Mitsui Fudosan America Wins Approval for 50-story Downtown L.A. Tower

Plans call for 580 units in a 562,000-SF building designed by Gensler

Nick Trombola

Developers behind a proposed 50-story apartment building have received the green light to start building in Downtown Los Angeles (and here’s hoping this one stays graffiti-free).

The L.A. City Council earlier this week approved Mitsui Fudosan America’s (MFA) Eighth, Grand & Hope project at 754 South Hope Street, just around the block from the 7th Street/Metro Center station. The tower, on Eighth Street between Hope Street and Grand Avenue, would replace a parking garage currently idling on the site.

Plans for the 562,000-square-foot tower call for 580 studio, one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments, along with about 7,500 square feet of ground-floor commercial space, according to Urbanize, which first reported the news. The project, designed by architecture firm Gensler, was submitted for entitlement approval in 2017. Yet the developers have faced some public opposition to its construction in the years since.

Advocacy groups Creed L.A. and the Supporters Alliance for Environmental Responsibility argued to the City Council, and to the city’s Planning Commission last year, that the project should be halted due to flaws in its environmental impact report, per Urbanize. Both bodies voted to effectively reject those claims.

A representative for MFA decline a request to comment on the the tower’s approval.

Aside from MFA’s 42-story Figueroa Eight tower, which opened earlier this year, FPA Multifamily in March paid $186million for a 34-story high-rise at 888 Grand Hope Park, which features 525 luxury units. That same month, California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a streamlining of City Council approval for Continuum Partners’ sprawling 10-building, 1,500-unit mixed-use development downtown. That project, dubbed Fourth & Central, is expected to cost approximately $2 billion.

Nick Trombola can be reached at ntrombola@commercialobserver.com