Having survived challenges from a neighboring apartment building owner, Kor Realty Group is nearing the end of a two-year effort to build a 122-unit luxury apartment building on Rossmore Avenue.

Gregory Schem, president of Kor, still faces one unknown being told by the city how residents will access the site but said he will build the $30 million, 445 Rossmore Ave. Apartments in Hancock Park as soon as word comes.

The project, on the site of the former Rossmore House retirement home at Rosewood and Rossmore avenues, is adjacent to Wilshire Country Club.

Kor Realty already has torn down the retirement home and is awaiting word from a zoning administrator as to where the developer must locate its entrance. Once that is determined, Schem said it would take 14 months to build the project and that he plans to open in spring 2003. The one- and two-bedroom units will rent for between $1,900 and $3,700 a month.

Calls to the Department of Zoning Administration were not returned.

Schem, who paid $6.25 million for the 1.25-acre site in late 1999, faces an intense lobbying campaign from neighbors over the access issue.

The argument over whether to place the entrance on Rosewood Avenue as Schem proposes or Rossmore Avenue, closer to the country club where residents of nearby Lillian Way suggest is the last hurdle.

Schem has already overcome challenges from Martha Scott, the owner of the El Royale Apartments, directly across Rossmore from the site. Scott, who declined to comment, opposed the development, claiming it would bring too many units and too much traffic to an already dangerously congested area, according to Jay Rockey, an attorney with Sidley Austin Brown & Wood who represents the El Royale.

The Planning Commission rejected the El Royale’s challenge and subsequent appeal, Rockey said. Now Scott is asking Kor Realty to increase the building’s setback from Rossmore Avenue, Rockey said.

Ideally, the lawyer said, the El Royale wants to see the lot turned into a park dedicated to the late L.A. City Council President John Ferraro.

Schem still faces the residue from the battle with the El Royale, which successfully lobbied the city to prohibit left turns from Rossmore onto Rosewood. As a result, access on Rosewood would mean increased traffic through a community of single-family homes.

Residents of nearby Lillian Way one street west of Rossmore have spoken up in opposition to the driveway because they fear the location would dangerously increase traffic along their narrow residential street. Lillian Way, they claim, is the logical means of reaching Rosewood for motorists heading north on Rossmore.

Laura Riley, a Lillian Way resident, said she would prefer Kor Realty put the entrance on Rossmore, with an exit on Rosewood.

While Schem said the concerns of the Lillian Way neighbors are genuine, he thinks they are ungrounded. As for the El Royale, Schem thinks opposition is related to the threat the new project poses.

Rockey said the new building would impact the overall feel of the neighborhood, but dismissed talk of fearing the new development as a competitor. “We’re full. We have a waiting list,” Rockey said. “We have a better product. We’re not worried.”