A shuttered strip mall - formerly home to the restaurant Pho Broadway - has bitten the dust in Chinatown, the latest step toward the construction of a mixed-use high-rise development known as Harmony.

Aerial view of Broadway looking south toward Downtown
Townline/Forme Development

The project, which will rise from a now empty site at 942 North Broadway, is being developed as a joint venture between Canadian developers Townline and Forme Development.  Plans approved in 2019 by the City of Los Angeles call for the construction of a 25-story building featuring 178 residential units above roughly 30,000 square feet of retail and office space and subterranean parking.

In exchange for density bonus incentives permitting more residential units than would normally be allowed on the property, Harmony would set aside nine apartments as deed restricted affordable housing at the very low-income level (50 percent of the area median income.

Chris Dikeakos Architects is designing the tower, which would take the form of four stacked, offset masses.  Renderings show a contemporary glass-and-steel tower on the upper levels of the development, with a brick-clad structure greeting pedestrians below.

View from street level
Townline/Forme Development

The concentration of the building mass into a tower structure will allow for a portion of the property to be retained as a public plaza, aligning with a mid-block crossing of Broadway.  Additional open space for residents would be provided on terrace decks created by the offset floor plates.

Completion of Harmony is anticipated in 2023, according to a landing page on the Forme Development website.  Construction permits for the tower are currently pending with the Department of Building and Safety.

The construction of a high-rise at 942 North Broadway may perhaps be the most visible sign of change in Chinatown, which like other neighborhoods in and around Downtown Los Angeles, has seen the completion of several large mixed-use and multifamily residential buildings over the past decade.

Demolition of former shopping center
Rabi Abonour

Immediately south of the future site of Harmony, the 200-unit Blossom Plaza apartments opened on a property flanking Chinatown Station in 2016.  To the east across Spring Street, completion is expected later this year for Trammell Crow Company's 318-unit Llewelyn development, and an even larger 725-unit complex is planned by Atlas Capital Group for a neighboring site.

Townline and Forme Development, the companies behind Harmony, are also partnering on a proposed 40-story, 367-unit apartment near the intersection of 6th Street and Shatto Place in Koreatown.

942 N Broadway
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