Just a few weeks after we spotted the start of construction, The Actors Fund and developer Thomas Safran & Associates have announced new details for a affordable housing and arts complex now under construction in Hollywood.

Rendering of the Hollywood Arts CollectiveThe Actors Fund

The Hollywood Arts Collective - which replaced a city-owned parking spanning between Schrader Boulevard and Wilcox Avenue to the south of Hollywood Boulevard - will include 151 units of affordable housing earmarked for artists, as well as a performing arts venue, arts galleries, and rehearsal studios.  Additionally, the $120-million development will include new offices for the western region headquarters for The Actors Fund.

“The Actors Fund has been supporting the entertainment community in Los Angeles for over a century,” said Annette Benning - the organization's vice chair, during a virtual groundbreaking ceremony. “The Hollywood Arts Collective allows us to significantly deepen our commitment to our colleagues in the Hollywood creative community.”

The Arts Collective will be split into two separate structures - a new apartment complex and an "Arts Building."

View looking southwest from Hollywood Boulevard and Wilcox AvenueThe Actors Fund

The apartments, designed by Withee Malcolm Architects, will come in a mix of studio, one-, two-, and three-bedroom floor plans, and will be reserved for households earning at or below 50, 60, and 80 percent of the Los Angeles area median income.  According to an application submitted by Thomas Safran & Associates to the State of California for bond funding, rents at the building are expected to range from $518 to $2,110 per month. 

The Arts Building, designed by HGA, will include the various galleries, rehearsal studios, and an 86-seat theater named for philanthropist Glorya Kaufman.

Funding for the project includes nearly $100 million in public and conventional financing already secured through entities which include the City of Los Angeles, the State of California, the Los Angeles Development Fund and the federal Low Income Housing Tax Credit program.  The Actors Fund has already raised $5 million to support the project, and plans to raise at least $20 million in total.

Building courtyardThe Actors Fund

Plans for the Hollywood Arts Collective date to 2014, when the City of Los Angeles issued a request for proposals seeking developers interested in building a project which would include multifamily housing and replacement parking.  Thomas Safran & Associates was selected as the developer of the project in 2016.

Completion of the mixed-use project is expected in 2024.

“Access to affordable housing is critical to a thriving creative community in Hollywood and the city of Los Angeles,” said Keith McNutt, the Actors Fund Western Region's executive director in a news release. “With gentrification and rising rents in neighborhoods traditionally accessible to workers in the entertainment and arts community, The Hollywood Arts Collective is an urgent and timely need. This project will allow professionals in our industry to live, work and perform in the center of creativity in Los Angeles. Their presence, their work, will be an engine of the continued arts-based revitalization of Hollywood.”

TheatreThe Actors Fund

To learn more about The Hollywood Arts Collective, visit actorsfund.org/HAC.

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, The Actors Fund has provided over $19 million in direct financial assistance over 15,000 members of the performing arts and entertainment community.  The organization also offers services such as affordable housing, health care and insurance counseling, senior care, and secondary career development.

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