Pasadena mixed-user will bring 550 apartments to Gold Line-adjacent site

A sizeable Pasadena project near the Gold Line’s former terminus has been given the green light by city officials, and we’re getting a good look at what the project is expected to look like.

The eight-building complex is being developed by High Street Residential, a subsidiary of Trammell Crow Company. In the works for about 12 years, plans were finally given the green light on July 17 by Pasadena city officials, according to Pasadena Now.

Designed by architect Steinberg Hart, the development will hold nearly 10,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space and 2 acres of open space. It will bring 550 new apartments to the neighborhood—481 market-rate, 23 moderate-income, and 46 low-income.

Despite its proximity to the Gold Line’s Sierra Madre Villa station, the development will include 839 parking spaces, spread across above- and below-ground structures. RELM will do the landscape architecture for the project.

The roughly 8.5-acre property is occupied now by a public storage facility called Space Bank, but from the late 1940s to the 1970s, the site was home a naval testing facility. Because of that, the land will have to be cleaned up before housing is placed on it.

A spokesperson for Steinberg Hart tells Curbed that a handful of elements from the site’s days as a naval facility will be incorporated into the future mixed-user: a missile silo, torpedo, flagpole, and a Navy anchor seal.

As Pasadena Now notes, the project site does back up directly against the 210 Freeway—a sticking point for some Pasadena officials who said the property was too close to the freeway to be safe for residents.

The developer agreed to add heavy-duty air filters to the project, but that didn’t assuage some Pasadena officials’ fears. Councilmember Gene Masuda told Pasadena Now: “To me, this was a project that was saying, ‘It’s okay to live near the freeway.’ That is not something we should be saying.”

Via City of Pasadena

• Council Moves ‘Space Bank’ Foothill Boulevard Project Forward Despite Toxins Concerns [Pasadena Now]