Hollywood Projects

[POLA]

With those "vintage" street lamps, that building will really look cool. This is the route that I hope more of Hollywood goes (halcyon days a la 1930s). BTW, the Hillview apts. will have retail at the front and the basement (which used to be a speakeasy) will be a jazz club.

[LosAngelesBeauty]

What do the old and new lamps look like?


This is fantastic news. If anywhere in LA, Hollywood shouldn't be a quiet residential neighborhood! "This is Hollywood, LA, I hear people say!" Meaning, "—!" to those who complain about city noise.

You can't escape it though. I was watching 20/20 one night, and they had New Yawkers interviewed complaining about the night life and noise in New York City!

So I guess hearing these little complaints in Hollywood doesn't make me feel so bad.

[DaveofCali]

^ People are always going to complain. People want the environment to adjust to them even though they chose to live in that environment in the first place!

[POLA]

Ok, I am now going to complain... Finding parking in Hollywood on weekends is a HUUUUGEE —! Most of the apartments there are street parking and despite many surface lots, they only open at night and cost around 20 to 30 bucks!! At some point, public parking lots should be built to help this and or residents should have permitted street parking in the residential areas.

As for the noise? I don't mind it.

[WesTheAngelino]

^ Why the hell should they build public parking when there's 4 metro stops in Hollywood? How about buulding more subway so Hollywierd is accesible to more people w/o a car.

[RAlossi]

^ Don't forget to mention that those subway lines should run past midnight, especially for the barhoppers.

[LongBeachUrbanist]

The area is going to need more parking, preferably structures whose entrances/exits don't add any more to Hollywood Blvd's traffic. Selma and Franklin are the best streets for parking, IMO. These streets should be rezoned to allow structures there.

The Blvd. also needs a local circulator, to help move people around what has become a very large area. Of the proposals I've heard - trolley car, monorail, etc. - none of them seem very feasible. Maybe a special taxi zone would help.

[LosAngelesBeauty]

Originally Posted by WesTheAngelino

^ Why the hell should they build public parking when there's 4 metro stops in Hollywood? How about buulding more subway so Hollywierd is accesible to more people w/o a car.

I have to agree with that.

[POLA]

Hollywood is the new Gold Coast

Million-dollar condos want to be stars on the Walk of Fame

By alison manheim - Thurs., Sept. 8, 2005

Developers are betting that young Hollywood will jump at the chance to buy real estate within stumbling distance of their favored hot spots. The odds would appear to be in their favor. With the ever-growing nightlife, restaurants like the Hungry Cat, Rokbar and Dakota and amenities like the ArcLight cinemas and a Metro Red Line that takes you downtown in minutes, Hollywood Blvd. has much more to offer than schlocky T-shirt shops and confused European tourists. "We believe in Hollywood, always have," says Kate Bartolo, senior VP development at the Kor Group, which also engineered Santa Monica and Palm Springs' Viceroy hotels and the Eastern Columbia building in downtown L.A. Kor is now refashioning the 1927 Broadway Department Store building at Hollywood and Vine into 96 loft units that range in size from 931 to 1,999 square feet. "Hollywood and Vine is literally a globally recognized intersection." While the Broadway Hollywood will release its first phase next month, HEI Hospitality and Gatehouse Capital recently announced plans to develop a mixed-use development consisting of a 296-room W Hotel and 150 residences, plus retail, on another corner. Groundbreaking is expected next spring. Los Angeles-based Metro Modern Developers chose Yucca Street as the site of their 54-unit condo development the Hollywood, which broke ground last month and is expected to be completed by the end of 2006. Designed by Kenner Architects, the two- and three-bedroom units range in size from 1,200 square feet to 2,500-square feet. Mel Kimman, a partner in Metro Modern, likens what's happening in Hollywood now to what happened to Venice Beach and Ocean Park in the early 90's. "We figured, if we build something really cool that we ourselves would like to live in, other people would want to live there, too." Despite Yucca's past incarnation as an open-air drug corridor, Kimman isn't fazed by the prospect of marketing a high-end property in a still-gentrifying area. "When people who work in the film or record business hear about it, they say 'sign me up,' " he says. Live, Work, Play Even with a whiff of grit, you're not getting a discount for living in Hollywood anymore. The 90028 area code has seen condominium prices leap 55% since 2001. New development is more likely to feature swanky poolside lounges modeled after hotel bars than rooms by the week. That's the way the Hollywood Community Redevelopment Agency wanted it. "They were very clear on quality issues," says Phil Simmons, president of Laing Urban, which is seeking final approval for a mixed-use project of 180 condos at La Brea and Hawthorne. "They expected a certain level of quality finishes to attract the kind of homeowner that will further burnish the Hollywood area's image." Further proof that Hollywood can't live by cosmos and saketinis alone.

[POLA]

^ The above article had a rendering of "The Hollywood". So here it is:



Kitchens have stainless steel appliances and European-style refrigerator. Bathrooms feature free-standing wall-mounted sinks. Recessed and indirect lighting throughout. Sports lounge, spa and pool with fiberoptic lighting. Each unit has 2 ½ parking spaces.

[colemonkee]

That's a funky design. Not a big fan of the doo-doo brown color, but the rendering's too small to render final judgement. By the way, other than park a motorcycle, what do you do with 1/2 a parking spot? Hopscotch comes to mind, but you might ding your car if you mess up...

[LosAngelesBeauty]

Looks very similar to Kanner's other apt. in Westwood.

[citywatch]

This article repeats what most ppl already know about the old Hollywood Broadway bldg, except the part about parking space being inserted on the 2nd & 3rd floors. I wonder how that will affect the look of the bldg's exterior & its array of regular glass windows that once served office or store space?:

LA Times, Sept 13, 2005

Broadway Building Gets Loft Conversion

By Roger Vincent, Times Staff Writer

The historic Broadway department store building at one of the most famous intersections in Los Angeles is being converted to 96 luxury condominiums. Kor Group has started renovation of the 10-story building at the southwest corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street that opened in 1927 as a Dyas department store and later became a Broadway branch. It has been vacant for years.

Kor's development is part of a burst of residential development in Hollywood, spurred by growing demand for urban living in some of Los Angeles' older communities. There are roughly 2,560 apartments and condos being planned or under construction in the neighborhood, according to the Hollywood Entertainment District, a property owners' group.

Units ranging from about 930 square feet to 2,000 square feet will be built at the Broadway building as open lofts with finished kitchens and bathrooms, said Tyson Sayles, senior vice president at Los Angeles-based Kor. Units are expected to be priced from $400,000 to $2 million when completed in mid-2006. Shops and a restaurant will occupy the ground floor and parking will be provided on the sub-basement, second and third floors, Sayles said. On top will be a roof garden with pool, cabanas, an exercise room and a spa.

The original building was a 10-story Classical Revival style concrete and steel structure, project architect Wade Killefer said. Then, in 1939, an eight-story Streamline Moderne building, designed by Donald Parkinson, was built to the west of the original building — "interestingly, with no effort to match the original building," Killefer said. The conversion will restore the facade of the addition and the exposed brick of the original 1920s structure. It also will add two stories to the 1939 addition, said Killefer, whose firm also designed Kor's renovations of the Eastern Columbia and Pegasus buildings downtown.

Elsewhere in east Hollywood, Santa Monica-based Palisades Development Group expects to start work next month on 60 loft-style condominiums in the 1929-vintage Equitable office building at the northeast corner of Hollywood and Vine, said Avi Brosh, president of the firm. Other developers plan to build 262 apartments, 96 condominiums and a 300-room W Hotel at the southeast corner by late 2007.

Conversion of a former office building to 90 apartments is slated to begin early next year in the tower at the southeast corner of Sunset Boulevard and Vine. Los Angeles developer CIM Group expects to complete the project in 2007, a spokeswoman said.

[LongBeachUrbanist]

^ Hopefully the parking will not be visible from the street (i.e., through the windows). Maybe they can hang curtains from the windows or something, so that it's not so obvious that parking is up there.

[colemonkee]

^ or put reflective glass on the parking levels and progressively less-reflective shades of glass as they go up the tower. reflective glass shouldn't affect people's views out too much. Could look kind of cool...

[citywatch]

Now that I think of it, there are some parking lots that are in totally enclosed spaces, or even underground, such as the huge parking lot that was built below the twin towers of Century City. For some reason I thought if spaces for cars were located above ground, as will be true of tenant parking at the Hollywood Broadway bldg, that automatically meant there had to be lots of open air ventilation, meaning no walls or sealed windows around the perimeter of the lot. But, again, I realize that's not necessarily required for a variety of major parking garages in LA or elsewhere.

[POLA]

BTW, does anyone know of what is being built on the lot at Ivar and Selma? It was a parking lot next to the Vine + Sunset building. It looks huge!

[Bernd]

Great news. Finally, we're getting somewhere with our classic old Hollywood Ave. buildings! Any rumored plans for the First National Bank building on Hollywood and Highland? It's such a great building which looks downright depressing with all the hustle and bustle on that corner.

[ocman]

Faux historic street lamps? AhhHHhhhhhhHH!!!!!

If you want to have a sense of history, you have to earn it. That means make something contemporary and wait atleast 40 years until we begin to appreciate it in a historical context. But instant history? That's something the makers of The Grove would come up with. This is too low brow.

Atleast in downtown, they are reinstalling the ORIGINAL street lamps.

[Bernd]

^ Did you prefer what they had, ocman?