The Ratkovich Company continues to move forward with plans to build more than 1,000 condos and apartments around The Alhambra office complex, according to a draft environmental impact report published by the City of Alhambra.
The proposed development, called the Villages at the Alhambra, would rise on approximately 20 acres of land at 1000 S. Fremont Street that is currently improved with surface parking and storage buildings. The new development calls for the construction of a series of five-story buildings featuring 545 rental apartments and 516 units of for-sale housing, as well as 2,876 new parking spaces.
Approximately 900,000 square feet of office space, a 50,000-square-foot L.A. Fitness health club, and 1,800 existing parking stalls would be retained, although a smaller 10,000-square-foot building would be converted into a residential amenity space.
TCA Architects is designing the Villages, which would provide a combination of townhome-style units and studio, one-, two-, and three-bedroom flats. Renderings depict a series of contemporary low-rise structures, intersected with a series of tree-lined internal streets and pedestrian paseos.
Project buildout could occur in two different scenarios. Construction could occur in a single phase, with all buildings completed by 2028, or in two phases, with the condos opening in 2024 and the rental housing following in 2028.
The 40-acre Alhambra campus dates to the 1920s, when it was built as the headquarters of engineering firm C.F. Braun. The Ratkovich Company purchased the property in 1999 for $75 million.
According to a project website, the Ratkovich Company has invested $128 million into the campus in the two decades since. It expects that 4,800 residents will occupy the property upon completion of construction.
The company has envisioned developing housing at The Alhambra since 2006, when it proposed a $189-million, 351-unit condo complex. The current proposal is more than three times the size of the earlier project, though still less dense than the property's zoned potential of 2,878 residential units.
