An 18-story high-rise located just south of Metro's Wilshire/Vermont Station in Koreatown is the latest adaptive reuse project for prolific developer Jamison Services, Inc.

The property at 695 S. Vermont Avenue, which stands at the northwest corner of Vermont and 7th Street, opened in the early 1970s with approximately 216,000 square feet of offices atop a parking podium. Construction permits now being processed by the Department of Building and Safety  call for a seismic retrofit of the tower, in combination with a conversion from office space to apartments, a renovation of ground-level amenities, the conversion of a mechanical penthouse into a 19th floor, and the addition of a rooftop amenity deck. All existing parking levels, consisting of 384 spaces, are to remain.

According to a landing page on the Jamison Services website, the building will house a total of 255 residential units after work is completed.

695 S Vermont AvenueGoogle Maps

Permits list Rockefeller Kempel Architects as the designer for the adaptive reuse project. The structure was designed by Langdon & Wilson, an architectural duo whose work also included the Getty Villa.

The high-rise at 695 S. Vermont Avenue was built to serve as an expansion of the headquarters of Pacific Indemnity Co., which also occupied at neighboring tower to the north at 3200 Wilshire Boulevard. According to the L.A. Business Journal, Pacific Indemnity Co. was acquired in the late 1970s, and its offices were moved to Downtown in the 1980s. The building was later foreclosed on, after which point it was purchased by Jamison Services, like much of Koreatown's office stock.

Jamison has spent the past decade converting its portfolio of Wilshire corridor office buildings into housing, within recent projects including the Pierce National Life Building and 2500 Wilshire Boulevard. The developer has recently looked outside of the Westlake and Koreatown neighborhoods, with plans to transform an office tower in the Mid-Wilshire area.

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