Housing Diversity Corp. plans 150 apartments in Hollywood, Koreatown

Seattle-based developer Housing Diversity Corp. (HDC) is ramping up its presence in Los Angeles, opening a new Downtown office and filing plans to develop two new projects in Hollywood and Koreatown.

In July 2020, the company made headlines by breaking ground on its first Los Angeles project - an eight-story, 69-unit apartment building near Hollywood Boulevard. That apartment complex, now in the end stages of construction, will have an average unit size of just 375 square feet and no on-site parking.

HDC recently submitted an application to the Planning Department for a neighboring site at 6766 Hawthorn Avenue which now functions as a service parking lot. Plans call for the construction of a seven-story edifice featuring 58 rental units - intended to be priced for creative and service industry workers - which would include 220 square feet of ground-floor commercial space. Parking for 14 vehicles would be located within the building, fulfilling the terms of an existing covenant for off-street parking.

Renderings of the building, designed by Steinberg Hart, depict 6766 Hawthorn as a slim podium-type building with cantilevered balconies protruding from its northern facade.

HDC and its partners, which include Steinberg Hart and STS Construction, have also filed for entitlements on a property at 603 S. Mariposa Avenue in Koreatown - a mid-block site between 6th Street and Wilshire Boulevard. That project would replace a 1920s commercial and residential building with a new eight-story edifice containing 92 rental apartments and no on-site parking.

Both projects rely on Transit Oriented Communities incentives to achieve greater density and floor area than otherwise allowed via zoning. A total of 18 affordable units would be provided between the two developments in exchange for the incentives.

The Hollywood and Koreatown developments represent a tried and true formula for HDC, which has targeted walkable neighborhoods - located in Federal Opportunity Zones - and prices its apartments for low-to-middle-income households. The company has already secured approvals for two such projects near its Downtown headquarters, including a newly-entitled 227-unit apartment building at 1411 S. Flower Street and a planned 151-unit building at 1317 S. Grand Avenue.