Vernon-adjacent warehouse might be converted to artist lofts

The booming and increasingly expensive Arts District has been creeping south, past its traditional boundary of 7th Street, but a new project intended for artists goes way south—south of the 10 freeway, right on the border with Vernon.

New plans filed with the city shows developer NBA 25th Street LLC plans to convert an industrial warehouse into 49 artist-in-residence units.

There’s a precedent for artist housing in the area: There’s at least one other live/work warehouse in the neighborhood—the Santa Fe Arts Colony is just around the corner from this newly proposed warehouse conversion.

The Colony’s been operating at its site since 1988, according to its website. When it opened, the Colony was “Los Angeles' first large-scale, city-subsidized housing for low-income artists,” wrote the Los Angeles Times.

With the Arts District becoming more and more high-end, it seems like developer excitement for the neighborhood has spilled over, with new projects popping up in AD-adjacent areas, such as the 236-unit mixed-user planned for an Industrial District lot at 6th and Central.

• Mixed-use project planned for strip mall in Downtown’s Industrial District [Curbed LA]