Top Two Floors of L.A. Office Converted Into Apartments

The owner of a low-rise building in Los Angeles’ Mid-Wilshire neighborhood changed things up in a partial office-to-residential conversion. 

Dallas-based Creative Media & Community Trust (CMCT), converted the top two floors of the three-story office building into 68 luxury apartment units, according to the Business Journals. CMCT is operated by affiliates of L.A.-based CIM Group, which oversaw the redevelopment. Kanden Realty & Development, Japan-based developer Taisei and another unnamed institutional investor are co-investors of the roughly 143,000-square-foot property, per the Business Journals. 

A 30,000-square-foot space on the ground floor, which is fully leased, will remain creative office space with the address 4750 Wilshire Boulevard. The top-floor apartments will use the address 701 South Hudson Avenue, and will feature studio-, one- and two-bedroom units. CIM Group’s headquarters are nearby at 4700 Wilshire Boulevard. 

Representatives for CMCT and CIM Group did not immediately respond to requests for comment. 

L.A., and California more broadly, is a hot spot for adaptive reuse projects, with office-to-residential conversions leading the charge last year. Thirty-one percent of the state’s roughly 14,000 conversion projects were originally office space, according to a May report by RentCafe, higher than the national rate of 28 percent. 

The incentives from L.A.’s Adaptive Reuse Ordinance, introduced in 1999, is a key driver of that activity, making it easier to convert vacant spaces into housing. 

Nick Trombola can be reached at ntrombola@commericalobserver.com.