Downtown Los Angeles
With $15 billion of recent private investment, Downtown L.A. is just getting warmed up. In a neighborhood that suffered from blight and emptiness 10 years ago, the middle class and wealthy are now flocking to Downtown in droves. According to a report by Lauren Schuker Blum and the Wall Street Journal, TV producers and TV personalities are selling their old-fashioned Beverly Hills McMansions to move to the new, exciting frontier of Downtown Los Angeles. They are moving here for the new energy. In Downtown, residents can walk everywhere they need to go for food, entertainment and new public transportation. #DowntownLA
Those who love new buildings prefer luxury high-rises like the Ritz-Carlton condos at LA Live, while genuine loft lovers are buying multiple units at the historic industrial Nabisco headquarters, now converted to luxury lofts called Biscuit Company.
Downtown’s population has soared over the past 14 years to 52,400 people, according to the Downtown Center Business Improvement District. Much of this expansion is due to the Los Angeles Adaptive Re-use Ordinance, along with the Metro rail transit stations, and LA Live.
In the past five years, Downtown has grown by more than 500 new restaurants, bars, nightclubs and retail stores.
While more than 5,000 apartments are under construction downtown, with another 13,000 proposed, new condo inventory is at record lows, with almost no condos currently available for sale in Downtown. The only exceptions are the new Metropolis Los Angeles, a $1 billion megaproject under construction until 2016. Meanwhile, prices have increased and vacancy rates have decreased. The new construction luxury condos at Metropolis can now be reserved without risk for prices around $1,000 per square foot.
When the developers KOR Group released first 15 units of Barker Block Warehouse One in late January of 2014, they received 115 offers and the lofts sold within the week. The remaining units sold within just a few months.
Downtown residents love the vibrancy of the many young professionals walking their dogs, and couples now walking on the street, the sense of community. More and more same-sex couples are finding Downtown to be the perfect place for creative new thinking and a celebration of diversity. Two new gay bars are now under construction, including Precinct on Broadway and 4rd Street, and Redline dance club below the Santa Fe Lofts on 6th Street. At the same time, more families with children are also feeling safe and secure enough to move to Downtown with its low crime rate thanks to alert residents, vigilant police and 24-hour bicycle safety patrols.
The tallest building on the West Cost is now under construction called the Wilshire Grand. Whole Foods market is under construction along with other new retail store at 8th Street and Grand Avenue.
New Downtown residents are generally younger, and make about twice as much money as the national average. The median age of downtown L.A. residents is 34, with a median annual income of $98,700 per household, according to a survey issued in 2013 by the Downtown Center Business Improvement District.
A suburban house is no longer the ideal picture. A Downtown loft is now the American Dream.