The Los Angeles City Council has greenlighted a plan for a massive mixed-use complex in Downtown’s Fashion District following more than a decade of logistic and bureaucratic hurdles, Urbanize reported.
The City Market project, originally announced in 2013, aims to redevelop a roughly 10-acre site bordered by Ninth, 11th, San Pedro and San Julian streets that was the former home of a wholesale produce center. The City Council voted on March 6 to approve a revised development agreement that calls for a mix of low- and high-rise buildings, featuring up to 945 apartment units, a 210-key hotel, a 300,000-square-foot university or corporate campus, and roughly 500,000 square feet of commercial space. Architecture firm HansonLA is designing the project.
City Market faced a major setback in 2020, when then-Mayor Eric Garcetti vetoed a previous version of the development agreement that would have directed payments toward Council District 14’s public benefit trust fund, rather than citywide reserves. That aspect of the agreement was proposed by former District 14 Councilmember José Huizar, who in January was sentenced to 13 years in prison after leading a criminal enterprise from City Hall and taking bribes from real estate developers.
The revised agreement preserves funding for District 14 projects, but sets aside 10 percent of City Market’s residential units for affordable housing, rather than directing payments to the district’s trust fund.
The city’s Planning Commission declined to comment, though Councilmember Kevin de León, who currently represents L.A.’s 14th district, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The project has been granted a 20-year period to fulfill the terms of the revised agreement, though an exact development schedule has not yet been disclosed, according to Urbanize.
Nick Trombola can be reached at NTrombola@commercialobserver.com.
