Jonathan Azal has filed plans for a five-story apartment building in Reseda, his latest infill project in an area he views as overlooked and ripe for redevelopment.
Azal said by email that he chose the site because of its central location within the sprawling San Fernando Valley.
“It is right in the middle between the 101 and 118,” he wrote, and close to both Cal State University, Northridge and the Providence Cedars-Sinai Tarzana Medical Center. “The area has a need for the kind of housing that I will provide at this site.”
The project’s permit application was recorded by the City of L.A.’s planning department on Tuesday, although Azal appears to have submitted the plans in September. The site is located at 6909-6923 North Reseda Boulevard, on a mostly commercial stretch a couple blocks north of Victory Boulevard and just south of Sherman Way.
The site is about a half acre and currently houses a one-story commercial building, which would be demolished; in its place Azal proposes a 56-foot tall, five-story project that would include 62 apartment units — a mix of one-bedroom and two-bedroom — as well as some commercial space and garage parking. The project is seeking height and side yard exemptions under Tier 1 of L.A.’s Transit Oriented Communities program; renderings of the 61,000-square-foot building show a modern-looking white, gray and tan building with overlaid rectangular elements and several balconies.
Azal, acting through a company called Viewmont Holdings, bought the site for $4.2 million last May, according to documents.
It’s one of several projects the developer has in the works in the San Fernando Valley, a traditionally cheaper swath of Los Angeles that’s also becoming increasingly attractive to builders. This month plans for another Azal project, a 34-unit complex in nearby Van Nuys, also hit the city planning department; last summer Azal also filed plans for a different 33-unit building in the same neighborhood.
The developer is planning “a string” of residential buildings in the area, which he believes has a lot of potential but has long been overlooked, he wrote to TRD earlier this week.
“The specific area of Van Nuys is very interesting to me as an investor,” he wrote. “I see it as NoHo was when it first started out about 15 years ago.”
Last summer Alliant Strategic unveiled plans for a 332-unit, six-story project in the area called Van Nuys Vose; other somewhat recent proposed Van Nuys residential projects include a 64-unit complex and a two building, 71-unit complex.
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