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Koreatown Will Get A Community Center And 13-Story Tower In Huge Project Coming To Vermont
L.A. County supervisors have unanimously green-lighted today a massive project to revitalize a big section of Koreatown, reports Curbed LA.
Construction will happen on a stretch of Vermont Avenue between 4th and 6th streets. The project, dubbed the Vermont Corridor, is comprised of three sites on which two new buildings will rise, with an existing building being turned into a complex of market-rate residential units.
At 510-532 S. Vermont Ave., designated as "site one," a 13-story tower will be constructed to serve as the headquarters of the Department of Mental Health, reports Urbanize. The 400,000-square-foot office building will also include 10,000 square feet of retail space on the ground floor.
At site two on 6th Street and Vermont Ave., the current headquarters of the DMH will be remodeled as a 12-story building that offers market-rate housing. County documents indicate there'll be 172 units available. The third site, at 453 S. Vermont Avenue, the current headquarters for the L.A. County Department of Parks and Recreation will be replaced with an affordable housing complex that includes 72 units, as well as a 12,550 square feet community center at ground level.
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The community center may be the most talked-about aspect of the project so far. As noted at Curbed LA, locals have lamented the lack of public recreation areas in the vicinity. Residents say that the local YMCA, which opened just two years ago, is struggling to keep up with demand. The LA Times noted that Koreatown is especially "park poor" in an already park poor city. While city planners say that, ideally, there should be three acres of park space for every 1,000 residents, Koreatown only has 0.07 acres per 1,000, which is about the size of three-fourths of a basketball court. The Trammell Crow Company was selected out of four applicants to be the developers on the project. The project is expected to total $453 million.
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