LOS ANGELES—Move aside Hayden Tract. Downtown Culver City is the current development hotspot in the emerging submarket. While the growth—mainly creative office redevelopment—started in the Hayden Tract, it has spread around the stretch of Washington Blvd. surrounding the new EXPO Line in the Downtown area with a handful of highly anticipated development. The new projects are popping up so quickly, it might be hard to keep track, but we sat down with Lee Shapiro, EVP at Kennedy Wilson, to guide us through the development battleground in Downtown Culver City.

“The developments are all happening within seven blocks,” Shapiro tells GlobeSt.com. He gives us a rundown of the development activity in the area, moving East to West, some newly completed to huge success, while others are just breaking ground. Access Culver City on the corner of Washington and National houses Bank of the West and a co-op grocer from Santa Monica. Further up the block sits the Platform, the tremendously popular retail and entertainment center. On the same block are two other developments: The Ivy Station, a fully integrated mixed-use complex with a hotel, retail, apartments and office, and Surface, a vertical development.

Shapiro doesn't stop. He moves further west to highlight 9300 Culver, formerly the Culver Steps, a retail and office development with 50,000 square feet of retail and 70,000 square feet of office. There are also development projects planned for the former Washington Mutual and Bank of the West sites in the same area. “There is additional development further west,” he says, describing the truly massive scale of the development activity there.

“That submarket of that intersection is going to have an immense amount of density with a daytime and evening population and the train right there,” explains Shapiro. “That is really an interesting conglomeration.”

There has been growth across asset classes, although Shapiro admits, “We haven't seen in the core downtown submarket much growth in the office density.” The creative office redevelopment was focused in the Hayden Tract. The Downtown Culver City boom has seen a different development trend, one more focused on restaurants. “Retail has grown, but really a lot of restaurants as well. You have really seen more growth in the restaurant sector. Culver City has also received attention from boutique restaurants as well as corporate restaurants,” he says.

Instant Insights /

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