

The Vermont, as envisioned by Jerde Partnership