K-Town tower trims transient units, grows to 40 stories, gets City Council OK

357-unit Terrace Block project revised upward after rejection of 90 short-term rentals

Urban Offerings founder Dean Nucich and Forme Development President Damon Chan (Urban Offerings, Forme Development)
Urban Offerings founder Dean Nucich and Forme Development President Damon Chan (Urban Offerings, Forme Development)

A trio of developers have secured all necessary approvals for a 40-story residential development in Koreatown following an overhaul of plans.

The L.A. City Council last week unanimously voted to approve the project by Townline, Forme Development and Urban Offerings, according to Urbanize. The tower is set to rise at 550 Shatto Place near 6th Street, next door to the First English Evangelical Lutheran Church, built in the 1930s and currently used as a gymnasium for a neighboring school.

Plans call for 367 apartments, with a mix of studio, one-, two-, and three-bedroom units. A total of 42 units would be set aside for low-income renters for 55 years.

Townline and Forme wanted to designate 90 units as transient occupancy units leased for up to 30 days at a time, but the City Council denied that request.

The ground floor of the tower and the church building is slated for 36,000 square feet of office and retail space. A 470-space subterranean parking garage is also planned.

Gensler is designing the tower, which is being called Terrace Block. Renderings show a façade of glass and perforated metal with balconies for each apartment unit.

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The joint venture first proposed the project in mid-2018 and sought to expedite the approvals process through a state program that allows some projects to skip a full environmental review via the California Environmental Quality Act, which can take upwards of a year to complete.

But in October of last year they revised their plans, boosting the height of the building from 29 floors to 40 and the number of apartment units from 252 to 367.

The larger version of the project cleared the L.A. City Planning Commission in the spring.

The developers estimated in April that they could break ground by next July and complete the project by the fall of 2025. Townline and Forme are also building a 23-story tower in Chinatown.

[Urbanize] — Dennis Lynch