Four months after purchasing a 1920s warehouse in the Arts District for $21.6 million, real estate investment firm Est4te Four Capital has filed redevelopment plans for the property with the City of Los Angeles.
According to a case filing from the Department of City Planning, the British company intends to add nearly 65,000 square feet of space - or approximately three new floors - atop the two-story structure at 2nd and Vignes Streets. The upper levels of the building would be used as a private club featuring office space, a gym and a swimming pool. At ground level, plans call for commercial uses including a food market, a cafe and other retail establishments.
Construction is expected to begin sometime this year.
The warehouse, located at 929 E. 2nd Street, was completed in 1926 as the headquarters of the Challenge Cream & Butter Company, and was later repurposed as artist lofts in the 1980s. In more recent years the building has found itself at the eye of the hurricane, as the Arts District rapidly transitions from its industrial past.
Last month, Hauser Wirth & Schmmel opened its highly anticipated art gallery in the former Globe Mills building on 3rd Street. The 116,000-square-foot facility, located just south of the Est4te Four property, features exhibition space, a bookstore, a garden and a restaurant.
A short distance east, construction commenced earlier this month on a $215-million project which will create a series of five- and six-story apartment buildings adjacent to the Southern California Institute of Architecture.
Perhaps the most salient exmaple of the neighborhood's evolution can be found next-door to the Est4te Four building, where Lowe Enterprises is nearing completion on a mixed-use development known as the Garey Building. The approximately $100-million project, which is scheduled to open this year, features 320 apartments above 15,000 square feet of street-level commercial space.
