At its meeting this week, the Los Angeles City Planning Commission is scheduled to consider a proposal to expand a 1980s office complex near Sawtelle Boulevard.

The Trident Center, located at 11355 and 11377 W. Olympic Boulevard, currently consists of two 10-story towers connected by a shared parking garage and amenity deck.  McCarthy Cook, which owns the property, filed plans with the City of Los Angeles in 2016 to connect the two buildings and add a retail podium to the property.  At completion, plans call for augmenting the existing 330,000 square feet of offices with 115,000 square feet of new rentable space, as well as adding 5,000 square feet of restaurant uses to the existing 11,000 square feet of ground-floor commercial space.

Gensler is designing the project, which is branded Lumen West LA.  Architectural plans indicate that the buildings would be recladded with glass and metal, making them virtually indistinguishable from the sterile concrete structures seen today.  A large 30-foot setback along Olympic Boulevard would also be reduced by the addition of the proposed retail podium.

A staff report to the City Planning Commission recommends that the Trident Center modernization receive approval.

Also up for consideration by the Commission is a $1.5-million development agreement between McCarthy Cook and the City of Los Angeles.  Under the proposed arrangement, the developer would be required to construct and maintain a dog park at the corner of Mississippi and Purdue Avenues.

Additionally, McCarthy Cook is asked to provide a minimum of 150 excess parking spaces at the property to businesses on Sawtelle Boulevard for weekday evenings and weekends.  A lack of street parking - and a restrictive preferential parking district in the surrounding residential neighborhood - has long plagued the stores and restaurants in the longtime Japanese-American business district.

Construction of the Lumen development is anticipated to occur in two phases.  The new podium structure is scheduled for completion in 2019, while improvements to the existing office towers would occur by 2020.