From office space to affordable housing

Downtown L.A. complex is first part of plan to create 4,000 units

- ROGER VINCENT

MYUNG J. CHUN Los Angeles Times. THE 10-STORY center, built in the mid-1970s, will be redubbed Sky Castle when it opens in early 2028.

An aging downtown office complex will be converted into apartments as part of an ambitious plan by local real estate companies to create 4,000 affordable housing units in Los Angeles.

The first project will be a $200-million makeover of the L.A. World Trade Center, a sprawling white elephant of an office complex on Figueroa Street built in the 1970s that will be turned into 512 apartments in one of the largest affordable housing conversions to date downtown.

Future projects being planned in the central city for delivery over the next five years will include other office-to-apartment conversions and new housing built from the ground up.

Behind the building campaign unveiled Monday are two of the region’s largest real estate companies, Jamison and Kennedy Wilson. Jamison is the city’s most prolific converter of offices to market-rate apartments and currently has a major makeover of a downtown office skyscraper underway for tenants who can pay top rents.

Kennedy Wilson, a real estate investment company based in Beverly Hills, owns nonprofit Vintage Housing, which builds and operates affordable housing using tax credits and other state and federal financing to help fund it.