L.A. City Council approves $48M for new affordable housing at 200 N. Central Avenue in Little Tokyo

Little Tokyo Service Center has lined up more funding for another project on its home turf.

On December 12, the Los Angeles City Council voted to adopt a resolution approving nearly $48 million for the construction of the First Street North apartments, which would rise from a city parking lot at 200 N. Central Avenue. The project, planned directly north of the Japanese American National Museum, calls for the construction of two buildings featuring a combined total of 248 studio, one-, two-, and three-bedroom apartments, as well as offices for Go For Broke and an exhibition space focused on the experiences of Japanese-American soldiers during World War II.

View of the LTSC-Go For Broke project from Jackson Paseo looking westCarde Ten

Carde Ten is designing the Go For Broke project, which would consist of two six-story buildings with roughly 25,000 square feet of commercial space - half of which would be reserved for legacy Little Tokyo businesses. The new construction would wrap around a street-level courtyard and pocket park, with a new pedestrian paseo connecting the site to Judge John Aiso Street to the west.

According to a Housing Department staff report, the First Street North development will cater to households earning between 30 and 80 percent of the Los Angeles area median income level. The total cost of the project is estimated at nearly $138 million, or roughly $556,000 per unit.

Plans to redevelop the First Street North site date back nearly two decades to when the property was first identified as a potential site for Go For Broke's education center. While that project went unbuilt, it was later resurrected through a partnership with fellow non-profit LTSC.

View of the LTSC-Go For Broke project from entrance to Jackson Paseo from Judge John AIso Street looking northCarde Ten

The development site was once home to businesses and residents before it was claimed by the City of Los Angeles via eminent domain in the mid-20th century. Subsequently, all former buildings were cleared to create parking, in similar fashion to the Parker Center site across Judge John Aiso Street.

In addition to the Parker Center property, the site is one of several publicly-owned sites in Little Tokyo which are likely to be up for redevelopment in the coming years, joining the Mangrove property across Alameda Street and the land surrounding the Little Tokyo/Arts District subway station.

Follow us on social media:

Twitter / Facebook / LinkedIn / Threads / Instagram