More apartments and office space slated for transitioning Panorama City

An apartment and office project is being planned in Panorama City, not far from a major residential development that will replace the vacant Montgomery Ward department store. Other parts of that San Fernando Valley neighborhood are under consideration for denser development, encouraging more commercial and residential construction.

A developer wants to build a 24-unit apartment with an office component, at 8802 North Van Nuys Boulevard, according to Urbanize.

The developer is Benjamin Cohen, who filed his plan through 8802 Van Nuys LLC. Cohen bought the property — roughly 8,500 square feet — from a family trust in January 2018 for $750,000, then transferred it to the LLC.

The new construction would replace a single-story office building dating from the 1960s, which is now operating as a church. Van Nuys Boulevard is one of the area’s main commercial strips.

The property isn’t far from the nine-acre Montgomery Ward site, where Bill Ruvelson’s Icon company recently received the go-ahead to build a mixed-use complex with 623 residential units. Under that development plan, Icon at Panorama will have 60,000 square feet of commercial space. It has been called a transformative project for the neighborhood.

The City of Los Angeles wants to rezone other parts of Panorama City to allow for denser development as well. [Urbanize] — Dennis Lynch