The Los Angeles City Council voted in favor of expanding the citywide adaptive reuse ordinance in an effort to stimulate housing growth by making it easier for developers to convert vacant offices into housing.
The new ordinance repeals Los Angeles’ existing Adaptive Reuse Incentive Areas Specific Plan, which limited conversions to certain parts of the city including downtown, Chinatown, Hollywood and Koreatown, opening all areas within city limits to adaptive reuse projects, Bisnow reported. The new legal framework also lowers the age of the buildings that can be considered for adaptive reuse to structures that are at least 15 years old, broadening the pool of potential targets beyond buildings built before 1974. More projects will also be able to receive approval by right under the new law, the Los Angeles Daily News reported.
The city has been working to update the adaptive reuse rules since 2023. Across the city, office-to-residential conversions could create approximately 4,400 homes, according to a RentCafe report from earlier this year.
Los Angeles’ existing adaptive reuse rules date back to 1999. That legislation helped kick off the construction of more than 12,000 housing units downtown, helping turn the area from a strictly business district into a residential and commercial hub for residents.
Los Angeles ranks second nationwide in adaptive reuse projects. L.A. has 5,640 apartments in the works, following behind Manhattan with 11,000 such units.
Office buildings are the hottest target for conversion in the City of Los Angeles, with 11 adaptive reuse projects in development as of July, RentCafe reported, citing Yardi Matrix data. Those office-to-resi pursuits combine for a total of 2,843 apartments or about 50 percent of the city’s adaptive reuse housing pipeline.
Jamison Services leads the adaptive reuse race in the city, building the three largest office-to-residential projects to date. Those include the conversion of a 33-story office building at 1055 West 7th Street downtown into 691 apartments; the 19-story L.A. Superior Court Tower at 600 South Commonwealth Avenue becoming 428 units; and an 18-story building at 695 Vermont Avenue in Koreatown transforming into 255 apartments.
The City of Los Angeles is required by the state to plan for 456,643 new housing units by 2029.
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