City approves 16-story Koreatown project alongside historic Art Deco tower

The Los Angeles City Council signed off Tuesday on a major new Koreatown development that will rise directly behind the neighborhood’s historic Wilshire Professional Building, an Art Deco-style landmark at the northeast corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Saint Andrews Place.

Located two blocks from the Wilshire/Western Purple Line stop, the project is being developed by Jamison Services, a Los Angeles-based firm that’s currently working on over a dozen other developments in the neighborhood. It will replace the parking lot behind the 1929-built office tower with a 16-story residential building containing 196 units of housing.

The building will be constructed atop a multi-level parking garage with 317 parking spaces for cars and 216 spots for bikes. It’s not clear yet whether the housing would be apartments or condos, but residents will have access to amenities like a lounge, fitness room, dog run, and rooftop deck.

Jamison also owns the Wilshire Professional Building and has no plans to alter it as part of the project. The new structure—set to rise just 20 feet from its neighbor—will be around the same height, though renderings suggest it won’t be particularly similar in style.

Designed by GMP Architects, the building will have white walls and a glassy exterior, dotted with large balconies for residents. A grilled screen will wrap the lower floors of the structure, helping to mask the parking structure.

Plans for the project indicate that it will take about 23 months to construct, so expect work to wrap up sometime around 2020, if all goes according to schedule.