New HQs in Playa Vista and Torrance, Freeway-related displacements, and more

Tech and pharmaceutical companies are making moves in Los Angeles County.

Earlier this week, Stream Realty Partners announced that Armata Pharmaceuticals will move its headquarters from the unincorporated community of Marina del Rey to the neighboring community of Playa Vista. The new office, located at 5005 McConnell Avenue, will include 56,300 square feet of space for offices, manufacturing, and research and development.

Armata, which is currently based out of a smaller 35,000-square-foot building, develops treatments for bacterial infections.

Meanwhile in Torrance, city officials held a ribbon cutting ceremony to mark the debut of the new corporate headquarters of defense technology firm Epirus.

The 100,000-square-foot facility at 19145 Gramercy Place will house roughly 150 employees. Epirus, which also has satellite offices in Hawthorne and Tysons Corner, Virginia, announced that it has grown its workforce by 200 percent in the past year.

Cushman & Wakefield also announced this week that clothing designer Johnny Was has leased 31,153 square feet of space on the 6th and 7th floors of 712 S. Olive Street in Downtown Los Angeles to serve as a new showroom and headquarters. Korean grocer PK Mart already leases approximately 52,000 square feet of space of the building from landlord Atlas Capital Group for its U.S. headquarters and an as-yet unopened retail space at street level.

Here's what we're reading this week:

Freeways force out residents in communities of color — again "The U.S. Interstate Highway System — built from the 1950s to the early 1990s — is one of the country’s greatest public works achievements, but it came at an enormous social cost. More than 1 million people were forced from their homes, with many Black neighborhoods bulldozed and replaced with ribbons of asphalt and concrete." (LA Times)

New Raised Protected Bike Lanes on Hollywood Way in Burbank "The city of Burbank recently upgraded bike lanes on Hollywood Way, installing the city’s first raised protected bike lane. Burbank’s Hollywood Way protected bikeway extends about 0.8-mile from San Fernando Road to Empire Avenue – essentially along the Burbank Airport’s eastern frontage, between Burbank’s two airport Metrolink stations." (Streetsblog LA)

Inclusionary housing policy updates make affordable units permanent, tie fees to new home values "Changes to the city's policy will now require affordable units to remain affordable for at least 55 years and would last through the entire life of the project instead of being phased out. The same would apply to units that are created under the city’s no-net-loss provision, which requires developers to replace affordable housing demolished to build new units at a one-to-one ratio." (Long Beach Post)

Federal Infrastructure Bill Includes Upgrade To CA's Public Transit "The U.S. Congress passed a long-awaited infrastructure bill Friday that includes investments in high speed internet, electric vehicle charging and $9.5 billion dollars to upgrade California's public transit systems." (LAist)

Who Is Trying to ‘Save Parking Structure 3’ From Becoming Affordable Housing? "Parking Structure 3 is one of 13 parking garages (plus five surface lots) owned by the city in the downtown area. (This count doesn’t include the numerous private garages also in the same area.) In 2010, one of those garages, Parking Structure 6, which is just three-tenths of a mile from Parking Structure 3, was redeveloped and expanded to add more spots than Parking Structure 3 has in total, giving the downtown area more parking than it knew what to do with." (LAist)