Today, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted to certify the final environmental impact report and ground lease terms for the Vermont Corridor project, the latest step in the proposed redevelopment of several dilapidated office buildings in Koreatown.

The action today allows Trammell Crow Company to proceed with the construction of a new headquarters for the L.A. County Department of Mental Health at 510-532 S. Vermont Avenue.  The 20-story, 295-foot-tall building is being designed by Gensler, and will feature 468,000 square feet of space atop a podium structure containing a 1,900-car garage and 10,000 square feet of ground-floor commercial uses.

An additional 10-level garage, with nine floors above ground and one basement level, would replace an existing parking at the back of the project site fronting Shatto Place.

Just south at 550 S. Vermont Avenue, Trammell Crow is set to convert the existing Department of Mental Health building - a 12-story structure - into rental apartments.  Plans call for 172 residential units with 4,700 square feet of ground-floor retail space in an adaptive reuse project designed by Steinberg Hart.  Plans also call for the construction of a five-story parking structure behind the building, which could later be capped with an additional five-story structure to create 74 more apartments.

Across the street at 433 S. Vermont Avenue, Western Community Housing, Inc. will construct a 72-unit senior affordable housing complex at the site of another County-owned building.  Their project will also include on-site parking and a community recreation center.

Construction will occur over multiple phases, starting with the construction of the new office building at 510-532 Vermont Avenue.  Build-out would occur over 36 months, with a groundbreaking as early as this year and completion as soon as 2021.  By mid-2019, construction of the affordable housing is set to begin across the street, with completion anticipated the year afterward.  The final phase of the project would be the adaptive reuse of the existing 12-story building, which is expected to begin in late 2021 and conclude by the end of 2023.  The total cost of the office building, estimated at slightly over $300 million, will be paid almost entirely by Los Angeles County.

The Vermont Corridor project sits just north of the L.A. City-owned parking lot where the Korean American National Museum is to be built, as well as a Denny's restaurant slated for redevelopment with a 36-story mixed-use tower.