Cross-laminated timber panels arrive at new Chinatown office building

A new office building taking shape next to the Chinatown Metro station has reached a key milestone, with the installation of its first cross-laminated timber panels.

The project, which comes from a team that includes developer Redcar LTD, LEVER Architecture, Shawmut Construction, and James Corner Field Operations, is named for its address at 843 N. Spring Street. The completed building will stand five stories in height and feature roughly 122,000 square feet of offices for rent above approximately 7,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space and parking for 141 vehicles.

One of the first new developments to heavily employ cross-laminated timber as a building material, 843 Spring will feature 82,000 square feet of three-ply and five-ply panels, integrated with a skeleton of exposed steel columns. Installation of the timber panels will take eight days for each floor, and just two days for the mezzanine level.

The design of 843 Spring, which calls for the timber panels to cantilever above balconies overlooking College Street, blends floor plans into landscaped exterior spaces - including an atrium and a rooftop deck.

"The central vertical garden is envisioned as a 'fern canyon' with cascading green walls and reclaimed timber slabs set within a pebble floor," said James Corner Field Operations principal Sarah Weidner Astheimer in a statement. "The gardens at 843 N. Spring Street function as connective tissue between indoor work environments, repositioning the value of nature in our daily lives...."

Construction of 843 Spring is currently 40 percent complete, with the project currently on track to open by August 2022.

Redcar, which is now based in Santa Monica, got its start out of Chinatown in 2014, when it acquired and renovated a neighboring building at 759 N. Spring Street. While the developer has since expanded its portfolio to include sites in Culver City, Santa Monica, and West Adams, it has continued to invest in new projects in the Downtown area - recently filing plans for another office complex near L.A. State Historic Park.

The 843 Spring joins a handful of new and proposed developments near Chinatown Station, including High Street Residential's 318-unit Llewellyn complex which opened a block east in 2021 and upcoming projects from Atlas Capital Group and Townline and Forme Development.

• 843 N Spring Street (Urbanize LA)