Southwestern Law School is reviving a long-stalled plan to build student housing in Wilshire Center near Koreatown and MacArthur Park.
The school filed plans this month to build a seven-story, 133-unit residence at 2972 West 7th Street behind its building on Wilshire Boulevard.
School officials first proposed a student housing project in 2010 around 655 S. Wilshire Place in Koreatown. The city approved that plan, but appeals against it stalled development. But in 2014, the city granted the project an extension.
Now, the law school is applying for a height bonus through the city’s Transit-Oriented Communities program, created to encourage denser projects near public transportation hubs with affordable components. The program applies to any housing development within a half-mile of an existing or planned rail station. Southwestern Law is next to the Metro Purple and Red line station at Vermont Avenue.
The school is located at the Bullocks Wilshire Building at 3050 Wilshire Boulevard. The 230,000-square-foot Art Deco building was designed in 1929 by Los Angeles architects John and Donald Parkinson as a luxury department store for John G. Bullocks.
It is a historic-cultural monument for the city, and it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. In 1994, the building was acquired by Southwestern Law School as part of its campus.