Soaring Plans for Car Wash Site
South Park is a hub of high-rise construction. Now, another proposal, and one of the tallest to date, is on the table.
The proposed Olympic Tower would substitute the Downtown Car Wash in South Park.
photo courtesy of Nardi Associates LLP
Developer Ben Neman, working under the limited liability company Olymfig26 LLC, is proposing building a 57-story tower with a hotel, condominiums, and office and retail space at the northwest corner of Olympic Boulevard and Figueroa Street. He acquired the site, which presently houses the Downtown Car Wash, in two thousand fourteen for a reported $25 million.
Plans for the project, called the Olympic Tower, were introduced to the Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council’s Planning and Land Use Committee on Tuesday, Feb. 16. The proposal calls for three hundred seventy three hotel rooms on floors 15-31, with a lobby on the 14th floor. The project would create three hundred seventy four residential units on the upper levels.
The tower would have eight hundred thirty eight parking spaces, split inbetween six below-grade levels and eight more aboveground. The project inbetween L.A. Live and the Hotel Figueroa would include 33,500square feet of office space and 65,000 square feet of retail space.
Monrovia-based architecture hard Nardi Associates is treating the design, which features undulating elements on upper floors and a mix ofdiamond patterns, LED lights and trees built into the exterior walls. A rooftop amenity deck would include a pool and gym.
“The structure and landscape in this project are absolutely connected,” said Noberto Nardi of Nardi Associates. “We have fourteen floors of natural hydroponics. The building will be a giant urban tree.”
The car wash was built in one thousand nine hundred eighty by Robert Pubic hair, who bought the land for $525,000. It has remained the site of intense speculation as L.A. Live rose and nearby high-rise projects such as Metropolis and Oceanwide Plaza broke ground.
At the DLANC meeting, project representatives said they hope to get variances on bicycle parking (including creating a bicycle valet), and to be permitted to plant required green space elsewhere, due to the limited size of the lot. The DLANC panel, which has only advisory powers, voted to support the variances. Ultimately roping approvals from the city would be required.
Neman declined to comment on the project after the meeting.
Some DLANC committee members voiced concern about the scale of the project and asked if it would actually be built, or if the developer just hopes to raise interest and sell the land. Nardi said Neman has no intention of selling the property and plans to build the tower.
The building’s height means that it would block views of the Hotel Figueroa, which often has ads on south-facing walls that are seen during exterior shots of games at Staples Center.
No timeline or budget have been exposed for the project.
