Plot twist: A market-rate developer wants Hollywood apartment tower to be fully rent-controlled

This has taken an unexpected turn.

Champion Real Estate announced it would make all of the 210 units at 6220 Yucca near Capitol Records in Hollywood fully rent-controlled, Curbed reported. That will cap rent increases at 3 percent per year, according to the city’s rent control stabilization ordinance.

In the same announcement, Champion said that it will move tenants in the existing building — which it plans to demolish — into “a comparable unit” in the new project, with unchanged rents. It will also temporarily relocate tenants to new units in the neighborhood and pay any added cost to their rent. The decision comes after tenants in the existing, aging low-rise apartment buildings formed a group to fight the project amid fears of displacement.

The 210 new apartments are part of a mixed development called 6220 Yucca. A four-story building next door to the apartments will hold 136 hotel rooms, shops and restaurants. Construction is expected to begin in 2019 and be complete by 2022.

Rents for the complex will be determined further down the line. It is unclear what, if any, benefits the developer will receive for providing the affordable units, aside from appeasing its opposition.

Champion has been churning nice profits off land sales – it offloaded a 1.75-acre parcel at 1600 N. Highland Avenue for nearly $40 million at the end of 2015 and sold a 50,000-square-foot parking lot to Jamison Services for $23 million last year. [Curbed] – Natalie Hoberman