Over the weekend, the little row of vintage shops on Santa Monica Boulevard near Sunset Boulevard in Sunset Junction were demolished. We first heard in August that the shop owners had been told to vacate and that developer Frost/Chaddock would be going ahead with plans for a four story mixed-use building. According to the Eastsider LA, the developer met with city council district staff and neighborhood council representatives on August 24 and "said there was no talk of demolition"--but that was the same day someone filed for demolition permits with the Department of Building and Safety.
When Curbed got wind of the potential demolition back in August, a rep from area Councilmember Eric Garcetti's office confirmed that the project would be four stories of mixed use with 90 units of residential, as first introduced in January 2009. We tried developer Frost/Chaddock again today, but they're not answering or returning calls.
Elizabeth Bougart-Sharkov, who heads the Silver Lake Neighborhood Council's Urban Design & Preservation Committee, told Eastsider that work had been underway to nominate the building as a city historic-cultural monument--it was once home to pioneering gay bookstore A Different Light. The narrow miss on the historic designation recalls developer BRE's demolition of the Columbia Savings building on Wilshire before preservationists could get the building to a hearing with the California Register of Historical Resources--that parcel at Wilshire and La Brea is still sitting empty.
· Silver Lake gay landmark gets bulldozed [Eastsider]
· Silver Lake demolition takes city and neighborhood leaders by surprise [Eastsider]
· Sunset Junction Vintage Shops Making Way for Mixed-Use [Curbed LA]
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