Architectural plans posted by the Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council detail a proposal to add new housing to the historic Santa Fe Art Colony.

The property, located at 2345 S. Santa Fe Avenue, is owned by Miami-based developer Fifteen Group, which is seeking to convert a 20,000-square-foot warehouse on the western side of the complex into live/work apartments.  Plans call for 18 dwellings - ranging from 650 to 1,300 square feet in size - each of which would include studio workspaces at the ground-floor and living space on a mezzanine level above.

Dutton Architects is designing the adaptive reuse project, which would provide exterior entrances to each of the 18 apartments.  Plans also call for carving a 1,500-square-foot courtyard into the center of the building, as well as providing smaller private yards for residents.

Parking for 24 vehicles - six more than required by code - would be required in a surface lot to the west of the building.

The Santa Fe Art Colony, which was established in 1988, inhabits a series of brick industrial buildings which once served as the headquarters of the C.B. Van Vorst Furniture Manufacturing Company, according to the Los Angeles Conservancy.  The colony - which is comprised of 80 residential units - was the first purpose-built affordable housing complex for artists in the City of Los Angeles.

The expiration of the covenants which guaranteed affordable rents for residents of the Art Colony made headlines in 2019, when Fifteen Group was poised to revert the complex to market rate. 

The property was recently designated as a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument.

Fifteen Group is also slated to partner with Lincoln Property Company on a proposed revamp of the shuttered Lincoln Heights Jail, and has previously sought to redevelop the Wyvernwood housing complex in Boyle Heights.