Protective fencing has suddenly appeared around a longtime parking lot at Wilshire Boulevard and La Jolla Avenue, the site of a proposed apartment tower from WS Communities.

The proposed 16-story development, originally improved in 2005, would contain 112 apartments, 5,100 square feet of ground-floor retail space, and 275 parking spaces on four podium levels upon completion.

Steinberg Hart is designing the 193-foot-tall building, which would have an irregular curving form with an undulating facade.  Plans also call for podium- and roof-level amenity decks, with design work by RELM Studio.

The building site was previously under the ownership of UDR, Inc., which purchased the parking lot along with the nearby property that eventually became the 18-story Vision apartment tower.  Thought UDR initiated the entitlement application for the current project, it sold the project to WS Communities - formerly WNMS Communities.

A timeline for the 16-story tower has not been revealed.

The project site sits directly across La Jolla Avenue from a new AC Hotel, which will inhabit a former office building which dates to the 1950s.