Koreatown office building poised for residential conversion

The Pierce National Life Building, an office fixture in Koreatown for a half century, may soon be filled with living rooms and credenzas.

Jamison Services, the Koreatown-based owner, has filed plans to convert the 13-story building at 3807-3815 Wilshire Boulevard into apartments, Urbanize Los Angeles reported.

The prominent Koreatown landlord aims to turn a dozen floors of the highrise at the northwest corner of Wilshire and Western Avenue into 176 apartments, with the bottom floor reserved for shops and restaurants.

Plans also call for adding a 7,100-square-foot lounge and swimming pool deck on the roof.

Early work on the mid-century concrete building, designed by Welton Becket in 1965, has already begun, a tipster told Urbanize.

It’s not the first time Jamison wanted to convert the building. In 2016, the developer filed plans to build 132 apartments above an adjacent parking garage, then sought permits to turn the office tower into a 283-room hotel. The residential development was approved, but the project never broke ground.

A property next door is a staging area for construction of a rail extension of the Purple (D) Line toward Beverly Hills, Century City and Westwood.
Jamison Services is a unit of Jamison Properties, Koreatown’s largest commercial landlord. It owns other office and residential buildings near Wilshire/Western Station, including the Art Deco Wilshire Professional Building. It just broke ground on a 230-unit apartment building next door.

In June, it won preliminary approval to build a 127-unit, mixed-use tower at 626 Kingsley Drive in Koreatown.

– Dana Bartholomew

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