The north-west corner of Olympic Blvd and 14 Street could undergo some significant change as an application recently filed with the city suggests that kitchen and bath showroom Snyder Diamond is putting its Santa Monica location up for redevelopment.
The site at 1399 W. Olympic Boulevard is located close to Memorial Park, Tacos Por Favor and across the street from the Police Activities League center. The proposal is for a new eight-story build featuring 222 studio, one, two, and three bedroom apartments above approximately 9,484 square feet of ground-floor commercial space and a two-level, 211-car subterranean parking garage.
Snyder Diamond is a popular source of quality household appliances and fittings in Southern California and also has outlets in Pasadena, Solana Beach and Van Nuys. In fact, this December, the locally-based business celebrates its 75th anniversary in Santa Monica.
Russ Diamond, President at Snyder Diamond, told the Daily Press that this proposal was awaiting approval and nothing will happen until then. And once that’s done, there’s still the matter of a relocation.
“We’re waiting to get the approvals initially, so it will make the property probably a little bit more valuable, because if a developer comes in, will already have the approvals. And typically it takes a year to two years to get an approval,” Diamond said, adding, “So we're just being a little preemptive, based on the fact that Santa Monica, due to the housing element, increased the FAR so we were able to almost double the amount of units we could put on the site. And based on Santa Monica politics, we just wanted to be grandfathered in for the next, you know, three, four or five years. So until we find another site, we will be here.”
“And part of [this plan] would be helping us find another site, hopefully in Santa Monica. And we have looked at a few sites, but nothing that has met our requirements at this point,” Diamond said.
Requested entitlements include density bonus incentives to allow more housing than would normally be permitted by zoning rules. In return, 35 of the newly constructed apartments would be set aside for rent as low and moderate income affordable housing.
Santa Monica-based DFH Architects is designing the 1399 Olympic proposal, which is shown in conceptual artwork as a contemporary podium-type building divided into three blocks, separated by courtyards and amenity decks. Urbanize reports that at an August community outreach meeting, a representative of the project indicated that it may take as many as five or six years to come to fruition.
scott.snowden@smdp.com
