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.
The change comes as elevated office vacancy continues to plague the broader Los Angeles market. Commercial real estate reports for the first quarter of 2026 recorded citywide office vacancy rates between 23.6% and 25.5%, with total office space availability exceeding 30%, according to figures from Cushman & Wakefield. Nearby Century City, by contrast, recorded direct office vacancy of just 12.3%, according to BNP Paribas Real Estate, underscoring how unevenly the office slump has hit different corners of the Westside.
Part of a Larger Westwood Trend
The 1650 S. Westwood Boulevard filing isn't the only office-to-residential conversion in the neighborhood. A larger adaptive reuse project is also planned for a commercial office tower at Westwood Boulevard and Wilshire Boulevard, per Urbanize LA. In May 2026, real estate investment trust Douglas Emmett submitted plans to convert a 17-story, 247,000-square-foot office tower at 10900 Wilshire Boulevard into 199 apartments alongside a new seven-story residential addition, according to Urbanize LA, bringing that project's total to 323 homes.
Transit access may also be shaping the calculus for owners of aging office buildings in the area. LA Metro opened the first 3.9-mile phase of its D Line subway extension along Wilshire Boulevard on May 8, 2026, expanding underground rail service toward Westside neighborhoods including Westwood, according to LA Metro. Citywide, Los Angeles now ranks second nationwide in adaptive reuse apartment development, with nearly 9,000 converted residential units across all building types in its regional pipeline as of late 2025, per The Real Deal.
Municipal environmental review filings for the Westwood Boulevard site were cataloged under planning case ENV-2022-1993-CE, with a Notice of Exemption published by the city in April 2026, according to records on CEQAnet. The filing tracks the city's entitlement process for the property, which falls under Council District 5. The trend echoes similar financing moves elsewhere in the city, including a recent $60M Koreatown office loan aimed at a similar apartment conversion.
