Koreatown Apartments Poised for Six-Story Redevelopment

A small Koreatown apartment building dating back to the 1940s is potentially headed for a six-story redevelopment.

Barkley Development’s Abolhassan Arefi has filed an application with the Los Angeles Department of City Planning to turn 412 South Catalina street into a six-story, 53-unit apartment building complete with a 22-car garage, Urbanize Los Angeles reported. Arefi filed the application June 12.

The project would be an extension of the 400 South Catalina Street building next door. That project, completed in 2019, turned two smaller apartment buildings into a 61-unit building with a gym, roof deck and subterranean parking.

The two Catalina buildings would seemingly be joined into one, as the application calls for the new 53-unit project to be built “on the same lot as a 61-unit apartment building for a total of 114 units and 22 parking spaces in the subterranean garage.” The developer is pursuing density bonus incentives to permit a larger building than what zoning rules would normally allow in exchange for setting aside some units as affordable housing.

Architect Alan Boivin, who helped envision the 400 Catalina Building, is designing the contemporary podium building at 412 Catalina.

The existing building at 412 Catalina, known as the Altman Apartments, is historically tied to the city of Los Angeles and maintains historical landmark status.

In 2016, the Los Angeles Department of City Planning moved forward with designating the building at 412 Catalina as a Historic-Cultural Monument. It was determined to be an eligible historic resource due to its French Norman architecture. The building was also designed by Edith Mortensen Northman, who was the first woman to work as a licensed architect in Los Angeles.

Elsewhere in Koreatown, other developers are moving forward with plans to build housing in the notoriously dense neighborhood. In March, Townline and Form Development received Department of City Planning approval for an eight-story, 318-unit complex at 550 South Shatto Place. In November, Arc Capital Partners announced plans to turn a 13-story office building at 3325 Wilshire Boulevard into 236 apartments.

— Chris Malone Méndez