Five months after announcing the project's groundbreaking, developer Mitsui Fudosan American has initiated construction of a high-rise apartment tower in Downtown Los Angeles.
Earth movers and heavy equipment recently began clearing the asphalt site at the northeast corner of 8th and Figueroa Streets, where the City of Los Angeles has approved the construction of a 42-story building containing 438 studio, one-, and two-bedroom apartments above a parking podium lined with 7,500 square feet of ground-floor retail space.
The 530-foot tower, designed by Johnson Fain, will have a glass facade inlaid with LED lights, leading to an illuminated crown. Glass will also enclose the tower's parking podium, the result of a condition of approval placed on the project by the Los Angeles City Planning Commission.
“We are pleased to commence the next phase of this project and make our contribution to the renewed vitality and dynamism of Figueroa Street and the Financial District,” said Mitsui Fudosan Vice President Stuart Morkun said in a February news release. “The beginning of construction marks Mitsui Fudosan’s continued commitment to the revitalization of Downtown and the next phase of our investment that began more than 30 years ago.”
As of February, construction was expected to be completed in three years.
The developer, as part of the 8th and Figueroa project, intends to install a new mid-block crosswalk which would connect the tower site to the Figat7th shopping mall across the street. Figat7th landlord Brookfield is currently in the midst of construction on its own residential high-rise on a property located immediately west of the sunken shopping center.
Mitsui Fudosan America, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Mitsui Fudosan, has owned the property at 8th and Figueroa since the 1980s. The company also owns a separate property two blocks east at 8th and Hope Streets, which is slated for the construction of a similar residential high-rise.
- 732 S. Figueroa Street (Urbanize LA)
