LINCOLN HEIGHTS, CA-Developer Creative Environments is scheduled to debut its $25-million Lacy Lofts project tomorrow, opening the doors to 45 live/work lofts on a site that formerly housed four industrial buildings. The project is in the heart of historic Lincoln Heights, just east of the intersection of Figueroa Street and 26th Avenue, a block north of the Metro Gold Line 26th Avenue Station.

The new project returns residential units to a neighborhood that was an upscale bedroom community with lavish Victorian mansions perched on bluffs above the Los Angeles River near the turn of the 19th century. Gradually, the area went into a state of decline that lasted for decades.

Creative Environments acquired four low-rise industrial buildings on approximately 100,000 sf of land in the spring of 2005. The development firm, in addition to creating the project, has moved its headquarters there.

The units at Lacy Lofts range from 900 sf to 2,000 sf. They include features such as upper mezzanines open to exposed wood beam ceilings, polished concrete flooring, brick walls, custom steel spiral staircases and "storefront" windows.

Creative Environments was founded by local real estate veterans Jerry Schneiderman and Howard A. Sadowsky, chairman and vice chairman respectively of the firm. Since its inception in 2003, CEH has become an investor, developer and manager of urban live/work lofts, with more than 20 projects totaling 1.1 million sf and valued at more than $1 billion built or under development.

Sadowsky comments that the firm moved its offices into the project because, "our belief in this neighborhood is so strong" and because the neighborhood represents "the heart and soul of Los Angeles." Schneiderman says that Creative Environments believes in working in areas like Lincoln Heights and many other Los Angeles neighborhoods that the firm sees as "overlooked and underutilized."