After a century, concrete plant that helped build L.A. makes way for a deluxe tower
If the new apartment tower had been planned for another plot of land, chances are good the concrete plant in the middle of the city would have helped build it.
But, as it happens, the century-old facility on La Brea Avenue that has provided concrete for buildings and roads across the Los Angeles region sat where the tower is to go up.
The West Adams project is the latest Shaul Kuba real estate transformation. Critics cry gentrification. The CIM co-founder says it’s a value-driving revival.
The mixing plant that routinely filled fleets of trucks with ready-to-pour concrete stood out as an urban oddity in its final years, a dusty, noisy industrial yard on busy La Brea Avenue near Santa Monica Boulevard, across the street from a shopping center with a Target store.
Straddling the border between West Hollywood and Los Angeles, it backed up against L.A.’s burgeoning Sycamore District that includes upmarket stores, restaurants and art galleries that have sprung up in the former industrial district.
