Grubb Properties eyes 70 apartments in East Hollywood

Grubb Properties seeks to build a 70-unit, mixed-used apartment complex in East Hollywood.

The North Carolina-based developer has filed plans to build the seven-story building on a vacant lot at 1353 North Western Avenue, Urbanize Los Angeles reported. 

The development, known as The Link Apartments Solana, is among five Link-branded complexes with 650 units planned for Los Angeles, according to a Grubb announcement late last year. The Link brand emphasizes affordability by design.

A Grubb affiliate paid $3.5 million in mid-2020 for the lot at Sunset Boulevard and Western Avenue, just north of the 101 Freeway, according to Urbanize and a company news release.

Plans call for a seven-story building with 70 apartments above 2,000 square feet of ground-floor shops and restaurants. The U-shaped building would include a podium-level swimming pool, fitness center and a rooftop terrace. 

The “six over one” building, designed by Mid-City-based Urban Architecture Lab, would include six stories of wood-framed construction over a ground-floor concrete podium base. The gray and white building would include vertical windows and exterior balconies trimmed in white, black and yellow, according to renderings.

The Solana apartment complex in East Hollywood is among five new developments planned by Grubb as a debut into the L.A. market. Already the firm has proposed building two complexes with 246 units and 77-units in Koreatown, a 128-unit complex in North Hollywood and a 151-unit complex in Hollywood.

A commercial portion of Grubb’s 246-unit mixed-use complex at 1000 South Vermont Avenue in Koreatown will include a 48,000-square-foot Target store, expected to open in summer 2024. 

All five projects are funded with Opportunity Zone investments. Development is in conjunction with partners Saiko Investment, Blackridge Ventures and Allied Urban, according to Grubb.

As of the first quarter of last year, Grubb had 5,000 apartments under the Link brand, which targets households making between 60 percent and 140 percent of area median income.

Grubb Properties’ CEO Clay Grubb, author of a book on affordable housing, has spearheaded projects in more than a dozen cities, including Atlanta and Oakland. The firm recently made its way into New York with affordable housing plans in the Financial District and Long Island City.

This month, it bought an acre site approved for 161 apartments in Berkeley for $10 million.