City Market is the enormous project set to completely transform Downtown LA's fashion district. While one small part that involves reusing old buildings is already under construction, turning old warehouses and commercial buildings into a retail and foodie haven called City Market South, the bulk of the project—covering 10 acres—has just released its big draft environmental impact report (via Urbanize LA). The report reveals how the project would turn what was for decades a wholesale produce neighborhood into a retail/education/office/hotel/residential insta-neighborhood over a period of 25 years.
↑ City Market's two-building hotel will sit at the corner of Olympic and San Julian and hold 210 rooms. The hotel (approximately 112,000 square feet) is aimed at out-of-town business people and is expected to have a rooftop pool, a bar, and a "full scale restaurant and lounge." The residential units will be spread out, with the 945 total units mostly one-bedrooms, two-bedrooms, three-bedrooms, and live/work lofts (the lofts will all be in one building on the east side of San Julian). One more view:
↑ The educational element of the City Market complex would sit on a section of the block bordered by Ninth, San Julian, and San Pedro Streets. Spread across three buildings, there would be about 312,000 square feet of space for one or multiple educational institutions, with about 11,500 square feet of retail. The project description states that the project is seeking entitlements that would also allow for the educational space to be used for corporate offices. One more view:
↑ City-Market-watchers can expect to see "restaurants, bars, event space, wholesale uses and a cinema with approximately 744 seats" among the uses in the development's nearly 225,000 square feet of retail. A grocery store and a nightclub are also mentioned in the DEIR. All the retail is aimed at driving pedestrian traffic and enticing people to stroll.
↑ The office space component (almost 295,000 square feet) would be at the south end, with the educational uses, at San Julian, San Pedro and Twelfth Streets. Developers think it could end up being used as a mixture of creative offices, regular office space, and medical offices.
↑ Building is expected to happen in four phases across 25 years. The first grouping of construction will see some residential, office, and educational building, plus all the hotel units. The parking will be peppered throughout the development, with a total of 3,671 parking spots in podiums and underground parking.
↑ The plans for greenspace and pedestrian improvements (here seen at street level) include benches and "pedestrian-scale lighting," plus plazas mid-block, one (maybe two) parklets, courtyards, and elevated walkways. Pedestrians will also see a lot of advertising: the project is hoping to get a new "sign district" that will allow it to display up to 78,517 square feet of all sorts of signs, including supergraphics, roof signs, wall signs, and digital billboards.
· Breaking Down the Massive City Market Development [Urbanize LA]
· Behold: First Look at Fashion District Megaproject City Market [Curbed LA]
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