A shuttered bank branch across the street from Metro's Downtown Santa Monica Station could finally be up for redevelopment.

According to a presentation scheduled for the September 18 meeting of the Santa Monica Architectural Review Board, Worthe Real Estate Group is seeking approvals for the redevelopment of a former Bank of the West site at 407 Colorado Avenue. The single-story structure, vacant since 2017, is slated to make way for a new five-story building featuring 60 studio and one-bedroom apartments above approximately 6,900 square feet of ground-floor commercial space, without on-site parking.

View looking north from Colorado AvenueWolcott Architecture

Worthe proposes to set aside six of the new apartments for rent as affordable housing, making the project eligible for density bonus incentives.

Wolcott Architecture is designing the project, which would rise at the northeast corner of 4th Street and Colorado, and feature an exterior of metal panels, wood, and stucco.

"The primary architectural concept of the proposal focuses on framed features that protrude from the main massing and extend up beyond the top floor in an angled soffit," reads a staff report. "Balconies are included in an inconsistent manner on some of the framed features, with some spanning the full length of the frames at each floor and others only on the top level or for only a portion of the length of the frame. The angled frames are broken up with stucco massing that are slightly recessed from the framed features."

407 Colorado AvenueGoogle Street View

The proposed project, which is only in its preliminary review stage, comes on the heels of a proposed 570-unit mixed-income housing complex which would rise on the opposite side of Downtown Santa Monica Station.

Worthe, which is based on Santa Monica, is no stranger to entitling projects in its hometown. The company is also backing a much larger proposal on Ocean Avenue, which would create a new hotel and housing complex designed by Frank Gehry.

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