mercantile arcade conversion stuck in limbo
This blog has moved to Twitter! Check out my twitter feed for the latest restaurant, retail, and cultural news in the neighborhood.
Remember this one?
Since early 2002, Fifth Street Funding has been working to redevelop the 12-story Mercantile Arcade Building into 142 loft-style apartments.
The Beaux-Arts / Spanish Renaissance Revival structure, built in 1924, is comprised of two back-to-back towers which run a full block between Broadway and Spring Street, linked by a three-story retail arcade. Even though some upgrades have been made to the 35,000 square-feet of swap meet space on the ground floor, progress on the upper levels has been languid, missing the original delivery date of late 2003 or early 2004 by nearly five years now.
According to the Wade Killefer of Killefer Flammang Architects, the lead design firm for the project, there is no end in sight.
“The property is 98% completed but the owner is having a time of it trying to get it over the line,” states Killefer in an email to angelenic. Attempts to contact owner Greg Martin of Fifth Street Funding have not been returned.
Back in December, the building’s iconic KRKD tower was relit with blue neon through the Museum of Neon Art’s LUMENS project.
8 comments
Is there a theatre in there? By the way how many theatres are on Broadway?
I would like to invest some money in to one of these developments, does anyone know how I can do that?
“original delivery date of late 2003 or early 2004 by nearly five years now.”
Wow. Had they finished on time, they would have made out well.
“The property is 98% completed”
That’s hard to believe. Why invest 98% of the money, just to sit on it and get n0 return for 5 years? Especially considering that it is a rental property.
At any rate, it is a rental, so it should eventually be brought online.
“Why” you ask, He’s about 93 years old and worth about 3-4 Billion!
they should continue working on giving those buisnesses better updated signage, that alone would give the g/f all together good look. In the above picture is looks too cluttered.
one theory i’ve heard is that if they actually open to occupancy, the construction loans starting coming due. maybe they’re losing less money by leaving it empty.
they showed off these units back in 2005 during the los angeles conservancy’s spring on spring event. as i recall, they were much more on the apartment side of the continuum than open-floor-plan lofts, and not at all impressive.
The Hellens have had endless subcontractor problems that have caused the delays and they are doing everything they can to get the project signed off.
Brady any update on this at all? This part of spring street seems to be lagging even with all the activity to the south and north of it.