The Walgreens/Loft Development at Sunset and Western may have spurred a local trend of mixing small-box retailers with housing. The WEHO News reports that the much maligned Walgreens set to replace the soon to be demolished Crescent Square at the corner of Santa Monica and Crescent Heights will now include 28 loft units.
Mayor Abbe Land told WeHoNews.com this week that she had expressed her “concerns” to Walgreens when they bought the land. “I explained to them that we as a city had particular needs as far as housing, as far as the way we wanted our main street to look and feel, that we didn’t want to drive the small merchants out of the city with big developments and that we didn’t want some big box,” she said. The Views at 270 project (pictured above) was a first of its kind (for California) mixed-use development at the corner of Sunset and Western. Like the West Hollywood project, it took some political intervention (err... arm twisting) to get the project built. Here's to more arm twisting in the New Year!
(Picture of Views at 270 via M2A Architects)
· Walgreens Lofts Plans For Mixed-Use Project [WEHO News]