A presentation scheduled for the September 18 meeting of the Santa Monica Architectural Review Board unveils plans for a mixed-use project which would rise at the intersection of 26th Street and Wilshire Boulevard.

The proposed project from Beverly Hills-based Mark Leevan Investment Co., would rise from a corner parcel located at 2600 Wilshire Boulevard, replacing a former bank building now occupied by a New Balance store. Plans call for the construction of a new four-story building featuring 40 apartments above 12,293 square feet of ground-floor commercial space and parking for 101 vehicles. Additionally, a smaller two-story building with five dwellings would rise from what is now a parking lot across an alley way at the rear of the property.

View looking northeast from 26th StreetKoning Eizenberg Architecture

Requested entitlements include density bonus incentives granting waivers from certain development standards. In exchange, Leevan would be required to set aside five of the new studio, one-, two-, and three-bedroom apartments for rent as very low-income affordable housing.

Koning Eizenberg is designing 2600 Wilshire, which would have a steel frame on its exterior, complemented with composite wood infill panels on its upper floors and board-formed concrete panels below.

"The project as a whole provides a transition between the commercial Wilshire Boulevard and the lower scale residential neighborhood to the south
with two separate buildings that break down in scale from the boulevard to the neighborhood," states a staff report.

2600 Wilshire BoulevardGoogle Maps

The building to be replaced, a former Savings and Loan outpost designed by Millard Sheets, was previously nominated for landmark designation one decade ago - a process which ended in denial, per a staff report. A mosaic tile mural designed by Sheets, a signature element to all of his Savings and Loan locations, was removed from the building and relocated to Chapman University's Hilbert Museum of California Art in 2019.

The project is one of a number of upcoming mixed-use buildings planned along the Wilshire corridor in this section of Santa Monica, joining a handful of similar projects proposed by Cypress Equity Investments near Douglas Park.

Follow us on social media: 

Twitter / Facebook / LinkedIn / Threads / Instagram