Koreatown strip malls to be replaced by hotel, residential, retail complex

A Koreatown shopping center at Eighth and Western could be replaced by a flashy new mixed-use development, if everything goes according to plan.

According to an environmental report published today by the planning department, developers Western Plaza Capital Holdings, LLC envision a 12-story building with a hotel, retail, and apartments, adaptive reuse of an existing Art Deco structure, and a new three-story commercial building on the site at 800 South Western.

The 12-story structure would hold a 148-room hotel, 96 apartments, and nearly 60,000 square feet of retail space. Five percent of the apartments would be available to very low income households. Renderings by TCA Architects show the taller building as an eye-catching structure with one corner that looks to be made of glassy cubes.

The shorter commercial building would rise along Western Avenue, meeting with the adaptively reused Art Deco structure (IB Plaza) to create a J-shaped space whose interior crook would be ringed with shops.

TCA’s website says the complex’s design is “a modern abstraction of Art Deco and Streamline Moderne,” to echo the style of the on-site building that will be incorporated into the new project. (The other existing building on the site, Eden Plaza, would be razed.)

No start date has been officially announced for the project at 800 South Western, but an environmental report for the project says construction is expected to begin in December and wrap up in two years.

The project is a short walk south of the Wiltern music venue and the Wilshire/Western Purple Line subway station. It’s one of more than 40 new projects planned or underway in the neighborhood.

• ENV-2016-3609 [Department of City Planning]
• Hotel and 6 restaurants proposed for Koreatown near the Wiltern [Curbed LA]