Los Angeles is making a new push to turn empty and underused offices into housing.
One developer is holding a large portfolio of somewhat underutilized or vacant office buildings in Koreatown and Westlake, giving them a chance to respond to the city’s housing crisis.
Jamison, Koreatown’s largest commercial landlord, has owned office buildings along the Wilshire Boulevard corridor for decades and two more of its proposed conversions are near Lafayette Park in Westlake.
At least 15 Jamison office buildings in the two neighborhoods have been converted into housing, are under construction or under proposal for conversion into apartments, according to a review of city records and company documents.
Together, the projects could account for 3,652 apartments, though more than 900 of those units are still only proposals.
The landlord is primed for the moment as the city eased its restrictions earlier this year to convert older offices and other commercial buildings into housing.
The expansion of Adaptive Reuse Ordinance makes it easier to convert old offices, hotels and other commercial buildings into homes and previously only allowed conversions within or near downtown, but now those rules apply across the entire city.
City officials estimate this could open up more than 43,000 new homes possible across the city.
“These projects represent the kind of innovation we are applying to break away from the status quo that has stunted LA’s housing production and driven up rents for decades,” Mayor Karen Bass said in April. “Work from home and other shifts mean there is a large supply of office space that we can use for housing, but for too long, outdated city regulations stood in the way.”
Jaime Lee, Jamison’s former CEO, said in a March interview with the Los Angeles Times that the firm has stopped pursuing new ground-up construction as financing and other challenges have made it harder to build.
“We ourselves as a firm have been pencils down on ground-up construction for two years now,” Lee said. “What we’re really, really focused on is how can we make more units out of nothing, which is converting office buildings into multifamily.”
Here’s where those 15 projects stand. A spokesperson for Jamison acknowledged a request for comment, but the company did not immediately provide comment for this story.
Eight of the 15 projects are already finished, including Jamison’s first office-to-housing conversion in the area, which opened more than a decade ago.
Completed projects
Westmore, 3075 Wilshire Blvd.
The Westmore brought 127 apartments and ground-floor retail to a former office building at Wilshire Boulevard and Shatto Place in November 2013.
The nine-story building is on the eastern side of Koreatown, a few blocks east of Vermont Avenue and near the Wilshire/Vermont Metro station.
Westmore is the earliest completed Jamison office conversion identified in Koreatown and Westlake.
Crosby, 3350 Wilshire Blvd.
The 216-unit Crosby occupies a 1957 office tower that once served as Texaco’s West Coast headquarters. Designed by prominent Los Angeles architect Welton Becket, the building sits across from the historic Gaylord Apartments and near Immanuel Presbyterian Church.
The office conversion was completed in 2020 and the developer also built additional apartments on top of the adjoining parking garage, but those are excluded in this count because they weren’t created from office space.
Atlas House, 2500 Wilshire Blvd.
One block west of MacArthur Park, the 13-story Atlas House opened in 2022 with 248 apartments inside what had been a roughly 240,000-square-foot office building.
About 12,500 square feet of commercial space was kept on the ground floor.
Five other Jamison office conversions are already finished along the Wilshire corridor and total more than 860 apartments.
Recently opened and in the works
Grayson, 695 S. Vermont Ave.
Grayson is now open and leasing, with 255 apartments inside the former office tower.
The 19-story building dates to 1971 and was originally built as an expansion of Pacific Indemnity Co.’s headquarters, which also occupied the neighboring tower at 3200 Wilshire Blvd.
The conversion kept the existing tower and parking garage.
The building is a short walk from the Wilshire/Vermont Metro station.
Mason, 3325 Wilshire Blvd.
Mason is also now open and leasing, with 236 apartments inside a former 13-story office building.
The roughly 233,000-square-foot building is at Wilshire and Berendo, on the same block as Immanuel Presbyterian Church. About 15,000 square feet of retail space is on the ground floor, and the parking garage has 450 spaces.
Work on the conversion began in 2024. Jamison called Mason its 10th adaptive-reuse project, and the project was financed in part with $60 million in taxable multifamily housing revenue bonds, according to Urbanize LA.
Walker, 3550 Wilshire Blvd.
Construction is still underway at Walker, where a 20-story office tower is being turned into 507 apartments, making it the largest Jamison office-to-housing project identified in Koreatown and Westlake.
While the city originally approved 495 apartments, Jamison later added another 12 units on the 20th floor.
The building is a few blocks east of the Wilshire/Normandie Metro station.
3424 Wilshire Blvd.
Work is underway at 3424 Wilshire Blvd., where the former Los Angeles-area headquarters of IBM is being turned into 260 apartments.
The 13-story building dates to 1958 and has roughly 250,000 square feet of space. IBM originally occupied the property, and it later became the headquarters of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.
The conversion will turn the former office floors into apartments while keeping about 13,000 square feet of existing retail space. Plans also include racquetball courts, a fitness center, game and karaoke rooms and an outdoor deck, according to Urbanize LA.
Proposed projects
Jamison has filed plans with the city for the final three projects, but construction has not started, according to city records.
Wilshire Park Place, 3700 Wilshire Blvd.
Plans call for turning the 11-story Wilshire Park Place office tower into 370 apartments.
The building sits behind the large lawn commonly known as Liberty Park, one of the few green spaces in dense, park-poor Koreatown. Liberty Park is a privately owned green space that has been used for community gatherings, including World Cup watch parties. The park and office building were designated a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument in 2018 after a neighborhood campaign to preserve the site.
According to the proposal, some space inside the existing parking structure would be converted into amenities for residents.
520 S. La Fayette Park Place
A few blocks away, another six-story Westlake office building could become 141 apartments.
Plans filed in 2023 call for turning the roughly 95,000-square-foot building at 520 S. La Fayette Park Place into a mix of studios, one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments. The building sits on top of parking for nearly 200 vehicles.
600 S. Commonwealth Ave.
Next to Lafayette Park in Westlake, this 19-story office tower could become 428 apartments.
The nearly 350,000-square-foot building has long housed Los Angeles Superior Court offices. The proposal would turn the office space into 428 apartments, while keeping most of the building’s existing parking and converting some of it into storage and other spaces for residents.
At 428 apartments, it would be Jamison’s second-largest office conversion identified in Koreatown and Westlake, behind the 507-unit Walker project.
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