A new affordable housing project has been planned for development at 639 Commonwealth Avenue in Koreatown, Los Angeles. The project proposal includes the redevelopment of Wilshire Town House, a hotel turned affordable housing complex. The project will allow the Wilshire Town House to undergo a seismic retrofit.
639 Commonwealth L.P., the Koreatown-based entity owns the property. Lahmon Architects is responsible for the design concepts.
639 Commonwealth Avenue via Lamon Architects
The historic hotel was built by oil magnate Edward Doheny in 1929 as an apartment-hotel. The property was later converted in to a luxury hotel, eventually under the ownership of Conrad Hilton and later the Sheraton hotel chain. By 1993, the hotel had closed, clearing the way for a conversion of the property into 142 units of income-restricted housing.
The Town House, also called the Sheraton Town House, has remained largely unchanged in the subsequent three decades, but is primed for an expansion as the more than 90-year-old building faces the prospects of a seismic retrofit.
The developer is now laying the groundwork for the construction of a new residential building on the site which would fully replace the existing 142 units located within the Town House. This provides space to relocate existing tenants on-site, permitting the state-mandated retrofit to move forward.
The replacement housing consists of a seven-story building, offering a mix of one-bedroom, two-bedroom, three-bedroom, and four-bedroom dwellings. The units will average between 563 and 1,303 square feet in size. The new project will also offer underground parking for 63 vehicles.
While the new construction is being entitled through the Transit Oriented Communities incentives, which will require that 15 units be set aside for rent by extremely low-income households, the findings indicate that all existing affordability covenants attached to the Town House will be transferred to the new building, making it fully affordable housing for a period of at least 55 years.
The project site sits across the street from Lafayette Park, at the northwest corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Commonwealth Avenue.
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Need 1 bed room
Glad to see this historic building being renovated, and adapted for affordable housing. Hope the developer restores and incorporates any architectural details in the new design? 😊