More mixed-use planned near Leimert Park Station

Treehouse, the Los Angeles-based development firm behind a co-living apartment building of the same name in Hollywood, is planning its next project across the street from the Crenshaw/LAX Line's Leimert Park Station.

Earlier this month, Treehouse submitted an application to the Los Angeles Department of City Planning seeking approvals to redevelop a nearly half-acre site at 4421-4437 S. Crenshaw Boulevard.  Plans call for razing four existing structures, clearing the way for the construction of a new eight-story edifice featuring 101 apartments with 10,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space and a 15-car garage.

Treehouse has proposed a mix of studio, one-, two-, three-, and four-bedroom dwellings, including 15 apartments to be reserved as affordable housing at the low- and extremely low-income levels.  These would replace 21 rent-stabilized, market-rate apartments that currently exist at the site, while also making the project eligible for Transit Oriented Communities development incentives.

Findings included with the entitlement submission indicate that a market hall would be located at street level, with additional commercial space proposed at the roof level.  Plans also call for a second-level courtyard to provide open space for future residents.

While taller than other projects planned near Leimert Park Station, Treehouse's proposed apartment complex is not the largest new housing development to be built near the under-construction (and long-delayed) underground light rail stop.  In 2019, Universal Standard Housing completed a 111-unit modular apartment complex one block north, while construction recently kicked off for a mixed-use building with 124 residential units at the intersection of Crenshaw Boulevard and Stocker Street.

The project site also sits across the street from the future site of Sankofa Park, the northern bookend of the 1.3-mile Destination Crenshaw public art and open space project.