Geoff Palmer moves ahead on South LA apartment tower

Developer Geoff Palmer has received preliminary approval to build a 15-story, 280-unit apartment tower just south of Downtown Los Angeles.

The Los Angeles planning department has approved plans by Beverly Hills-based G.H. Palmer Associates to build the Ruspoli Tower, a mixed-use complex at 2321 – 2327 S. Flower St., What Now Los Angeles reported.

The white tower with banks of large windows would be built on a half-acre property next to the Harbor Freeway and Flower Street, across from the Metro Expo LATTC/Ortho Institute Metro station.

The triangular property is now a parking lot with an empty trailer.

GMPA Architects, based in Sawtelle, has designed the 224-foot tall, 125,000 square-foot building to hold 280 studio apartments atop 700 square feet of ground-floor commercial space. An underground parking garage would serve 64 vehicles.

The project will contain 200 units at 350 square feet each, with the rest at either 400 or 430 square feet.

G.H. Palmer will set aside 31 units for extremely low-income households, such as a single tenant who earns a maximum $24,850 a year.

The Ruspoli Tower would feature about 22,500 square feet of outdoor open space, including landscaped yards at street level, a second floor deck and a rooftop patio deck with a swimming pool. L.A. Group Design Works, based in Calabasas, has designed the landscaping.

The proposed development is across the street from another apartment tower planned by Palmer, according to Urbanize Los Angeles. The Lorenzo tower was to have risen as high as 50 stories, but was downsized to 12 before the project was scuttled in 2016.

The Ruspoli would be the tallest building near the LATTC/Ortho Institute Station, but not the largest. Cityview is now building a seven-story, 296-unit apartment complex at Adams Boulevard and Grand Avenue near USC for $125-million.

Palmer is best known for his Italian Renaissance-inspired apartment complexes along the Harbor Freeway.

In the works are the massive 1,150-unit Ferrante apartments on 10 acres at Temple Street and Beaudry Avenue in Downtown.

[What Now Los Angeles, Urbanize Los Angeles] – Dana Bartholomew