With the arrival of a tower crane this week, construction is now ramping up for Mitsui Fudosan America's new residential high-rise at the intersection of 8th and Figueroa Streets in Downtown Los Angeles.

The project, which broke ground in July 2020, will consist of a 42-story building featuring 438 studio, one-, and two-bedroom apartments above a parking podium lined with 7,500 square feet of ground-floor retail space.

Rendered view looking north on Figueroa StreetShimahara

Johnson Fain designed the tower, which will rise 530 feet in height.  Renderings depict a contemporary glass building with LEDs embedded into its facade.  As a condition of approval, Mitsui Fudosan will also encase the project's parking garage in the same type of glass wrapping the trunk of the tower.

The full construction period for the 8th and Figueroa tower is estimated at three years.

Off-site improvements planned with the project include a new mid-block crosswalk which will allow for a direct connection to the neighboring Figat7th shopping mall.  Brookfield, which owns the sunken retail center and two adjacent office buildings, is also in the midst of construction on a 784-unit apartment tower on a previously vacant site.

Rendered view looking east from Figat7thShimahara

Mitsui Fudosan America, which is a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Mitsui Fudosan, has owned the land at 8th and Figueroa since the 1980s.  After once considering developing the property with an office tower in the early 1990s, the site functioned as a parking lot for nearly three decades.  Plans for the under construction building were initiated in 2016.  

In addition to the Figueroa Street property, Mitsui Fudosan America also owns a second property two blocks east at 8th and Hope Streets, which the company hopes to develop with a similar apartment tower.