AIDS Healthcare Foundation proposes 15-story tower in DTLA

AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), a frequent appellant of large mixed-use projects in the City of Los Angeles, has spent the past five years buying up buildings across the region to preserve them as affordable housing. Now, the Hollywood-based non-profit organization will try its hand at ground-up development.

423 E 7th StreetGoogle Maps

In January, AHF and its subsidiary the Health Housing Foundation held a groundbreaking ceremony for the "Renaissance Center," a proposed affordable and supportive housing development in Downtown Los Angeles. Slated for a currently vacant site at the northwest corner of 7th Street and San Julian Street, the project is envisioned as a 15-story building containing 216 apartments reserved for extremely low-income households and unhoused individuals.

Renderings depict the proposed building as a contemporary mid-rise structure. AHF indicated in a news release that it intends to build the tower using prefabricated modular units - an increasingly common practice with new affordable housing developments in Los Angeles.

The project has yet to be submitted to the City of Los Angeles for review.

AHF previously sued the City of Los Angeles for denying its application for Measure HHH funding to develop the Renaissance Center site with supportive housing - one of numerous lawsuits the non-profit has filed against the city for matters pertaining to development.

423 E 7th StreetGoogle Maps

The Renaissance Center property sits along a busy stretch of 7th Street where another non-profit firm, Skid Row Housing Trust, recently built three supportive housing complexes.

The project, if realized, would be the third in a string of high-rise buildings pitched for the Skid Row area, following a 19-story tower from Weingart Center (which recently broke ground) and a proposed project from Skid Row Housing Trust.