California Association of Realtors’ 130-Unit Mixed-Use Project Moved Forward

The project would replace the association's Rampart Village office building
525 Virgil Rendering(1)
Rendering: Official

The Los Angeles planning department has approved a 130-unit mixed-use project proposed by the California Association of Realtors to replace the association’s current office building, according to a determination letter filed by the city on Friday. The filing follows a late January LA City Council decision deeming the project, which is slated for 525 S. Virgil Ave. in the Rampart Village neighborhood, exempt from California Environmental Quality Act review.

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Fronting both Virgil and Westmoreland Avenues, the project site currently holds a roughly 40,000-square-foot office building that plans call to be demolished to make way the association’s project, which is named Pathway to Homeownership. Along with a new three-story office building, designs involve two residential buildings rising from the same one-story podium: one eight-story apartment tower with 84 units and one six-story condominium tower with 46 units.

“The Project proposes to create affordable workforce for sale and rental housing and a contemporary office space at the site of the existing California Association of Realtors’ Los Angeles headquarters,” development consultant three6ixty wrote in application materials for the development.

The apartment building will contain 35 studios, 21 one-bedrooms, and 28 two-bedrooms, while the condo building will include 30 ones and 16 twos. All of the units will have just one bathroom each, with the apartments ranging in size from 433 square feet to 840 square feet and the condos ranging from 626 square feet to 817 square feet. The development will reserve 19 units for very low income households.

The California Association of Realtors, which owns the site, submitted the project application in July. Along with three6ixty, it is also joined by project architect EYRC Architects and landscape architect Pamela Burton & Company, according to application documents. Planning materials also list LA-based multifamily developer Thomas Safran & Associates as developer for the project.

Each of the project’s three buildings will be oriented around about 4,000 square feet of outdoor space designed for the development’s second level. Connections among the three buildings include a 15-foot-wide, open air pedestrian bridge between the podium level and the condo tower, which itself will also have a 4,000-square-foot rooftop garden.

In all, 166 parking spaces will be built for the project’s residential portions and 26,632-square-foot office component. The development will also provide 108 bicycle spaces.

Slated to rise within half a mile of the Wilshire / Vermont Metro Station, the project was awarded Tier-3 project incentives under the city’s transit-oriented communities program, including a 70-percent increase in density and 11-foot height increase.

Rendering: Official
Rendering: Official
Rendering: Official
Rendering: Official
Rendering: Official
Rendering: Official
Rendering: Official
Rendering: Official
Dean Boerner

Dean Boerner

Dean Boerner is a California-based writer previously with Bisnow and the San Francisco Business Times. He received his bachelor's degree in economics and business from Saint Mary's College of California, where he also served as the editor-in-chief of The Collegian, the school's campus newspaper. Before that, he spent two years as the publication's sports editor, and he remains a committed fan, for better or worse, of his Sacramento Kings, San Francisco Giants, and Saint Mary's Gaels.
Dean Boerner

Dean Boerner

Dean Boerner is a California-based writer previously with Bisnow and the San Francisco Business Times. He received his bachelor's degree in economics and business from Saint Mary's College of California, where he also served as the editor-in-chief of The Collegian, the school's campus newspaper. Before that, he spent two years as the publication's sports editor, and he remains a committed fan, for better or worse, of his Sacramento Kings, San Francisco Giants, and Saint Mary's Gaels.

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