City Approves 80-Unit MacArthur Park Mixed-Use Development Plans

The Los Angeles planning department has given approvals to plans for a seven-story, 80-unit mixed-use project in the MacArthur Park neighborhood at the corner of South Vermont and Leeward Avenues, according to a determination letter filed by the city last week. The owner and applicant behind the plans is 730 Vermont Venture LLC, a company managed by ELK Development founder Evan Kasper, state business filings show.

Slated for 730 S. Vermont Avenue and 3077 Leeward Ave., the project will replace about 7,420 square feet of commercial uses with a new roughly 71,000-square-foot mixed-use building. Plans call for about 1,500 square feet of ground-floor commercial space below six levels of apartments.

Planning approvals allow for Tier-3 project incentives under the city’s transit-oriented communities program, including a 70-percent density bonus and 25-percent open space reduction to about 8,500 square feet.

The project is eligible for tax-advantaged investment under the federal Opportunity Zone program. Elk OZ Fund III LLC is listed in state business filings as a manager for the project applicant, which county property records show acquired the project site for $10.2 million last year.

The project applicant is also registered to the address of Renewable Energy Alternatives, a Missouri company that is also tied to a Palms multifamily project approved this month.

Designed by project architect OfficeUntitled, the new building will hold 40 studios, seven three-bedrooms, 16 four-bedrooms, and 17 five-bedrooms. It will provide 69 automobile parking spaces and 76 bicycle stalls.

Also involved in the development is landscape architect SQLA, along with land-use and development consulting firm Alchemy Planning + Land Use.