City officials select market-rate housing proposal for vacant South LA site

The decision to forego two other plans that included affordable housing could be a difficult pill to swallow for Mayor Eric Garcetti

The South Los Angeles lot
The South Los Angeles lot

A mixed-use development with 160 market-rate units could rise on a South Los Angeles lot that has sat vacant for nearly a quarter-century.

Earlier this month, the city’s Economic and Workforce Development Department asked Mayor Eric Garcetti and the City Council to sign off on the proposal for the two-acre site at 9402-9422 S. Broadway, after selecting it in a competitive bidding process, Urbanize reported.

Along with the market-rate housing, the proposal by 94B, LLC — a partnership between Datum Development, Bollenbach Investments, Community Health Councils and New York-based Morphosis Architects — calls for a grocery store, hydroponic farm and retail space for the site at the corner of 94th Street.

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City officials chose the 94B proposal over two others that both included affordable housing. That could be a difficult pill to swallow for the mayor, who has prioritized affordable development during his tenure. Affordable developer LINC Housing Corporation proposed 77 affordable units for the site and Nvision Development Group proposed 70.

The site was originally part of a 4.2 acre lot, but two of those acres have been developed into affordable housing over the years. Parties twice hatched plans for a grocery store on the site to serve those developments and the surrounding community, once in 2010 and again in 2013 after the city acquired it, but neither ever materialized. [Urbanize] – Dennis Lynch