Whole Foods slated to open in Cumulus development in West Adams

In advance of the late 2020 opening of its Cumulus project, developer Carmel Partners has announced an anchor retail tenant: Whole Foods.

“This vibrant neighborhood needs a health-oriented grocery store as well as a variety of restaurant and retail options,” Neils Cotter, partner at Carmel Partners, said in a statement.

The 50,000-square-foot grocery store would take up about half of the available retail and restaurant space in the under-construction West Adams project, which will also hold 1,200 apartments and a one-acre park designed by Studio-MLA, nearly 2,400 parking spaces, and a 30-story high-rise.

(Another fairly recent Carmel Partners project, the Eighth & Grand in Downtown LA, also brought a Whole Foods to the neighborhood when it opened 2016.)

Plans approved by the city called for 200,000 square feet of office space, but it’s unclear if that is still included in the project, because Carmel declined to answer questions beyond its press release.

The Cumulus complex is designed by TCA Architects, while its tower is designed by Solomon Cordwell Buenz. The whole project is located just north of the La Cienega/Jefferson Expo Line station, and construction is visible from the light rail line.

Cumulus is also located very close to the neighborhood’s border with Culver City, which has seen an influx of tech, content, and entertainment companies in the last few years.

HBO’s headquarters are moving to an under-construction complex next to the Culver City Expo Line stop. Amazon Studios is expected to take up about 70 percent of the space at an in-progress expansion of the Culver Studios, also near the city’s eponymous Expo Line station.

Carmel Partners bought the 11-acre site in 2016, paying almost $111 million. That same year, the developer was sued by the Crenshaw Subway Coalition and the Friends of the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative in an attempt to halt the tower’s construction.