On August 9, Trammell Crow Company is scheduled to break ground on a high-rise office building in Koreatown - the first phase of the Vermont Corridor project.

The new 20-story, 295-foot-tall building - set to rise at 510-532 S. Vermont Avenue - will serve as the new headquarters of the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health.  Plans call for a total of 468,000 square feet of offices on 13 floors above seven-story podium featuring 1,900 parking spaces and 10,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space.

Renderings of the Gensler-designed building portray a boxy high-rise structure with a glass facade.

The L.A. Business Journal reports that the project is now moving forward after closing on a $302.3-million construction loan.

The Vermont Corridor project is a public-private venture between TCC and Los Angeles County, which also incorporates two other properties located north of the Wilshire/Vermont subway station.  After the new DMH headquarters is completed, the next phase of the project calls for TCC to convert the existing DMH headquarters at 6th Street and Vermont Avenue into apartments.  The 12-story building will offer 172 apartments and 4,700 square feet of ground-floor retail space, while a new parking structure expected to rise next-door could be capped with a separate five-story building containing 74 apartments.  On the opposite side of Vermont, Western Community Housing, Inc. and Meta Housing Corp. are redeveloping another County-owned property with a 72-unit senior affordable housing complex.

Completion of the full project is expected to occur in 2023.

The Vermont Corridor development will rise just north of an L.A. City-owned parking lot which will one day house the Korean American National Museum - a mixed-use structure that will also contain apartments.  Just south of that property, a current Denny's restaurant is also slated for redevelopment, with plans calling for a 36-story apartment and hotel tower.