In what may be the least surprising news ever, the long stalled eight-story office building proposed for 1601 Vine Street has suffered yet another delay. Unfavorable market conditions have set the project back for years, but this time the culprit is Los Angeles' slow moving bureaucracy. When the J.H. Snyder Company took over development of 1601 Vine back in July, they agreed to break ground on the project by April 2014. However, no company will issue title insurance to J.H. Snyder while the conveyance of the property still requires approval from the City's Department of Finance (DOF). The DOF has indicated that their approval of the transaction would be evident via their approval of CRA/LA's Long Range Property Management Plan. But therein lies the rub: there is no set timetable regarding when the DOF will complete their review of the plan. Thus, CRA/LA has extended the groundbreaking deadline until the later of 1) DOF approval of the transaction or 2) December 31, 2014. After seven years of waiting, what's an extra twelve months on top of that? At least the mixed-use project across the street still seems to be on track.
