Capstone Equities Eyes Office-Apartment Conversion in Encino

Capstone Equities wants to turn a 75,000-square-foot office building in Encino into 117 affordable apartments.

The New York-based private equity firm has proposed the office-to-home conversion at 5435-5445 Balboa Boulevard, Urbanize Los Angeles reported.

The project, dubbed The Oaks on Balboa, would employ an adaptive re-use of the two-story, Z-shaped office building built in 1980 along the south side of the 101 Freeway. The building sits next to and across the street from two medical office buildings.

Plans call for 117 studio and one-bedroom apartments, set aside as affordable for lower-income households. A parking lot would serve 120 cars.

Capstone aims to streamline the project through Mayor Karen Bass’s Executive Directive 1, which fast-tracks approvals of affordable housing. The firm also would get density bonus incentives to allow a reduction to a required side yard and residential use of a site zoned for offices.

The office-to-home conversion, designed by FSY Architects of Elysian Valley, would result in a white, low-slung apartment building with large windows and pastel turquoise, yellow, orange and green panels, according to a rendering.

Parts of the office parking lot would be converted to apartment courtyards and gardens.

The cost of the project, as well as a timeline for construction, were not disclosed.

The project is less than a mile from where Studio City-based TADG Real Estate Group plans to build a 12-story highrise with 130 apartments atop a Mercedes-Benz showroom at 16747 West Ventura Boulevard, in Encino.

It would replace a used car lot at Ventura and La Maida Avenue, across from Los Encinos State Historic Park.

Capstone Equities, founded in 2006, in the past decade has made 25 deals to buy more than $1.5 billion in real estate, according to its website. It’s not known if it bought the office building in Encino.

In 2022, the property at 5445 Balboa Boulevard was owned by Thousand Gold Balboa LLC, based in Koreatown, according to a property database run by the San Francisco Chronicle. Its assessed value was $14.5 million. Thousand Gold Balboa was managed in February by Marcelo Holdings, led by Yoomi Kim, based in Torrance.

— Dana Bartholomew