Los Angeles-based developer Boulevard Partners has broken ground on a mixed-use project just east of Metro's Little Tokyo/Arts District Station.

The project, which will rise along the south side of 1st Street between Rose and Hewitt Streets, calls for the construction of a six-story building featuring 69 apartments and 14,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space.

watermark Construction at 600 E 1st Street
Urbanize LA

In accordance with the Transit Oriented Communities guidelines, the project will be permitted relief from several zoning rules due to its location in close proximity to the Little Tokyo/Arts District Metro station, as well as several bus lines.  In exchange for the incentives, Boulevard Partners will set aside eight apartments as deed-restricted affordable housing.

City records indicate that Rios is designing 600 E. 1st Street.  No renderings of the project were available at the time of the publication.

According to a representative of the project team, completion of the apartment complex is on pace to occur in either late 2022 or early 2023.

The project joins a series of new developments slated for the blocks surrounding the Metro stop, which is being rebuilt as a fully subterranean station as part of the $1.8-million Regional Connector project, which will create a new tunnel connecting Metro's A, E, and L Lines.  Plans for a mixed-use affordable housing project above the subway stop were recently dealt a setback, when Metro moved to restart the selection process for a developer following pushback from Little Tokyo community leaders.

600 E 1st Street
Google Maps

The project also sits south across 1st Street from the Mangrove Site, a Metro-owned property which has long been considered an opportunity site for a future mixed-use development.  However, the land is currently being used as a staging ground for the Regional Connector.

Other developments which have been completed in the surrounding community over the past five years include the Garey Building, a 320-unit apartment complex built by Lowe, and Fairfield Residential's 472-unit Aliso project.