Norwalk Civic Center could feature 350-unit housing village

New mixed-use plans call for 110K sf of retail and restaurants

Primestor Development's Arturo Sneider with 12700 Norwalk Blvd
Primestor Development's Arturo Sneider with 12700 Norwalk Blvd (Jerde, LinkedIn, iStock)

A local developer has expanded plans to convert the 13-acre Norwalk Civic Center into a mixed-use housing village.

Primestor Development, based in Culver City, plans to build 350 apartments and 110,000 square feet of shops and restaurants atop a glade around Norwalk City Hall, at 12700 Norwalk Boulevard, Urbanize Los Angeles reported.

A new environmental review calls for expanding Holifield Park, located two miles south, to add a 15-acre replacement site for civic events after the Civic Center lawn is redeveloped.

Construction is expected to take 23 months.

The Norwalk Civic Center at the southeast corner of Imperial Highway and Norwalk Boulevard now contains the Norwalk City Hall, a three-story parking garage, a surface lot and the 10-acre lawn. If the redevelopment project is approved, the City Hall building would be retained.

Primestor plans to build the apartment village within the Civic Center, including shops, markets, and health and wellness businesses. Plans also call for expanding the parking garage by adding up to two more levels.

Jerde, an architecture firm based in Downtown Los Angeles, will designed the project.

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Plans call for two eight-story mixed-use buildings along a corridor of open space cutting through the Civic Center campus. The corridor, flanked by shops and restaurants, would be integrated with monuments.

Primestor plans a mix of studio, one-, two-, and three-bedroom apartments, 15 percent of which would be affordable housing. The apartment complex would include at least 100,000 square feet of public open space, including walkways and plazas.

The Norwalk Civic Center project would include 651 parking spaces in the new mixed-use buildings, and 1,050 slots in the existing parking garage.

Primestor, founded in 1992, specializes in development and managing properties in urban areas and oversees a real estate portfolio worth more than $750 million, according to its website.

In May, it filed plans to replace the 312,000-square-foot Panorama Mall, built in 1955 in Panorama City, with a 4.5 million-square-foot hotel, residential and commercial complex.

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