A proposed high-rise development in Downtown's booming South Park neighborhood takes inspiration from California's famed Redwood trees.

watermark


The project, the first in Los Angeles by the Australian developer Crown Group, would replace a mid-century warehouse at the southwest corner of 11th and Hill Streets.  Plans filed last year had called for razing the industrial building to make way for a 52-story edifice containing 528 residential units with ground-floor commercial space.


A revised plan, first reported by the Australian website CommercialRealEstate.com, calls for a larger 63-story edifice designed by Sydney-based Koichi Takada Architects.  It is described as featuring multiple "trunks - like tall trees growing," and would incorporate natural building materials - including timber.  A rendering portrays the project from the east as featuring two masses, rising toward sloping roof lines capped with trees.

The tower would greet the corner of 11th and Hill with an undulating canopy, a reference to the blowing skirt of actress Marilyn Monroe in the film The Seven Year Itch.

According to a representative of Koichi Takada Architects, the project will retain the same 528 residential units as in the original plan.  Other components of the proposed development include 5,544 square feet of ground-floor retail space, a podium rooftop pool, health facilities, and community greenspace.

The project from Crown Group is one of four potentially skyline-altering developments planned for the 11th Street corridor, including 60- and 51-story towers from Mack Real Estate Group that would replace neighboring parking lots, and a 70-story building at the northwest corner of 11th and Olive Street.

Several other projects are either in the midst of construction along 11th Street, or have recently opened, including the new Proper and Hoxton hotels, a satellite campus for Arizona State University at the Herald Examiner Building, and the 177-unit Axis apartments.

Update February 12, 2019: A representative of Koichi Takada Architects confirms that the height of the proposed tower is in fact 63 stories, not 70 as previously reported.