One of the tallest residential buildings in the City’s history is coming to the corner of 6th and Colorado bringing 264 units of housing in a 24 story building adjacent to the Expo line.
On Monday evening, a community meeting was held over Zoom to enable local residents to listen to, and comment on the mixed residential-retail project proposal set for 601 Colorado.
Hosted by Melissa Sweeney who was acting as a community liaison, she was joined by Zachary Kadden, Managing Director of Development at Madison Realty Capital, the owners of the new building along with Jesse Ottinger of Ottinger Architects and Dave Rand, a land use attorney.
The footprint of the project is probably smaller than you might think; it only covers two lots and measures approximately 150 ft by 150 ft. It is set to be positioned between 6th Street and 6th Court, facing onto Colorado Avenue, opposite the Big Blue Bus depot. Currently there is a row of abandoned outlets in that location that are frequently used by the homeless as illegal, makeshift shelters.
According to Kadden, the building will incorporate 264 units in total, 224 of which will be made available at market rate and 40 coming under the affordable housing classification.
“There have been some very significant changes to both local zoning regulations as well as state housing laws that have allowed greater densities, greater heights, greater square footages for projects that are proposing greater amounts of affordable housing,” Rand said.
“This project is utilizing the full extent of recent amendments to the state density bonus law to achieve effectively a doubling of the density that would otherwise be allowed under the underlying zoning regulations,” he added.
The property was previously one of the Builder’s Remedy projects but it was withdrawn from that process under a 2023 settlement between the city and developers. Its current height far exceeds local zoning limitations but state rules supersede local control. Under the state rules, projects that designate a percentage of total units as below market rate can double the number of units allowed at any given location. Local rules cannot prevent developers from building those additional units which means projects can ignore typical restrictions on height and density.
At approximately 260 ft tall, this project will be roughly three times the height of the Santa Monica Pier Ferris wheel, making it the tallest building in the city. The proposed 100 Wilshire project is 21 stories and if you include its aerials and antennas, it comes in at 295 ft total height.
Ottinger explained that three retail spaces will be made available on the ground floor. “We’re thinking for some potential outdoor dining spaces, and we have two smaller neighborhoods serving retail spaces along Colorado and then the alley to the west where we have our services with the utilities and parking and loading access along the alley.”
According to Ottinger, the 6th Street ground floor will incorporate a gym with a glass frontage and the main lobby entry connecting to the interior elevator, along with a post room.
Interestingly, the second floor will feature a courtyard space, with landscaping, outdoor terrace seating and “some small room spaces that overlook onto Colorado and Sixth Street” that allow for ample sunlight. This means that the residential tower itself will not fill the entire footprint.
The apartments themselves will be studio, one bedroom and two bedroom and each will offer at least one balcony, all of which wrap around the tower structure.
The roof will offer outdoor lounge seating, decking and cabana areas along with “a large lounge community room in the center” plus a lawn and other areas that can be utilized for fitness activities.
“The design concept for the project was really to bring a glassy feel to the project [so] we’re using glass railing balconies, floor to ceiling glass for the units, giving it a verticality and a nice, sophisticated feeling to the overall design,” Ottinger said.
Prior to the meeting, online commentary had criticized the project for a lack of parking (it will have just over 100 parking spaces total) and being out of character with the neighborhood but those concerns were muted during the presentation with many participants making favorable comments about the project. While the parking was a concern for residents on the call most just agreed that this will vastly improve the immediate area.
Kadden said this Zoom meeting is a required part of the process with the City of Santa Monica to allow the project to be enabled. All the information gathered will then be presented to the City “in the next couple of weeks.” Details on how long the project would take to construct were not available, but one assumes it would be at least two years, if the Vons redevelopment is any indication.
