LA’s winemaking Riboli family plans Chinatown office project 

The Riboli family, who are best known for running L.A.’s San Antonio Winery, have filed plans to build a sleek office building in Chinatown. 

The plans lay out a 233,000-square-foot project that consists of two adjacent office buildings and landscaping with outdoor workspaces. The stacked box project design, from the architecture firm Grimshaw, is meant to emphasize sustainability, with “on-site solar photovoltaic arrays” and “carbon-sequestering mass timber.” 

With the project, the Ribolis — whose original winery is less than a mile to the east, just across the Los Angeles River — aim to transform a piece of Downtown L.A. that’s primed for redevelopment. The 1.2-acre site is located at 130 West College Street, on the eastern edge of Chinatown, and is currently a surface parking lot. 

The property has been in the family since at least the late 1990s, when one member of the family bought it for just under $1 million, according to property records. It’s currently owned by S & R Partners, a firm managed by Steve Riboli, who took over as president and CEO of the 100-year-old family wine business. 

The office project is not the Ribolis’ first development venture: They’re also behind the recent redevelopment of Downtown L.A.’s Capitol Milling complex into a hip, 60,000-square-foot commercial property with offices, shops and restaurants. 

That complex, next to the Chinatown metro station, dates back to the 19th century and includes eight buildings, some of which rank among L.A.’s oldest.  

In recent years Chinatown has seen a surge of new development, including high-end apartment complexes, sparking a wave of gentrification concerns.