Another mixed-use affordable housing complex is coming to the southern fringe of Downtown Los Angeles.

Earlier today, AMCAL Multi-Housing submitted an application to the Department of City Planning to construct a five-story mixed-use building at 220 E. Washington Boulevard, featuring 109 apartments - including 108 affordable units and one manager's unit - above 10,500 square feet of ground-floor retail space and a semi-subterranean parking garage for 57 vehicles and 122 bicycles.

The project, slated for a nearly 1.5-acre property at the southeast corner of Washington and Los Angeles Street, would require a Measure JJJ-compliant zone change due to industrial zoning across approximately half of the development site.  Current improvements include three small warehouses and a 31-unit apartment complex, which would be demolished for the project, as well as a building that once functioned as a printing facility for the Spanish language newspaper La Opinion.  The City had explored using the former newspaper facility as a homeless shelter in 2016, and was already considering a housing development at that time.

According to a case filing for the 220. E Washington development, the bulk of the apartments - 80 units in toatl- would be set aside for moderate-income households.  Plans also call for six units of low-income housing, 16 units of very-low-income housing and six units of extremely low-income housing.

The development site, located midway between the Blue Line's San Pedro and Grand Stations, falls within the boundaries of the new Southeast Los Angeles Community Plan, which was adopted in November 2017.  Affordable housing projects such as AMCAL's are encouraged along Washington Boulevard by a component of the plan which grants a maximum 6:1 floor area ratio for developments that incorporate subsidized low-income units.  A purely market rate development at the same site would be limited to a 1.5:1 floor area ratio.

AMCAL is the second developer to plan affordable housing along Washington Boulevard in since 2015, following Meta Housing Corp., which built a similar mixed-use project featuring 55 affordable apartments and 1,500 square feet of retail space next to San Pedro Station.

The project site also sits just one block east of the two parking lots where the $1-billion Reef development - featuring apartments, retail and a hotel in high-rise and low-rise buildings - is set to rise.