Work getting underway on Wilshire housing and retail complex

Construction is set to begin Monday on a $200-million apartment and retail complex at one of the busiest intersections in the Koreatown district of Los Angeles.

The project called the Vermont is the largest residential development to be built in Los Angeles since the beginning of the latest real estate downturn, J.H. Snyder Development Co. said.

The Vermont will rise on two acres at the southeast corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Vermont Avenue. It will house 464 apartments in two towers — one 16 stories and the other 22 — that will rise above a seven-story podium containing stores and a parking garage.

The design by the Jerde Partnership architecture firm calls for a lobby, pool, gym and recreation center on the seventh floor, above the garage. Tenants might include USC students, members of the Korean community and young professionals.

“We’re going for a new generation of younger people who don’t want to take care of a lawn and a roof, and who go to LA Live at night,” developer Jerry Snyder said. “I think that’s my market.”

Ground-floor retailers are to include Starbucks, the Counter restaurant, a grocer, a bank and a dry cleaner when the complex is finished in 2014. Apartment rents are to start at $2,100 per month.

Washington Capital Management, which manages investments for union pension funds in Washington state, is the lead equity investor in the Vermont, Snyder said. The complex will employ 400 workers when it is complete.

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