Most of developer Geoff Palmer's Da Vinci apartment complex may have gone up in smoke, but like a Phoenix, Palmer always seem to rise from the ashes. The second phase of his Broadway Palace development broke ground last week at 928 S. Broadway, directly across from the Ace Hotel. It's not often that entirely new buildings go up along newly-bustling Broadway, so this'll be one to watch. The building will have 439 units (studios, one-, and two-bedrooms), 35,000 square feet of retail, and 1,152 parking spaces (!!) in a subterranean garage, according to Urbanize LA.
The BP will not be nearly as ugly or squat as most of Palmer's projects—those ugly fauxtalian fortresses you see lurking around freeways with names like the Orsini and the Piero—thanks to the Broadway Design Guide, which dictates standards for the historic corridor; it'll be 10 stories along Broadway, but just six on the Main Street side. The first part of the Broadway Palace, across Olympic Boulevard, broke ground last fall. It'll have 240 units and 17,500 square feet of retail space in six stories.
Palmer appears to be learning some lessons with Broadway Palace. This will be the first of his projects to be built on a vibrant, pedestrian-focused thoroughfare, so he should have significantly more success leasing street-level retail than he has elsewhere. The very sketchy drawings that have been released also depict a modest building coated in classic red brick, a marked improvement over the plaster look of his Renaissance Collection fortresses.
This is still Palmer, though—he's applied for permission to connect the two parts of the BP with a pedestrian skybridge over Olympic Boulevard. Taking people off the street doesn't really jibe with the whole (largely very successful) project to revitalize Broadway, but considering the development falls in skybridge-enabler Jose Huizar's City Council district, don't be surprised if Palmer gets his bridge.
The building is set to open in early 2017, assuming disgruntled Jane Jacobs acolytes don't burn this one down too. —Ian Grant
· Mid-Rise Apartment Complex Breaks Ground on Broadway [Urbanize LA]
· All the Details on the Huge Apartment Buildings Planned For Broadway and Ninth [Curbed LA]
· Geoff Palmer Wants to Put a Skybridge Above One of Downtown's Most Bustling Areas [Curbed LA]
· 7 Awful Stories About the Man Destroying Downtown LA [Curbed LA]
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