42-story apartment tower rises at 8th & Figueroa

Steven Sharp, Urbanize Los Angeles

One of DTLA's most conspicuous parking lots is a thing of the past.

Nearly one year after we last stopped by, the concrete podium is complete, and the trunk of Mitsui Fudosan America's new residential high-rise is taking shape at the intersection of 8th and Figueroa Streets in Downtown Los Angeles.

The project, which replaced a surface parking lot across the street from the Figat7th shopping center, will eventually consist of a 42-story building featuring 438 studio, one-, and two-bedroom apartments above podium parking and approximately 7,500 square feet of ground-floor retail space.

Designed by Johnson Fain, the approximately 530-foot-tall building will be clad in glass with LEDs embedded into its façade. Mitsui Fudosan, per a condition of approval imposed by the Los Angeles City Planning Commission, is also required to encase the above-grade parking garage in the same type of glass wrapping the trunk of the tower - something which has not been seen before in Downtown. A landscaped amenity deck with a swimming pool will cap the podium.

At the time of its groundbreaking in mid-2020, completion of the 8th and Figueroa tower was expected within three years.

Besides housing, the project will also result in several off-site improvements, including the addition of a new mid-block crosswalk feeding into Figat7th. Brookfield, which owns the mall and the surrounding office complex, is in the midst of construction on its own apartment tower just west of the Mitsui Fudosan site.

Mitsui Fudosan America, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Mitsui Fudosan, has owned the land at 8th and Figueroa since the 1980s, and once considered developing the property with an office tower. After that 1990s proposal fell through, the site remained a parking lot for nearly 30 years until plans for the residential development were initiated in 2016.

In addition to the Figueroa Street property, Mitsui Fudosan America also owns a second property two blocks east at 8th and Hope Streets, where the company expects to break ground on a similar apartment tower in the near future..