With a $167-million construction loan in hand, developer AvalonBay Communities has started work on a mixed-use housing development in Downtown Los Angeles.

The latest project, AVA Arts District, will rise from a 3.75-acre site at the southeast corner of Alameda and Industrial streets that was most recently home to a cold storage facility.  Crews are now razing the existing industrial building, which will be replaced with a seven-story building featuring 475 studio, one-, and two-, and three-bedroom apartments - including 53 very low-income affordable units - above 61,000 square feet of ground-floor office, retail, and restaurant uses.  Plans also call for a two-level, 842-car subterranean parking garage.

OfficeUntitled is designing the live/work development, with Togawa Smith Martin serving as executive architect.  Plans show a contemporary low-rise structure - clad with fiber cement panels, concrete, and metal - incorporating open-air decks and other amenities for residents.  As part of the project, a former rail spur located along the southern property line is to be repurposed as a landscaped paseo for residents, programmed with seating, landscaping, and public art.

AVA Arts District is scheduled for completion in 2022, reports the Los Angeles Business Journal.

watermark

The project site sits south across Industrial Street from a now-vacant lot which is slated for a similar mixed-use housing project from Camden Property Trust.

A block north at the intersection of 6th and Alameda Streets, Irvine-based developer SunCal has proposed the construction of a $2-billion complex consisting of high-rise and mid-rise buildings featuring offices, housing, a hotel, retail, and other functions.

AvalonBay has previously developed AVA apartment buildings in  Little Tokyo and Hollywood, and is also planning a 154-unit housing complex in Monrovia.