Developer Geoff Palmer, best known for his collection of Italian Renaissance-inspired apartment buildings on the fringe of Downtown Los Angeles, is reviving a more-than-decade old plan for a high-rise building near the Expo Line's LATTC/Ortho Institute Station.
Yesterday, an entity affiliated with G.H. Palmer Associates submitted an application to the City of Los Angeles to redevelop a parking lot at 2321-2327 S. Flower Street with a 15-story building containing 280 apartments, 700 square feet of ground-floor retail space, and two levels of subterranean parking.
The roughly half-acre project site currently serves as parking for the private shuttle buses serving Palmer's Lorenzo apartment complex across the street, and was originally slated to be developed in conjunction with that project. In 2006, Palmer had proposed a building that would rise as high as 50 stories - substantially taller than any structure south of Downtown Los Angeles.
After the proposed skyscraper failed to come to fruition, Palmer instead pursued a smaller 12-story tower on the site, featuring 132 apartments and parking. However, entitlements for that project were never completed, and its application was terminated by the Planning Department in 2016.
While Palmer's high-rise plans may have been unprecedented for the neighborhood in 2006, recent years have seen several property owners pitch plans for nearby sites.
A block north at 2222 Figueroa Street, the owner of Texere Plaza had proposed razing the 1920s building to make way for a pair of apartment towers in 2016 - though the Planning Department has since terminated that project's application.
That same year, the City of Los Angeles approved plans for a $1-billion mixed-use complex at The Reef consisting of condominiums, apartments, retail, and a hotel. The only element of that project which has been built at this point in time is a large LED display which now wraps the upper floors of The Reef.
Other projects slated for the surrounding community include CityView's proposed Adams and Grand apartments, which would rise one block east of The Lorenzo.
Palmer's other ongoing projects in the Downtown area include the 1,500-unit Ferrante apartments, his largest development yet, which is now taking shape at the intersection of Temple Street and Beaudry Avenue.
- The Lorenzo (Urbanize LA)