In an industrial district between Marina del Rey and Culver City, a new neighborhood is coming together with a bit of community engineering.
Once zoned for light industrial, the two-block span that runs along Glencoe Avenue below Washington Boulevard has become a patchwork of recent land sales and small industrial businesses. In the past two years, 16 lots have been sold at least half of them to developers planning to build hipster lofts or other residences.
“The younger crowd wants to live in an open-floor plan, loft-type house,” said Ken Kahan, president of Century City-based California Landmark Development, one of the developers that have grabbed up parcels. Kahan said he wants to create buildings that echo the area’s industrial past and fit in “organically” with structures that are already here.
“We’re talking about lots of glass and sheet metal, high ceilings and concrete finish,” Kahan said.
Already, a few stand-alone condominiums rise above the industrial cluster of warehouses and mechanics’ shops.
There is the 171-unit Tierra del Rey building on the corner of Glencoe and Maxella, and 102 upscale apartments in the Villa Fontaine on Glencoe Avenue. But the new projects, according to developers and city officials, will be different.
In September of last year, California Landmark Development closed on a $5.5 million, one-acre parcel of land at 4115 Glencoe Ave., where it is now building a four-story, 52-unit loft complex. Kahan expects each unit to sell for about $500,000.
Landmark also owns four adjacent lots on Redwood Avenue the last two sold last year for $5.5 million and $4.25 million.
Neighbors range from Bruffy’s Towing to a new John Garey Pilates Studio across the street. Auto body shops abound.
Some warehouses have been turned into “creative offices,” which usually means a technology company or advertising firm took over an industrial warehouse and refurbished the interior. There are also architecture firms, urban design and self-storage companies.
Many of the businesses say their chief concern is parking.
“Once those buildings are up, it’s going to affect us big time.” said Nelson Patt, manager of Zee Auto Glass, which has been on Beach Avenue for 10 years. More residents will mean more clients, Patt said. “But we have lots of walk-in customers, and right now it’s kind of hard to find parking.”
The area, within Los Angeles city limits, sits across Lincoln Boulevard from Marina del Rey. Many of the existing warehouses were built after World War II, when the area was zoned for industrial use only.
Attempts to develop the marina date back as far as 1887, when the Santa Fe Railroad sponsored a development company that eventually went bankrupt, and the property reverted to marshland. The marina project was revived in the 1930s but interrupted by World War II. Harbor construction finally began in 1957, sponsored by L.A. County and the federal government.
In 1993, the city adopted the Glencoe Maxella Specific Plan, which designated the area as mixed-use the idea being to preserve industrial jobs but the ordinance allowed some residential development.
Betsy Weisman, principal planner for the city of Los Angeles, said that besides the four to six residential projects under way in the area, there are several condo, apartment and mixed-use proposals on her desk.
The specific plan requires residential developments to designate half a parking stall for guests for every unit, a requirement to help alleviate the parking problem.
Revati, a partner at Sivananda Yoga Vananta Center, sees the condo construction as a potential client source. “It’s a little hard right now because it’s noisy, but having 134 units next door can only be a benefit,” said Revati, who goes by one name.
Kahan said he and some other developers have been musing over a name for the neighborhood they hope to create. “We’re thinking about the ‘Marina Industrial District,’ or maybe just ‘The District’ we don’t really know yet,” he said.
