A tale of two downtowns in L.A.: As offices languish, apartments thrive
By many measures, downtown Los Angeles’ newest apartment tower is over the top with such gilded flourishes as stone tiles from Spain lining the elevator cabs and hand-troweled Italian plaster on interior walls. Hummingbirds have somehow found the fruit-laden trees decorating the outdoor lounge on the 41st floor.
For Stuart Morkun, the developer who oversaw construction of the recently completed Figueroa Eight skyscraper, it was the porte cochere, where residents leave their cars with valets, that really stood out. The travertine used to build it was mined from the same quarry outside of Rome that supplied stone for the Colosseum, New York City’s Lincoln Center and the Getty Museum.
The decision by Mitsui Fudosan America, the Japanese real estate company that owns Figueroa Eight, to spend as much as $350 million to build an ultra high-end residential tower in downtown L.A. might at first seem to be a risky gamble.
After all, L.A’.s homelessness crisis is on stark display on many downtown streets, and glitzy office towers looming nearby are dealing with low occupancy and falling values as law firms, financial service companies and other businesses that filled them before the pandemic have reduced space or departed altogether.
