Luxury Lofts Rising in Westside

A loft boom of another sort is taking shape 18 miles west of downtown Los Angeles.

In an industrial pocket on the edge of Marina del Rey, body shops, tow yards and surfboard makers are waging a turf battle with developers of residential lofts and condos. The developers are winning in a big way.

With 800 upscale residential units rising on half a dozen parcels, the gritty little area has become one of the busiest construction zones on Los Angeles’ Westside. And that’s saying something, given the building boomlets in Playa Vista, Marina del Rey, Westwood and other enclaves as developers strive to meet the seemingly insatiable demand for housing.

Crisscrossed by power lines serving a hodgepodge of mom-and-pop businesses, yoga studios and architects’ offices, the area is “a great pocket for urban infill,” said Ken Kahan, a developer who is building four residential projects, including lofts with 17-foot ceilings, in the zone.

It’s hardly news that loft living is all the rage. For the last few years, developers have fed the hunger for high-end lofts and condos in downtown Los Angeles. So many abandoned bank buildings and decaying hotels have been refurbished -- with units selling for as much as $1 million -- that poor residents are having to scramble to find dwellings.

Around Marina del Rey, the shift is pushing out business owners and factory workers who have occupied the area for decades. Steve Jones, an architect on Glencoe Avenue, said he enjoys the area’s eclecticism and fears being displaced. His landlord told him the site was once part of a dairy farm that gave way to metal and brick buildings that served as boatyards and aircraft production facilities.

Many of those structures are being demolished to make way for residential projects with names like Del Rey Lofts, Redwood Lofts, Element and Indigo.

Advertisements for the lofts -- “Beachy but Urban,” “Hip but Homey” -- seek to capture the notion of a sophisticated but comfortable lifestyle in the coastal zone.

These projects are part of a trend toward higher-density living on the Westside. The epitome of this new approach to housing is Playa Vista, a densely packed community just south of Marina del Rey. Activists have long battled that project, contending that it robbed residents of much-needed open space and exacerbated traffic congestion.

One developer jokingly dubbed the area SoCo (for south of a Costco shopping center in Culver City), but another name has caught on: Marina Loft District.

The neighborhood is changing before the very eyes of business owners, who figure their buildings, too, will be supplanted. Many say they are scouting new space in Inglewood, Downey and other communities that don’t mind the attendant machinery and fumes. Parcels are selling for millions of dollars.

“We small businesses are being squeezed out,” said Chris Pak, manager of Platinum Auto Refinish & Collision Center on Glencoe. A year ago, after seeing tenants tote sofas and tables into a new apartment building next door, he told his workers to activate the shop’s compressors later than usual on Saturdays. No one dictated that change, Pak said, but “it seemed the sensible thing to do. I just don’t want to create a rift between the tenants and us.”

Once a quiet street, Glencoe has become a thoroughfare, Pak added, with clouds of dust from construction equipment that wreaks havoc with detailing work and clogs spray-booth filters.

Residential developers say this transformation represents a desirable neighborhood’s natural progression, given the strong demand for Westside housing. The 800 units -- being built by John Laing Homes, Standard Pacific Homes, Kahan’s California Landmark Development and others -- will range in price from the $400,000s to about $1 million.

“It was time for that neighborhood to evolve,” said Alan J. Boeker, division president with Standard Pacific of Los Angeles, a builder of 140 lofts on Redwood Avenue, with an average size of 1,350 square feet. Across the street, Standard Pacific plans to tear down a Burger King on Washington Boulevard and replace it with 41 “live-work” condos.

“Fortunately,” Boeker added, “the right people realized it and set a blueprint in place for when the market was right.”

That blueprint was the Glencoe/Maxella Specific Plan, which the city of Los Angeles adopted in 1993. The ordinance allows for the development of residential units amid the industrial uses. Devised by residents of a condo complex and industrial property owners and their tenants, the plan arose because of concerns about traffic and noise at a time when Culver City was contemplating building a regional shopping center where Costco now sits.

“At the time I took office, there were plans for 36 movie theaters,” said Ruth Galanter, then councilwoman for the district that included the Glencoe/Maxella area. Property owners and residents were “calling me up in some variation of hysterics,” she added. Galanter suggested they work together to find a solution. Somewhat to her surprise, they did.

“These two groups normally would have been at each other’s throats,” she said. They agreed to permit residential projects and to protect many of the existing industrial uses. The long list of allowed uses included the repair of aircraft engine parts, coffee roasting, the manufacturing of brooms, bathing caps, toys and sausage, and a blacksmith shop. Prohibited were banks, Turkish baths, billiard parlors, bowling alleys and movie theaters.

Gareth Wardell, a writer who has bought a new two-bedroom condo in the area, said he prizes the neighborhood for its walking-distance proximity to shopping and entertainment. Several shopping centers and mini-malls are within a few blocks.

Just west of Lincoln Boulevard, developer Rick Caruso is overhauling the 10-acre Waterside at Marina del Rey, which will include a refurbished Ralphs, a Starbucks, clothing and shoe shops and restaurants. It is to reopen in mid-November.

From an unfinished deck in one of Kahan’s projects, the view is of a sea of squat industrial buildings topped by a forest of heating and air-conditioning units. That loft, with its open floor plan and 17-foot ceiling, is expected to go for about $1 million. “We’re doing hip and downtown” design, Kahan said.

Bill Rattazzi, president of John Laing’s Los Angeles-Ventura division, said his company’s planned lofts and condos, slated for completion in 2006 and 2007, are attracting interest from young professionals and empty-nesters who appreciate the neighborhood’s ambience. “People are getting more willing to walk,” he said. “It’s a bit of a social change.”

Seeking to tap into this market, Angel City Fitness, a gym on Glencoe, began adding amenities two years ago, including a cafe, hair salon, carwash and chiropractor. “We changed our culture to be more of a service for families,” said Leah Swogger, Angel City’s owner. She added that she hopes some of the office and industrial workers stay put because they tend to use the facility during the day, whereas residents come in after work or in the evening.

Even though there’s no “affordable housing” component to the Marina Loft District, Galanter said the new projects provide luxury living for well-heeled buyers while preserving existing housing for the less well-to-do.

“It’s useful public policy,” she said, “to get the rich people brand-new housing and make them leave the working people’s housing alone.”