Apple's Culver Crossing campus clears another hurdle

Tech giant Apple's aspirations for a new L.A. area office campus across the street from Culver City Station has cleared another key hurdle, receiving the approval of the Los Angeles City Planning Commission at its meeting on February 9.

While the project has been billed as a Culver City development, the bulk of the roughly 4.5-acre Culver Crossings campus would rise within the City of Los Angeles at the southeast corner of Venice and National Boulevards. The L.A. side of the property is slated for a low-rise structure with approximately 334,000-square-foot of space, seated atop three levels of subterranean parking. Combined with proposed construction within Culver City limits, the project would create 536,000 square feet of offices, production spaces, and other associated uses, with parking for more than 1,200 vehicles.

Designed by Gensler, the full campus would include four- and five-story buildings rising up to 75 feet in height, with terrace decks lining the upper floors. Although no ground-floor commercial space is planned along any of the street frontages, large entrances and shuttle drop-off points would be situated along both National and Venice Boulevards. Additionally, coffee stations and a cafeteria are planned within the interior of the complex to serve employees and guests.

Apple is planning to build approximately 58,000 square feet of open space within the interior and around the exterior of the campus, including a large central courtyard and a small, park-like area in an alcove along the southern property line which would open onto Washington Boulevard. Along Venice to the north, plans call for a new promenade, while other landscaped improvements are slated for National Boulevard to the west.

Pending the issuance of building permits, and assuming market conditions are conducive to the development, construction of the campus would occur in two phases. The smaller Culver city building would begin work first, commencing as early as this year to debut sometime in late 2024. The L.A. building would follow in the second half of 2023, targeting a completion date in 2025 or 2026.

The new campus is expected to double Apple's footprint in the Los Angeles area, which already consists of more than 500,000 square feet of space in and around Culver City. Most notably, Apple leases a 128,000-square-foot building that it leases in a neighboring property at Washington and National.

The company is estimated to employ more than 1,500 people in Los Angeles through Apple TV+, Apple Music, and other ventures, and previously announced its intent to grow the Culver City office to more than 3,000 employees by the year 2026. According to an environmental study, the Culver Crossings campus is intended to house up to 2,400 employees.

While Apple is arguably the biggest name to plant its flag its Culver City, it is hardly the first. Across the street, Warner Bros. Discovery leases 240,000 square feet of office space at the $350-million Ivy Station complex, and to the west on Washington Boulevard, Amazon has leased more than 600,000 square feet of space between the Culver Studios complex and the neighboring Culver Steps development.

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• Culver Crossings (Urbanize LA)