Passo, a development firm founded last year, recently purchased a 17,200-square-foot parcel in Sawtelle with plans to convert the space into a multifamily complex.
Located at 11970 Santa Monica Blvd., Passo purchased the parcel, which hasn’t traded hands in more than 50 years, in an off-market deal by approaching the previous owner with an undisclosed “fair offer,” Daniel Glimcher, principal at Passo, said.
Passo will be using Los Angeles’ ED-1 program to develop a 162-unit housing complex spanning about 80,000 square feet. Under the program’s guidelines, 80% of the units will go towards households making 80% or less of the county’s area median income and 20% can go to those making 120%. For a two-person household, that would mean a combined income of $96,950 for the former and $102,300 for the latter.
Glimcher praised the city’s ED-1 program calling it “a model the rest of the country should follow to get affordable housing built” and highlighting the cost and time benefits of the streamlined process it creates.
To date, Passo has more than 600 affordable units in its pipeline in West Los Angeles.
“Without the provisions of ED-1, none of these projects would ever have been built, and the housing crisis would have been exacerbated,” Glimcher said. “We are grateful that the city’s leadership implemented this program, and we hope to see it nationwide soon.”
The Sawtelle project’s budget is $50 million, giving Passo a competitive cost-per-unit of less than $309,000.
“Our buildings are designed as efficiently as is possible, while still maintaining a high quality of life and luxury quality finishes,” Glimcher said. “We also are building several projects simultaneously in close proximity (allowing) for economies of scale that result in preferable pricing execution.”
Passo aims to place affordable housing “in historically inaccessible locations,” according to a release.
“We are fundamentally rethinking where and how affordable housing is built,” Simon Aftalion, principal at Passo, said in a statement.
