Mitsui Fudosan America is facing its latest test in its bid to develop an apartment tower at 8th and Figueroa Streets in Downtown Los Angeles, with the project set to go before the City Planning Commission later this month.

The project, which would replace a longtime surface parking lot, calls for the construction of a 41-story building that would feature 438 studio, one-, and two-bedroom apartments above 7,493 square feet of ground-floor retail space and 517 parking stalls.

The glass-and-steel structure, designed by Johnson Fain, would rise 530 feet above street level.  Renderings portray a boxy tower rising above a podium amenity deck.

The proposed development is expected to open in 2022, according to a final environmental impact report published last year by the City of Los Angeles.

At its meeting on January 24, the City Planning Commission is scheduled to consider appeals of the 8th and Figueroa tower's vesting tentative tract map submitted by the Southwest Regional Council of Carpenters and CREED LA, both of which point to alleged inadequacies in the project's environmental impact report.

A staff report to the City Planning Commission dismisses the claims of the two organizations, both of which are a coalition of construction labor unions, and recommends that the 8th and Figueroa project should be approved.

Mitsui Fudosan America, the U.S. affiliate of a Japanese conglomerate of the same name, has owned the parking lot at 8th and Figueroa for decades.  After trying and failing to construct an office tower on the property in the early 1990s, MFA submitted plans to construct an apartment tower on the property in 2016.

MFA also owns another property at 8th and Hope Streets, where a similar 40-story development is also in the works.