Update 5/25/16: According to Joe Shuster, the President and owner of Honda of Downtown Los Angeles, the project is an expansion of the business than a relocation. Although the current operations will be relocating to a new facility near Exposition Park, its current location will remain an automobile dealership focused on used cars and high-speed services for Honda vehicles.
The rising tide of Downtown Los Angeles real estate has finally begun to chip away at the Figueroa Corridor's well-established swath of automobile dealerships.
According to an initial study published by the Department of City Planning, Honda of Downtown Los Angeles intends to move to a new facility near Exposition Park. The relocated dealership, which is slated for completion in 2021, would be built on two properties at the intersection of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Hoover Street.
The future of the current Honda site at Figueroa Street and Venice Boulevard is unclear, although recent years have seen three adjacent properties give way for market rate apartment buildings with ground-floor retail space.
Across the intersection, Toyota of Downtown Los Angeles is expected to relocate to a new facility at Figueroa and Washington Boulevard, following parking garage developer L&R Group's purchase of its current home for $30 million. That property has also been suggested as an opportunity site for a mixed-use development.
