Proposed DTLA tower gets haircut, but not off the top

Plans for a 41-story mixed-used tower in Downtown are being scaled back courtesy of the city’s environmental review. But the change isn’t so dramatic.

Mitsui Fudosan America’s Eighth & Figueroa — also known as 8th & Fig — will be 12 percent smaller, and will include 438 residential units and 7,493 square feet of ground-floor commercial space, according to Urbanize.

The project, which will replace a parking lot at 732 South Figueroa Street, will now encompass 425,000 square feet, down from the previous design of 482,000 square feet. The change satisfies environmental requirements.

The actual height of the proposed project will increase from 501 feet to 530 feet to account for mechanical space at the roof level.

It is unclear exactly how the space was reduced, but a 2016 version of the plans called for 11,000 square feet of retail. 

The current mixed-use tower will have 80 studios, 264 one-bedroom apartments and 94 two-bedroom units. It will also include parking for 517 vehicles on seven levels, four of them underground.

The boxy glass-and-steel look of the project, being designed by Johnson Fain, will remain mostly the same as the project presented in March of 2018, Urbanize reported.

The project is expected to be completed in 2022.

Mitsui has owned the project site for more than 30 years, and also owns a parking garage one block away, where another high-rise project is underway. 

Brookfield Properties is building an even more massive 64-story mixed-use tower about a block away, at 945 W. Eighth Street, that will have 781 condos and 6,700 square feet of retail space. [Urbanize] — Alexei Barrionuevo