North Hollywood Sees Development Bump

LOS ANGELES—Development in North Hollywood is taking off. In the last year a handful of apartment and retail development and redevelopment projects broke ground, and are proving to reshape and bring attention to the emerging market. The new development combined with strong transportation is making the North Hollywood area a target investment market for some investors.

The booming development in North Hollywood has attracted other investors, like MWest Holdings, which purchased the Lofts at NoHo Commons, a three-story, 292-unit 2007 class-A apartment building, for $102.5 million late last year. They see the development in the market as a major benefit. “Trammel Crow and Greenland across the street that joined together to redevelop a 15-acre parking lot. The property will double the amount of parking and build a huge mixed-use property there. To the East on Chandler, there is a vacant parcel that Greystar will develop. As the area fills in around us, we think we will benefit from it,” Matthew Ellis, SVP of MWest Holdings, tells GlobeSt.com.

The development projects are vast. While some of the biggest include the North Hollywood West mixed-use project, a redevelopment of the Laurel Plaza Shopping Center, and the redevelopment the Television Academy, transit-oriented development is the most prominent and the presence of the metro is driving interest. “You have the terminus of the Orange and the Red Line, which get you to Warner Center in one direction and Downtown in the other,” says Ellis. “When the City started expanding the metro, they wanted to incentivize developers to provide metro housing. There was a specific program here that was enhanced by the CRA to entice developers to develop here.”

MWest's Lofts at NoHo Commons is located in the epicenter of the development boom, and while some might see the development as a concern, MWest thinks that it will only boost the success of their building. “We can see that our project has longer legs as the metro project across the street comes out of the ground and adds longer-term value to a building that we think that we got into at the right time,” Karl Slovin, president of the MWest, tells GlobeSt.com “There will be more retail and more energy. This is a case of more is more.”

LOS ANGELES—Development in North Hollywood is taking off. In the last year a handful of apartment and retail development and redevelopment projects broke ground, and are proving to reshape and bring attention to the emerging market. The new development combined with strong transportation is making the North Hollywood area a target investment market for some investors.

The booming development in North Hollywood has attracted other investors, like MWest Holdings, which purchased the Lofts at NoHo Commons, a three-story, 292-unit 2007 class-A apartment building, for $102.5 million late last year. They see the development in the market as a major benefit. “Trammel Crow and Greenland across the street that joined together to redevelop a 15-acre parking lot. The property will double the amount of parking and build a huge mixed-use property there. To the East on Chandler, there is a vacant parcel that Greystar will develop. As the area fills in around us, we think we will benefit from it,” Matthew Ellis, SVP of MWest Holdings, tells GlobeSt.com.

The development projects are vast. While some of the biggest include the North Hollywood West mixed-use project, a redevelopment of the Laurel Plaza Shopping Center, and the redevelopment the Television Academy, transit-oriented development is the most prominent and the presence of the metro is driving interest. “You have the terminus of the Orange and the Red Line, which get you to Warner Center in one direction and Downtown in the other,” says Ellis. “When the City started expanding the metro, they wanted to incentivize developers to provide metro housing. There was a specific program here that was enhanced by the CRA to entice developers to develop here.”

MWest's Lofts at NoHo Commons is located in the epicenter of the development boom, and while some might see the development as a concern, MWest thinks that it will only boost the success of their building. “We can see that our project has longer legs as the metro project across the street comes out of the ground and adds longer-term value to a building that we think that we got into at the right time,” Karl Slovin, president of the MWest, tells GlobeSt.com “There will be more retail and more energy. This is a case of more is more.”