Jewelry District building set to become offices, restaurants, art gallery

Another lovely old building in Downtown LA is slated to become office space after selling for $14 million to investment firm Bow West Capital.

The seller is development firm UrbanBlox, which bought the almost 55,000-square-foot building 2.5 years ago for $8.54 million, according to an announcement from real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield, which represented UrbanBlox.

The building at 720 South Hill Street, in the Jewelry District, was constructed in 1913.

UrbanBlox had already secured permits to serve alcohol in a forthcoming restaurant at the building’s street level. It had also begun to do some of the initial construction work to transform the building for offices, and it had already put all of the building’s tenants on month-to-month leases.

“The huge uptick on pricing to $14 million in this short period of time is a testament to the seller’s efforts to deliver a near turnkey project,” says Cushman & Wakefield’s executive managing director Mike Condon, Jr.

A representative for Bow West Capital says his firm will “immediately” begin working to put in ground-floor restaurants, an art gallery on the building’s mezzanine level, and creative offices from the third to seventh floors.

The building is located in between Seventh and Eighth streets on Hill Street—a half-block away from a planned residential conversion of the Foreman and Clark building at the corner of Seventh and Hill.

• New look at plans for Downtown LA’s historic Foreman and Clark building [Curbed LA]