Onni Group on Tuesday pulled the curtain back on a long-planned Arts District project, trading its earlier office-heavy concept for a pair of all-residential towers. The refreshed plan calls for roughly 474 apartments split between a taller western tower and a shorter eastern one, with a share of very low and extremely low income units reserved under Measure JJJ. Neighbors will be watching closely to see whether the proposal really preserves the site’s low-rise commercial feel and the pedestrian passages highlighted in the new materials.
The city's presentation outlines a 30-story west tower and a 20-story east tower that together would hold 474 one-, two-, and three-bedroom homes above just over 2,000 square feet of ground-floor retail, stacked over subterranean parking. The taller west building would reach about 344 feet with roughly 324 units, while the east tower would rise about 226 feet with roughly 150 units. Across the full site, the project would total roughly 569,000 square feet and, per the project's Measure JJJ calculation, include 77 very low- and extremely low-income units. Those figures come from the renderings and presentation materials released this week, according to Urbanize LA.
Project history and environmental footprint
Onni has controlled the roughly 2.2-acre parcel for years and previously secured approvals for a very different plan that leaned heavily on office use, including a 36-story tower and substantial office square footage. The city's earlier draft environmental impact report for that proposal details the site-level floor area and parking burdens that continue to shape the entitlements in play today. Those earlier filings and the official environmental documents are posted on the state's CEQAnet portal for the City of Los Angeles.
Design changes, retained buildings, and public space
The revised submission lists Solomon Cordwell Buenz as the design architect and keeps several commercial buildings on the northern edge of the property, while carving open space into shared walkways and pedestrian gathering areas that cut through the site. Earlier entitlement drawings by Arno Matis emphasized an “art walk” and a stacked-pallet façade treatment, underscoring how the scheme has moved through multiple design teams even as some neighborhood-focused gestures have stuck around. These design notes and the architect's credit appear in the project's presentation and prior coverage. YIMBY.
Where this fits in DTLA's pipeline
The shift from office to housing at Violet Street mirrors a wider recalibration in Los Angeles' commercial market, as high vacancy lingers and makes residential construction look like the safer play for many builders. Recent commercial real estate coverage in the Los Angeles Times has noted elevated county-level office vacancy in the post-pandemic era, and the paper has also highlighted Onni's big Olympic & Hill tower in Downtown as evidence of the developer's continued bet on housing. Los Angeles Times.
The project remains in the City's review pipeline and will need entitlements and public review before any construction can start. Onni's submittals and the official filing package will be available through the planning record for neighbors and other stakeholders. For now, the renderings are the clearest clue to how the developer hopes to thread new housing into the Arts District’s industrial fabric.
