Month: May 2025

The Los Angeles City Council voted in favor of increasing the minimum wage for hotel workers to $30 an hour by 2028. Now it heads to Mayor Karen Bass. If she signs, more distress could follow.  Los Angeles’ hotels suffered throughout the pandemic and haven’t totally recovered. Revenues are flat and operating costs are swelling.…

Retail’s working with a mixed bag. Nowhere was that clearer than this past week when the industry descended in Las Vegas for the International Council of Shopping Centers’ annual confab. ICSC estimated more than 20,000 attendees were expected for the Vegas trade show and conference, according to a magazine distributed during the event. Bob Drury,…

Cityview has gotten the green light from the Los Angeles City Council to begin construction on its latest mixed-use apartment complex in Westchester. The approval comes after the project faced an appeal from the Supporters Alliance for Environmental Responsibility (SAFER), an affiliate of Laborers International Union of North America Local 270 (LIUNA), Urbanize Los Angeles…

Ethan Penner, the pioneer of commercial mortgage-backed securities, has all but declared he was running for governor of the Golden State. The nonpartisan CEO of Calabasas-based Mosaic Real Estate Investments took aim at Gov. Gavin Newsom while outlining a collaborative approach to addressing the dichotomy of California as the state with the most wealth alongside…

A low-rise office building next to Newport Beach’s swanky Fashion Island mall just sold for $11.5 million, fetching $756 per square foot. A local private partnership offloaded Olen Pacific Plaza, located at 1303 Avocado Avenue, with the help of brokers at CBRE, the Orange County Business Journal reported.  The two-floor, 15,200-square-foot office building on a…

As offices empty out in Downtown Los Angeles, renters have filled up Downtown apartments and put upward pressure on rents. Multifamily occupancy rose to 90.8 percent in the first quarter ending in March, from 90.1 percent a year earlier and up from 84.7 percent in 2019, Bisnow reported, citing figures from the DTLA Alliance. Average…

Hines has beat back a second appeal trying to block a 13-story office building, winning a final go-ahead in Downtown Los Angeles. The Houston-based developer was approved by the City Council, which denied a labor-backed appeal against the 435,000-square-foot tower at 2045 East Violet Street, in the Arts District, Urbanize Los Angeles reported. It will…

Unfinished construction didn’t deter a buyer from going into contract on a $31.5 million Bel-Air estate that’s expected to be valued for millions more once work is completed. The property at 1341 Linda Flora Drive marked last week’s top home in Los Angeles County to go into contract based on asking price, according to the…

Damavandi Capital is going bigger than originally planned for its latest multifamily development in Santa Monica.  The West Hollywood-based firm, formerly known as Dylan Investment Properties, has filed revised plans to boost the size of its apartment building by nearly 50 percent at 1320 Pico Boulevard, west of Santa Monica College, Urbanize Los Angeles reported.…

The Los Angeles City Council will hold a final vote on a proposal to increase minimum wage for hospitality workers to $30 an hour by 2028 on Friday, May 23. If it passes, which most expect it will, and Mayor Karen Bass signs it, distressed hotel sales and skittish investors and developers could follow.  “I’ve…