Appeal Filed Against City Approval Of 121-Unit, 125-Key La Brea Hotel Mixed-Use Project

A neighborhood resident and labor union have filed an appeal against the Los Angeles City Council’s approval of a 121-unit, 125-key hotel mixed-use project planned for 629 S. La Brea Ave., according to an appeal application filed with the city this week. The appellants are shown as Margaret Flores, Maya Barron, and UNITE HERE Local 11, who are appealing the entirety of an October City Council determination that gave the project environmental clearance and approvals.

The project applicant for the 629 S. La Brea Ave. development, which is slated for just north of Wilshire Blvd. at 623-671 S. La Brea Ave., is La Brea Bliss LLC, an entity registered to the Woodland Hills office of real estate investment company CGI Strategies. The reason for the appeal of the city’s decision isn’t specified in the appeal application, but the document was filed with an attached copy of a 30-day rent increase notice addressed to one of the appellants by their landlord.

If the appeal is denied by the city planning department and the project is moved forward, it will contain six three-bedroom units, 37 two-bedrooms, and 78 one-bedrooms, with 14 units, or about 11 percent of the total, set aside for extremely low-income households. With its affordable component and its location one block from the under-construction Wilshire/La Brea subway station, the development received approvals for Tier-4 project incentives under the city’s transit-oriented communities program, affording it an 80-percent density bonus, among other incentives.

Designs for the eight-story building call for seven residential and hotel levels over one level of ground-floor residential and hotel lobbies and more than 13,000-square-feet of commercial uses, as well as two levels of subterranean parking. Between those two levels and surface-level parking, the project calls for 185 parking spaces, along with 158 bicycle spaces.

Others involved in the project include project architect Togawa Smith Martin and entitlements consulting company three6ixty.

An affiliate of CGI Strategies acquired much of the total project site at 625-637 S. La Brea Ave. through a series of transactions totaling around $16 million, according to county records from 2018 and 2019.