A Quick Trip Through the Sunset Boulevard Boom

This past weekend, a broken water main spilled untold gallons of precious drinking water onto the Sunset Strip, dealing yet another blow to drought-stricken California.  On the other hand, flooding of a more figurative (and less dire) sort is also occurring further east along the iconic thoroughfare.  Let's for get about LADWP's woes for a moment as we check in on the deluge of mixed-use developments adding new office space and residential units between Vine Street and the Hollywood Freeway.

As reported in mid-September, Hudson Pacific Properties has quietly broken ground on the long planned expansion of Sunset Bronson Studios (see above).  The $150 million project will ultimately create over 400,000 square feet of Class-A office space, mostly contained within a 14-story, Gensler-designed tower.  The staggered massing of the stout, 200-foot building will create a unique presence within the mid-rise Hollywood skyline.  Currently, construction crews are removing asphalt from the southeast corner of the SBS campus, clearing the way for an immense 1,600-vehicle parking garage.

Hollywood's Metropolitan West Apartments Finally Begin Work

Sunset Boulevard's recent building boom continues its eastward march, as a long-delayed apartment project gets underway near the Hollywood freeway.  Cornerstone Holdings, a Colorado-based limited liability corporation, recently broke ground on the long-proposed Metropolitan West Apartments.  Located at 5837 Sunset Boulevard, plans call for a six-story building containing 79 studio, one and two bedroom apartments above a two-and-a-half level parking garage.  LADCP documents indicate that residential amenities will include a fitness center, private internet cafe, rooftop terrace, landscaped courtyard and a swimming pool.

Designed by Van Tilburg, Banyard & Soderbergh Architects, the low-rise development is considered an expansion of the Metropolitan Hollywood, an adjacent office-residential complex also owned by Cornerstone Holdings.  First opened as a hotel in 1984, the Metropolitan Hollywood was reportedly "terrorized," by a who's who of West Coast rappers and record executives in the early 1990s.  Almost two decades later, a now-defunct developer converted the 12-story tower and an accompanying u-shaped structure into 52 apartments and 40,000 square feet of creative office space.