Here's how Warner Center developed from 2018 to 2023

When adopted in 2013, the Warner Center 2035 plan was billed as a way to turn West Valley superblocks into a dense, walkable commercial hub that would coax residents out of their private automobiles. While the jury is still out on the plan's ability to lure residents away from their cars, a new presentation to the Los Angeles Planning Commission demonstrates that it has unquestionable resulted in a lot of new and proposed housing.

The presentation, the second five-year review of development in the 1.5-square-mile specific plan area, finds that to date, 17,597 net residential units have either built or approved in Warner Center - an increase of 11,397 units from 2008. An additional 497 homes remain in the entitlement phase, and have yet to be approved by city officials.

Currently, there is roughly 40 million square feet of approved or built development in Warner Center, nearly half of which is accounted for by the office towers that have long dominated the neighborhood's skyline. Of the net 19 million square feet of approved or built non-residential floor area, less than 3 million square feet has come since 2008, indicating that the bulk of the neighborhood's growth in recent decades has been residential.

In addition to housing, there are now nearly 22,000 built or approved parking spaces in the Warner Center area - perhaps suggesting that residents aren't quite ready to ditch their cars. However, there are also 7,394 approved or built bicycle parking spaces, and nearly 5.7 acres of open space that was either built or is to be built by private developers as part of their projects.

Between 2018 and 2023, there were 15 large scale developments constructed in the Warner Center area, including:

• The Mira Apartments at 21425 Vanowen Street (174 apartments)
• 21121 Vanowen Street (101apartments with ground-floor commercial space)
• 6800 Variel Avenue (18 apartments)
• 20944 Vanowen Street (37 apartments)
• The Vert Apartments at 6606 Variel Avenue (271 apartments)
• The Q Topanga at 6263 Topanga Canyon Boulevard (347 apartments with ground-floor commercial space)
• The Q Variel at 6200 Variel Avenue (241 apartments with ground-floor commercial space)
• Essence at 6041 Variel Avenue (263 apartments)
• Bell Warner Center at 21050 Kittridge Street (394 apartments)
• Chroma at 21001 Kittridge Street (275 apartments)
• Kaiser Permanente medical offices at 5601 De Soto Avenue
• Home2Suites Woodland Hills at 21110 West Oxnard Street (174-room hotel)
• Vela on Ox at 21221 Oxnard Street (379 apartments)
• The Variel at 6279 Variel Avenue (336-unit senior housing complex)
• Topanga Social at 6600 Topanga Canyon Boulevard (expansion of Westfield Topanga mall)

Other projects now in construction include

• The Q De Soto at 6109 De Soto Avenue (375 apartments with ground-floor commercial space);
• 21401 Vanowen Street (203 apartments)
• Wisteria at Warner Center at 5500 Canoga Avenue (647-unit senior housing complex)
• The Alcove at 21300 Oxnard Street ( 301-unit affordable housing complex)
• L.A. Rams practice facility at 21555 Oxnard Street
• The Q Erwin at 6140 Variel Avenue (269 apartments with ground-floor commercial space)

Those projects, combined with developments built prior to the five-year look back period, account for 12,265 residential units - less than half of the 26,048 homes envisioned by 2035. Current conditions have 16.6 million square feet of built non-residential floor area, approximately 55 percent of the 30.1 million envisioned by the plan.

Development within the specific plan area will likely grow closer to the maximum amounts envisioned by the plan in the coming years, as Los Angeles Rams owner Stan Kroenke begins to plot out the redevelopment of the roughly 100 acres of property he has acquired within Warner Center. His properties include the Promenade Mall - which is approved for 3.2 million square feet of housing and commercial uses - the neighboring Village Mall, and the former Anthem Blue Cross office campus where the new Rams practice facility is currently taking shape.

Warner Center's development boom has notably been devoid of affordable housing, as projects within its boundaries are not subject to the base-bonus programs that have become standard in other recent community plan and specific plan updates within the City of Los Angeles. A proposal to develop an inclusionary housing plan for Warner Center was adopted in 2018, although it has yet to come to fruition. However, affordable housing has started to seep in through standalone projects such as Meta Housing Corp.'s Alcove development.

Follow us on social media: 

Twitter / Facebook / LinkedIn / Threads / Instagram / Bluesky

• Warner Center (Urbanize LA)