A 120-unit apartment complex in the historic neighborhood of Lafayette Park sold for $43.3 million.
The three-story, 91,000-square-foot building, dubbed LP by CLG and located on a 43,000-square-foot lot at 349 S. La Fayette Place, was purchased by Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles with the intent of promoting and advancing workforce and affordable housing initiatives.
Since the transaction involved a public-agency buyer, the sale was exempt from the city’s ULA property tax, also known as the Mansion Tax.
The deal came out to approximately $362,000 per unit, or $477 per square foot.
“With a shortage of over 500,000 housing units in the city of Los Angeles, mounting obstacles to housing development including the implementation of the ULA tax, CEQA (The California Environmental Quality Act), and elevated costs of construction and debt, finding innovative solutions to alleviate high rent burdens for workforce residents is paramount,” Kitty Wallace, a senior executive vice president at Colliers, said. “This sale exemplifies a creative option to preserve and creative affordable workforce housing.”
Wallace, alongside Colliers’ associate vice president Kalli Knight, represented both HACLA and California Landmark Group, the seller, in the transaction.
“We are overjoyed to have closed with a great partner like HACLA who will preserve affordable housing in Los Angeles and are excited to redeploy our capital both in and outside of California towards both affordable and market-rate housing,” Ari Kahan, principal of California Landmark Group, said.
HACLA will restrict 90 of the units in the property to occupancy by families with incomes less than 80% of the median income in Los Angeles – equivalent to $70,640 per year for a single-person household – over the long term, keeping the remaining 30 units market-rate.
“HACLA is committed to using every available tool to the greatest extent possible to increase the supply of affordable housing in the city of Los Angeles,” Doug Guthrie, president and chief executive of HACLA, said.
