Developer plans 26-story affordable senior complex in Hollywood

An affordable housing developer intends to build a 26-story, nearly 500-unit senior housing complex in Hollywood.

The project, called SkyVillage Hollywood, is located at 5645 West Fernwood Avenue and 5635 West De Longpre Avenue, just east of the 101 freeway and a block south of Sunset Boulevard. Samir Srivastava, the developer’s CEO, filed the project application on July 7.

“It’s been 10 years in the [works],” he said.

Samir Srivastava of ABS Properties

Srivastava, whose firm is called ABS Properties, proposed initial plans around six or seven years ago, he said, and refiled after the city implemented more development-friendly density rules.

“While it gets entitled, I’m working on the financing,” he added. “You’ve seen the City of L.A. build affordable housing at one million bucks a unit — I think I’m going to do it much cheaper than that.”

As Southern California remains gripped by a housing shortage and inflation pushes building costs higher, affordable housing construction, which is often subsidized by local governments, has proven increasingly attractive to many developers. The industry has also been responding to a need, in particular, for more senior affordable housing.

“The demand is completely overwhelming right now,” Jordan Pynes, president of Thomas Safran & Associates, told the Los Angeles Business Journal late last year. The firm’s senior complexes typically have about 100 units, Pynes added, but draw as many as 3,000 applications when they open.

At 26 stories, SkyVillage Hollywood would rank among the tallest, if not overall largest, affordable senior projects around L.A.

Of the planned 499 units, 100 would be dedicated to tenants with moderate incomes and 394 would go to tenants with low incomes, while five units would be reserved for managers. The project would span nearly 370,000 square feet and include 54 car parking spots and more than 200 bike parking spots. It would also have a ground floor community plaza that could eventually serve as an entryway to Hollywood’s long-planned freeway ‘CAP’ park, which would create a greenspace over the 101.

Srivastava, who specializes in affordable housing and has developed projects since the mid-1990s, is also working on two more projects in the same neighborhood. Last year ABS filed plans to convert the upper floors of the Hollywood Western Building, a historically designated site on Hollywood Boulevard, into 79 affordable units, and the firm was also developing a seven-story residential building on a neighboring site.

“It’s by the Metro. There’s tremendous need for affordable housing,” he said. “It’s a no-brainer in those districts.”

ABS Properties, based in Hollywood, bought the SkyVillage property in 2018 through an LLC for $3.5 million, according to property records. The roughly 0.3-acre site is zoned for high density residential use but is currently a parking lot, according to planning documents.

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