Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Old Lucia Tower Site Going Low-Rise


A Chinatown parcel that once harbored high-rise ambitions instead may give way for something much shorter.  Earlier this month, LA City Planning received an application for a mixed-use development at the northwest corner of Cesar E Chavez and Grand Avenues.  The project's case filing calls for a seven-story building, containing 225 residential units, 8,000 square feet of ground floor retail, and a two-level subterranean parking garage.  Back in 2006, the Downtown LA News reported that siblings Larry and Ralph Cimmarusti were working on plans for a 31-story mixed-use tower at this location.  The Lucia Tower, named for their grandmother, would have created 200 condominiums above a six-story podium on a lot sandwiched between G.H. Palmer's Orsini Apartments and the 101 Freeway.  Unfortunately, that vision was crushed by the collapse of the real estate market, just like so many other Downtown proposals from the mid-2000's.  Now it seems that the project is back in a form that actually has a shot at getting built.

The never built Lucia Tower, designed by the Archeon Group

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