The MacArthur Park Apartments "will provide much-needed affordable family housing and help revitalize the Westlake/MacArthur Park community, one of the city's historic neighborhoods and one of its most dense," according to Leslie Lambert, CRA/LA's regional administrator for the Hollywood & Central Region, which includes the Westlake Recovery Redevelopment Project. The first phase of the development on Westlake Avenue will include 90 affordable rental units for families, 15,000 square feet of ground floor neighborhood-serving retail and 100 parking spaces for Metro commuters. The project will sit above the Metro Rail Line subway tunnel, which runs underneath the Metro-owned site.

The second phase, to be built above the Metro station on Alvarado Street, will add 82 units and 17,000 square feet of retail space. Both developments require special foundation systems to distribute the weight of the buildings across the subway tunnel.

Each phase will include a community room for community events and public programming. New sidewalks, curbs and gutters, street trees and underground utilities will accompany the development. The building will contain sustainable features to lower utility costs and the development will provide monthly transit passes for each household.

CRA/LA provided a $1.4 million predevelopment loan in 2007 that helped get the project under way. The Los Angeles Housing Partnership is a nonprofit corporation begun in 1989 to create and preserve affordable housing in the City and County of Los Angeles for low-income households and the homeless. McCormack Baron Salazar has worked with CRA/LA on a number of developments including Metro Apartments above the Hollywood and Western Metro station and the Triangle Square senior housing and Carlton Court Apartments, both in Hollywood. The president of Polis Builders is Nick Patsaouras, a former MTA Board member and selected developer of several MTA owned sites.

The Westlake Recovery Redevelopment Project area of 633 acres was adopted in l999 to include the streets surrounding MacArthur Park just west of downtown Los Angeles and within CRA/LA's Hollywood & Central Region. The project seeks to encourage economic development, create new housing, rehabilitate existing residences and businesses, and improve public services and infrastructure.