The owner of a 1970s commercial office building in Westwood has scrapped a years-old plan to tear it down and start fresh, opting instead to convert the existing structure into 31 apartments. A new application filed with the Los Angeles Department of City Planning proposes retaining, converting, and expanding the existing three-story building at 1650 S. Westwood Boulevard rather than demolishing it, according to the planning filing.
As reported by Urbanize LA, the site sits on roughly a quarter-acre lot at the corner of Westwood Boulevard and Massachusetts Avenue, where a commercial building was constructed in 1978 spanning 12,996 square feet across four levels with 20 surface parking spaces, per LoopNet. The property is owned by Federal Associates LLC, led by David York, which purchased the two-parcel site in 2019 for approximately $7.45 million, according to WhatNow.
From Demolition to Adaptive Reuse
York Enterprises, Inc. filed initial plans back in 2022 to redevelop the site entirely, calling for the demolition of the existing structure and construction of a new five-story building. That original proposal sought Tier-3 Transit Oriented Communities incentives for a 40,714-square-foot, 67-foot-tall building using a 70% density bonus, which would have allowed 60 studio and one-bedroom apartments, including six extremely low-income units, along with a two-level subterranean garage holding 31 cars, per the same account.
The revised project now on file takes a very different approach, using citywide housing incentives to create a four-story structure with 31 apartments spread across studio, one-bedroom, and two-bedroom units, seven of which would be reserved as extremely low-income housing. Afco Design is listed as the project architect, per the planning application. The shift from a ground-up, 60-unit tower to a smaller adaptive reuse conversion reflects broader headwinds facing new residential construction in Los Angeles.
A Regulatory Change Opens the Door
The pivot lines up with a major regulatory shift: in December 2025, the Los Angeles City Council expanded the Citywide Adaptive Reuse Ordinance (No. 188,793), which took effect in February 2026 and allows commercial buildings at least 15 years old anywhere in the city to pursue streamlined conversion into housing, according to The Real Deal. Previously, such incentives were largely limited to Downtown Los Angeles and select specific plan subareas, per the outlet…