8th and Western

Jamison Properties is making another historic move in Koreatown. One of the pioneers in developing the Koreatown market, the developer is now taking on an historic Art Deco parking garage with plans to build new retail and residences. The parking garage was built in 1931 and is a five-story parking structure. The eponymous project is located on 8^th and Western.

"The developer wanted to keep the parking structure because of its eligibility as a landmark sometime in the future," Keith McCloskey, associate principal at KTGY Architecture and Planning. "They also wanted to keep some component of retail. We also looked at ways to create a brand new residential tower. However, the existing parking structure couldn't accommodate the requirements for the new residential building and the retail. We went with an L-shaped garage that wrapped the historic building with a new parking structure."

The new project will include renovating the existing parking structure and retail and building 230- apartment units and 13,300 square feet of retail the new eight-story development. Jamison has owned the property for years, and had more lofty plans initially. "There was a previously entitled version of the project in 2018. That was a larger and more aggressive project in terms of the impact to the historical structure and included a taller new structure along 8^th Street," says McCloskey. "Jamison found that the cost of Type 1 high-rise construction wasn't feasible. They hired us to rethink the development and maximize the efficiency of an eight-story type 3 structure."

Preserving the parking structure was a necessity for Jamison, which sees the historic piece of Los Angeles. "The developers wanted to keep a piece of local history, In addition, the City of L.A. goes through an exercise to develop eligible properties, and that makes it more cumbersome for a developer to demolish it," says McCloskey. "Given the automotive culture of the 1940s, this type of structure is very rare, so I think there was an interest to preserve it."

Despite the existing structure and the TOC nature of the development, the property was still under parked. "Right now, the retail on the site has surface parking and parking in the structure," says McCloskey. "We are a tier 3 TOC project, which does get reduced parking by the City of L.A. standards, but we didn't get anything additional because of the existing structure. The garage is actually fairly inefficient, and we needed to use the existing garage, subterranean garage and the rooftop to make the parking work."

8^th & Western is scheduled for delivery in early 2022.