CIM group files more plans in South LA

Application is the latest piece in developer’s effort to single handedly remake much of a traditionally Black, Latino area

CIM Group's Shaul Kuba and a rendering of 3105 South Western Avenue (CIM, Bittoni Architects)
CIM Group's Shaul Kuba and a rendering of 3105 South Western Avenue (CIM, Bittoni Architects)

For 15 years the major L.A.-based developer CIM Group and cofounder Shaul Kuba have been buying up and developing dozens of properties in and around West Adams, a historically Black and more recently Latino neighborhood in South L.A.

It’s an initiative that’s brought plenty of controversy while “testing the notion that a single developer can turn around a chronically underfunded inner-city neighborhood, block by block, in the tight, 10-year time frame of a real estate investment fund ” Bloomberg Businessweek wrote in April.

On Thursday, the firm’s latest proposal was registered with the city planning department: A plan to build a five-story, 36,000-square-foot mixed use building in Jefferson Park, immediately east of West Adams. The complex would have 40 apartments — 35 market rate and five affordable — as well as 2,000 square feet of restaurant space.

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The complex would also have some open space and 29 car parking spaces; renderings show a mostly cubic, dark-colored apartment building with some balconies and a small ground floor cafe. Kuba is listed as the project applicant, and the development team also includes the L.A.-based planning and land use firm Alchemy.

CIM bought the quarter-acre property, located at 3101 South Western Avenue, through a limited partnership in February for $2.3 million, property records show. The seller was a California entity called Greenfield Investments, who had picked it up in 2019 for $760,000. The property appears to currently house a Pentecostal church called Nueva Vida.

Last fall, CIM filed plans for an eight story, 364-unit apartment complex at 2211 South Western Avenue, less than a mile to the north and near another CIM mixed-use project; many of the developer’s dozens of additional South L.A. projects are concentrated along West Adams Boulevard, several blocks north of the latest proposal.

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