An environmental report published by the Los Angeles Planning Department has unveiled developer Jia Long USA's plan to construct a 33-story tower near Wilshire/Vermont Station in Koreatown.

The Wilshire Gate project, slated for a 35,000-square-foot site at 631 S. Vermont Avenue, would consist of a 33-story building featuring up to 200 hotel rooms, nearly 50,000 square feet of office space, 250 condominiums and 28,000 square feet of retail space on the first and second floors.  Plans also call for parking for over 500 vehicles, as well as 18 residential units that would be set aside for very low income households.

Archeon Group, an architecture and planning firm based in Koreatown, is designing the proposed tower, which would rise to a maximum height of 450 feet above street level.  Renderings portray a contemporary rectangular glass structure which rises to a rooftop deck.  Planned amenities include a fitness center and a swimming pool.

According to the project's mitigated negative declaration, the construction process would occur over approximately 24 months, starting with the demolition of the Denny's restaurant which currently occupies the develompent site.  The document forecasts a buildout period between late 2017 and late 2019.

Developer Century West Partners had previously entitled the property between Wilshire Boulevard and 6th Street for a smaller seven-story development, similar the the Next on Sixth complex now taking shape a short distance east.  The subsidiary of Chicago-based Fifield Companies eventually sold the land to Jia Long, the subsidiary of a real estate firm headquartered in Beijing.

A similar tower is planned by Los Angeles-based Harridge Development Group just one block away at the corner of 7th Street and New Hampshire Avenue.

An adjacent parking lot at Vermont and 6th Street is slated to give way for the long-proposed Korean American National Museum.