A new tower crane has risen just southwest of Metro's Wilshire/Vermont Station, signaling the start of vertical construction for a new apartment tower from Holland Partner Group.

The project, which broke ground in September 2020 at 696 S. New Hampshire Avenue, will consist of a 38-story building containing 375 residential units.

MVE + Partners is designing the boxy glass high-rise, which would sit atop an eight-story parking garage.  Plans call for activating the upper levels of both the podium and the tower with landscaped amenity decks.

The under-construction project was entitled as part of a larger mixed-use development by Harridge Development Group which would span the east side of New Hampshire Avenue between 7th Street and Wilshire Boulevard.  Other components of the approved plan include a smaller apartment building, slated to replace an adjoining parking lot, as well as the conversion of the 1930s Wilshire Galleria - originally an I. Magnin department store - into a 160-room hotel.

Other projects now in the pipeline in the surrounding neighborhood include a proposed mixed-use apartment building one block east at Vermont and Leeward Avenues, as well as Los Angeles County's $300-million Vermont Corridor complex.

The New Hampshire Avenue development is the latest in a series of new apartment towers in Koreatown, including the 25-story Kurve on Wilshire development which is now wrapping up construction near Lafayette Park.

Holland Partner Group - headquartered in Vancouver, Washington - is a prolific developer of multifamily housing in the Los Angeles area.  It is currently in the midst of construction on a mixed-use project in Long Beach, and has additional developments planned in Echo Park, San Pedro, East Hollywood, and Mid-Wilshire.