Construction has begun on a $200-million apartment complex in Culver City at a time when housing development in much of Los Angeles County has slowed in spite of strong demand.
The earth is being graded at the busy intersection of Jefferson and Sepulveda boulevards to make way for the development of 344 units over street-level retail businesses in a complex called ElevenOneEleven, which will include two public parks.
Building the project are developers Lincoln Property Co. of Dallas and New York-based McCourt Partners. Lincoln was one of the major developers of the nearby community of Playa Vista that was built in recent decades on the site of the former headquarters of Hughes Aircraft Co.
Culver City also played a role in aviation history, but it is best known for its movie studios, including MGM (now Sony Pictures Studios), Culver Studios and Hal Roach Studios, where Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy and “Our Gang” comedies were produced.
Today it has emerged as one of the region’s top choices for creative businesses, including HBO, Amazon and Apple.
The city of 40,000 “has undergone a significant transformation from its historical roots in entertainment into what it is now,” said Jordan Lang, president of McCourt Partners. “It’s a cool place people want to be, and we see a market with a lot of room for growth.”
Public officials are calling for more housing as Culver City endeavors to reach the Southern California Assn. of Governments’ target of adding 3,341 units to Culver City by 2029, Mayor Freddy Puza said in March.
ElevenOneEleven will house as many as 500 people after it is completed in late 2028, and will include 52 units with subsidized affordable rents, the developers said.
They expect many residents will be from the technology and entertainment industries.
Culver City has one of the strongest employment bases in the region but is considered “severely under-housed,” which made it easier to raise money to build the project, said Stephen Lindgren, leader of Lincoln’s Los Angeles office.
The developers secured nearly $133 million in construction financing from an Arkansas bank last month.
“Institutional capital likes Culver City,” Lang said.
Los Angeles has seen a decline in apartment construction in recent years, in part because lenders, including pension funds, insurance companies and other institutions seeking long-term investments are wary of parking their money there because rapidly changing rules make profits hard to predict.
Observers say the years since the COVID-19 pandemic emergency have shown how tangled the industry’s regulation can get in L.A., so investors are taking their money to other cities.
Other challenges for housing developers include rising construction costs and difficulty finding skilled labor.
“There are some pretty intense headwinds in our world,” Lang said. “Everyone says we need housing, but then it’s really hard to actually provide housing.”
The project is underway at 11111 Jefferson Blvd., on a 3.5-acre site formerly occupied by a U.S. Post Office, a Coco’s restaurant and a Valvoline auto repair shop.
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