Glendale approves new residential development for downtown

The Glendale City Council this week signed off on plans for a six-story, 166-unit apartment building on the southwest corner of Orange Street and Wilson Avenue, where Jo-Ann Fabrics currently is located.

The project is being developed by Washington state-based Holland Partners Group, which is also developing a similar project across the street on the corner of Brand Boulevard and Wilson.

Tom Warren, president of Holland Partners, said the favorable experience his company had with city officials on the Brand and Wilson project led to the decision to launch this new project in downtown Glendale.

The new development replaces plans for a 16-story building with 201 apartments that was approved by the City Council in 2007, but which never came to fruition.

The earlier building would have been 185 feet tall, 100 feet taller than the Holland project will be.

Unlike the project at Brand and Wilson, the building at Orange and Wilson will have no ground-level retail space.

Seven town homes will run along the ground level on Orange and Wilson, with stoops leading to the front doors, according to the plans.

“We really support the city’s goal for pedestrian character along Orange Street,” Warren said.

Michael LaBarre, principal with San Diego-based Carrier Johnson Architects, said his company tried to make sure the Orange-and-Wilson project complements the shift from large commercial buildings on Brand to smaller ones on Central Avenue.

“The site today is a very important transitional site from Brand and Wilson over to Central and the neighboring community,” LaBarre said.

The design includes bay windows, terraces and balconies, and a white ledge that wraps around the building at various levels, giving it a “serpentine” look, LaBarre said.

LaBarre described the two Holland projects as “cousins of the same family,” but said they do not have the same design.

In addition to the town homes, the building will have 52 studios, 73 one-bedroom units, 24 two-bedroom units and 10 three-bedroom units.

“So [there is] a good mix of unit types and sizes dispersed throughout the project,” LaBarre said.

The second level will provide common-area amenities, such as a fireplace on an outdoor terrace, a spa, seating areas and landscaping. It will also have a large glass wall that can be opened up, allowing for indoor-outdoor flow, LaBarre said.

The third floor will feature a landscaped courtyard, he added.

On the roof will be 5,000 square feet of terrace and garden space. Open space and amenities total more than 27,000 square feet throughout the building, “which is well over half the size of the site,” LaBarre said.

Three levels of parking, two of which will be subterranean, will provide 217 spaces.

Warren said the project’s groundbreaking is expected to take place early in the second quarter of 2013.

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Follow Mark Kellam on Twitter @LAMarkKellam.