Metro to pick developer for Wilshire and Crenshaw
Metro is set for its next milestone in an ambitious plan to build housing at Wilshire and Crenshaw boulevards. It is expected to choose from among eight developers’ proposals by this month.
Once chosen, the developer will engage with the community and Metro to refine the scope and design of the project.
Metro seeks a joint development partner for the vacant property that, for years, has been a staging area for “D-Line” subway station construction at Western and at La Brea avenues. The vacant lot will be available for a new use in 2026.
The 1.82-acre site is one of 20, Metro-owned properties where it aims to build 10,000 “high-quality housing, especially income-restricted affordable units” by 2031, according to its Outreach Report, December 2024.
Community feedback, gathered by Metro in the fall of 2024, found respondents wanted public outdoor space, street-level businesses such as restaurants and home affordability in the future development.
Respondents also expressed support for the community’s Park Mile Specific Plan, a city zoning ordinance that regulates a host of conditions including density and retail frontage.
Eight-story proposal from BRIDGE Housing fills the property and has tall wall of windows adjoining single-family homes on Lorraine Boulevard. Image courtesy of Metro and Steinberg Hart.
Community meeting June 5
Community groups claim because Metro (the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority) has released only partial information about the eight different development proposals for its property in the Park Mile and Windsor Village, they seek more details in time for a community meeting Thurs., June 5 at 7 p.m. at The Ebell at 743 S. Lucerne Blvd. The community forum is sponsored by the Wilshire Homeowners’ Alliance (WHA).
Following its May 7 meeting, the WHA Executive Committee wrote to Metro, saying that a: “very cursory review [of what Metro posted] shows that half or more [of the eight proposals] do not respect the rules of the adopted Park Mile Specific Plan (PMSP). Our residents and their associations need time to comment on the proposals.”
According to John Gresham, Wilshire Park resident and secretary of the WHA, the June 5 community forum will allow residents to review a more thorough community analysis of the proposals and, especially, to report to Metro which of the proposals do not respect the applicable PMSP guidelines.
The proposals have wide variation in height and mass. One shows a hulking building eight stories tall that goes to the edges of the lot. It provides 259 new affordable housing units. Another shows a proposal that has 256 units but that is a maximum of six stories tall and steps down to three stories adjacent to the existing apartments on Crenshaw and the single-family homes on Lorraine Boulevard.
STAGING SITE on Wilshire Boulevard between Lorraine and Crenshaw boulevards is being offered by Metro for affordable housing development in 2026 or later. Image ©2025 Airbus, Maxar Technologies
Wilshire Homeowners’ Alliance
Alliance
Founded in 1978, the WHA is the long-standing community-based organization that worked closely with the Dept. of City Planning and with elected officials to create the community vision expressed in the Park Mile Specific Plan. This zoning plan covers the portion of Wilshire between Highland Avenue and Wilton Place, for all the properties between Sixth and Eighth streets.
John H. Welborne, vice president for Planning and Land Use of the Windsor Square Association, was actively involved in the drafting of the PMSP, and he has worked with other associations and the Park Mile Design Review Board to ensure the Plan’s enforcement during the past 45 years. (Welborne also was publisher of the Larchmont Chronicle from 2015 until earlier this year.)
In response to our queries about Metro’s property, Welborne recounted to us: “In the late 1970s, following nearly two years of a community engagement process involving the 12 surrounding neighborhood associations that make up the WHA, the Los Angeles City Council unanimously adopted the PMSP. At the time of the plan’s adoption, there were approximately 35 vacant lots along this portion of Wilshire Boulevard—including Metro’s—surrounded by historic residential neighborhoods to the south and north. In the ensuing years, almost all of the formerly vacant lots have been developed in strict compliance with the rules and restrictions of the PMSP. There have been no variances or exceptions. Every property owner has been treated the same by the City Planning Department. It should be no different for Metro and its property at Wilshire and Crenshaw.”
Welborne added that he thought the Metro Request for Proposals process initiated in January had elicited responses from qualified housing developers. “However, a look at the information made available by Metro, so far, indicates that a number of these proposals are not respectful of the rules of the Park Mile,” he told us.
“It should be possible to erect an attractive, new multifamily building while still keeping to the restraints of the height limits, maximum lot coverage and open space and other restrictions that all other developers have followed for their Park Mile properties for the past four decades,” he said. He added that it appears that some of the eight proposals do that while still providing significant numbers of new, affordable housing units. “But some do not,” he said.
“The one feature of the PMSP that is not relevant for this corner is the restriction on the number of units that can be built. The Windsor Square Association Board (which represents the 1,100 residential properties just to the north of the Metro project, right across Wilshire) believe we need to support affordable housing in our community. This is an excellent site, and the longtime government ownership makes affordable housing feasible on this site.
“That is one of the reasons we support the increased density on Metro’s lot. Instead of approximately 80 large multifamily units of an average size of 2,500 square feet, why not have more, smaller units between 600 and 800 square feet? Housing advocates tell me there is a demand for such smaller, less-expensive units.
“Furthermore, this corner has stops for two Rapid Bus lines as well as three local bus lines. That is an argument for reducing vehicle parking. However, the better projects among the eight proposals do have sufficient parking, even though Sacramento dictated, beginning in 2023, that off-street parking no longer can be required by local government.”
Welborne concluded, “several of the proposals could be appropriate for the Park Mile. Others would look grossly out of place. Windsor Square Association members and other local residents hope to learn more at the June 5 community forum.”
Windsor Village
The residential area immediately adjoining the Metro property is Windsor Village, a community consisting of tracts subdivided in the first two decades of the 20th century and governed by Windsor Village Association (WVA). Today’s Windsor Village area extends from Wilshire to Olympic Boulevard, with Fremont Place on the west and Crenshaw Boulevard on the east. See windsorvillageassn.com.
Windsor Village was designated an official Los Angeles Historic Preservation Overlay Zone (HPOZ) in 2010. The Ebell of Los Angeles is a prominent icon of Windsor Village.
WVA President Barbara Pflaumer opined about the Metro proposals in May, writing in a letter to Metro: “A substantial portion of our neighborhood is strongly opposed to any deviations from the PMSP.” She added, “We advocate for any new developments, particularly those aimed at providing much-needed affordable housing, to align with the established standards concerning height, setbacks, landscaping, parking and open space.”
Ros Strotz, another Windsor Village resident (who is also affiliated with the advocacy group Windsor Village Concerned Citizens), told us: “A large segment of my neighborhood is against any deviation from the PMSP. Enforcement must be ‘to the letter.’”
Wilshire Park
The residential neighborhood across Crenshaw, to the east of Metro’s proposed housing development, also came into being in the 1910-1920 period, and it also became an HPOZ (in 2010). Extending from Crenshaw to Wilton Place and north from Olympic Boulevard almost to Wilshire, the neighborhood association is the Wilshire Park Association (wilshirepark.org). The organization’s president is Lorna Hennington, and she also has expressed concerns about the Metro project, writing that: “[W]e support rigorous enforcement of the community vision long defined through the rules of the Park Mile Specific Plan that governs properties in Wilshire Park and properties like Metro’s, right across the street in Windsor Village.”
Regarding the need for a meeting like the community forum coming up on June 5, Hennington added: “[W]e join the WHA in requesting that Metro not pick one from among the eight proposals until you hear more from WHA—our community-based organization that has understood and monitored Park Mile projects for decades.“
Readers can learn more about the project and make comments at the Metro Wilshire/Crenshaw hub site: tinyurl.com/38ay99nu.
Category: News
