From high up at the City Hall observation deck, an image captured by architectural photographer Hunter Kerhart shows progress at the $140-million La Plaza Village.

The project - which is being developed by Trammell Crow Company, the Cesar Chavez Foundation and La Plaza de Cultura y Artes - replaces two L.A. County-owned parking lots with a pair of mixed-use buildings featuring 355 studio, one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments - of which 20 percent will be set aside as affordable housing - and 43,000 square feet of ground-level commercial space.

Chinatown-based architecture firm Johnson Fain is designing the development, with landscape and open space work from SWA Group.  Plans call for buildings of five and eight stories, oriented around a paseo running east-to-west between Union Station and the Fort Moore Memorial.

The property is located just north of the 101 freeway trench, which local stakeholders hope to cap with park space.