CIM continues South LA push

CIM Group has another plan for South Los Angeles in the works.

The developer is seeking approvals for a six-story apartment complex with nearly 10,000-square-foot of commercial space in the West Adams district.

The project’s primary address is 5213 W. Adams Boulevard, and the development would be 66-feet tall and include 74 residential units, six of which would be dedicated for extremely low-income housing. CIM took an interest in the site through an LLC for $2.6 million in July, records show.

The developer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The project seeks incentives under the City of L.A’.s Transit Oriented Communities program, which grants certain zoning exemptions for projects near public transit. It’s located near bus stops on West Adams Boulevard, less than a mile from the Expo/La Brea Metro station. CIM filed the project application with the city last week.

The application is the latest in a flurry of plans CIM has unveiled lately in various parts of South L.A., a broad swath of the city and various suburbs that’s generally seen as holding potential for new development.

Spurring developers in recent years has been the presence of the Expo Line light-rail route that passes through the area as it links Downtown Los Angeles to the oceanfront of Santa Monica. The light-rail line anchored various subsequent additions of public transit, helping draw new businesses such as architectural firms and other employers in the creative economy.

Those gains have combined with the generally hot housing market of recent years, the long-time strengths of middle- and high-income South LA enclaves such as Leimert Park and Baldwin Hills, and the West Adams district’s supply of elegant old homes to boost interest and property values in the area.

In March, CIM submitted an application for another West Adams mixed-use project near Jefferson and Crenshaw. That complex, located at 3017-3045 S. Crenshaw Boulevard — about a mile and a half from the W. Adams Boulevard site — would include 168 apartments and 40,000 square feet of ground floor retail space. It also seeks incentives under the Transit Oriented Communities program.

Earlier this month CIM also proposed an eight-story mixed -use complex at 2211 South Western Avenue.

That project, in South L.A.’s Jefferson Park neighborhood, would include 70,000 square feet of retail space and 364 apartment units, with around 55 of them reserved for extremely low-income tenants. The developer already has two additional projects on the same block, including a planned 81-key hotel.

Not all of the developer’s South LA plans have found a path forward, though. Last June, CIM backed out of a plan to buy the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza, a mall on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard that was hit hard by the pandemic. CIM had agreed to pay $130 million for the property and planned to transform the shopping center into a mixed-use project. The developer shut down its efforts after running into stiff opposition from community activists who saw the project as a harbinger of gentrification and wanted plans to include more housing.

CIM Group is headquartered in L.A. but operates throughout the U.S. as well as the U.K. and Japan.

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