You know that humble car wash at the corner of Olympic and Figueroa near the Staples Center? The one that looks like it belongs in The Valley, not an increasingly slick downtown? Well, it's going away, and it's going to be replaced by a giant, new and properly funky-looking 60-story tower over the next few years.
Take a look at the architectural renderings below, whipped up by the Monrovia-based architecture firm Nardi Associates. Though they're pretty rough, they preview what will inevitably become just another giant tower of hotel rooms and condos in DTLA's rapidly burgeoning skyline. In terms of particulars, the building will have 374 residential units, a 373-room hotel, some office space and about 65,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space.
More significantly, the building will contribute to the further expansion and redevelopment of the downtown neighborhood South Park into an extremely dense, extremely tall and extremely expensive neighborhood. The next five years or so will see land that was once just pricey parking for Lakers fans transformed into a veritable sea of large glass buildings.
Among dozens of smaller projects, South Park is home to the enormous Fig-Central Development, which will add a trio of 40- to 49-story high-rises across the street from the Staples Center. Another Chinese developer is building a 42-story tower, along with two 30-story skyscrapers on the opposite corner from the Olympic Tower along Figueroa. Just to the north, at 8th Street, the Metropolis Project will be adding no less than five large buildings, ranging in heights from 19 stories, all the way up to 58(!).
By 2020, the neighborhood will be virtually unrecognizable, as thousands of affluent DTLA condo-buyers move in, bringing with them their designer dogs and "hoverboards."
Of course, the real winner here is owner of the car wash, a man named Robert Bush, who purchased the plot of land in 1980 for $525,000. In May of 2014, Bush sold the property to developer Ben Neman for a whopping $22 million, according to the L.A. County Assessor's office. May he retire in peace.
[h/t to Curbed LA]
