Apartments to rise around former Sunkist HQ in Sherman Oaks

Citrus Commons will include 250 units, 27K sf of shops and restaurants, grocery store

Citrus Commons project at 14130 Riverside Drive (Johnson Fain)
Citrus Commons project at 14130 Riverside Drive (Johnson Fain)

A former headquarters for Sunkist in Sherman Oaks has been turned into creative offices and now plans call for them to be surrounded by a mixed-use project with 249 apartments.

IMT Residential, based in Sherman Oaks, has finished excavating the site at 14130 Riverside Dr., where it will build two U-shaped apartment complexes, a grocery store with retail and a parking garage around the revamped headquarters, Urbanize Los Angeles reported.

The San Fernando Valley project is expected to take 33-months, with completion expected in 2025.

The 8.5-acre site at the southeast corner of Hazeltine Avenue and Riverside Drive next to the 101 Freeway was once home to the Sunkist Growers Cooperative, which built its Brutalist-style headquarters in 1970. IMT bought the property in 2013, after Sunkist moved to Valencia.

The 146,510-square-foot building, designed by A.C. Martin, resembles an inverted pyramid with recessed windows. It’s “a symphony in concrete,” according to the Los Angeles Conservancy.

The four-story former headquarters has been restored and is being leased for creative offices just east of the Fashion Square Mall.

Plans for the mixed-use complex, designed by Chinatown-based Johnson Fain, include two buildings of four and five stories with 249 units, of which 25 will be set aside for moderate-income households.

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Citrus Commons, clad in white stucco with wood panels, will include studio, one-, and two-bedroom apartments between 530 and 1,240 square feet, according to its website. It will include a fitness center and a swimming pool.

The apartments facing Riverside Drive will sit on 27,000 square feet of ground-floor shops and restaurants, anchored by a 15,000-square-foot grocery store. The pre-leased market may be taken up by Trader Joe’s, now located in a cramped shopping center across the street.

A parking garage and surface lot would serve 1,141 vehicles.

The project, landscaped by Downtown-based Duane Border Design, will include 3.5 acres of walking paths and a small park connected to the Los Angeles River.

IMT Residential, founded in 1992, has a portfolio of 17,000 apartments in nine states. Its projects in Sherman Oaks include Via Avanti, a proposed mixed-use project featuring 325 apartments and 44,000 square feet of shops and restaurants at Sepulveda Boulevard and Camarillo Street.

[Urbanize Los Angeles] – Dana Bartholomew

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