In the unincorporated community of Florence-Firestone, AMCAL Multi-Housing, Inc. is wrapping up construction at a $48-million affordable housing complex.
The project, located at 1600 E. Florence Avenue, consists of a five-story building which will offer 109 apartments above 10,000 square feet of ground-floor commercial space and parking.
Per a 2018 staff report to the California Tax Credit Allocation Committee, the apartment complex will include a mix of one- and two-bedroom apartments, priced for households earning between 40 and 60 percent of the area median income. Rents would range from $509 to $1,309 per month.
VTBS Architects designed the project, which is composed of four levels of wood-frame construction above a concrete podium. In addition to housing, the development will include a 2,000-square-foot workforce development center on its ground floor.
The new apartment complex is rising from a Los Angeles County-owned site that was once home to the Florence Library. AMCAL had originally proposed to rebuild the library on the ground floor of the new development - as was done with a similar projects in the Willowbrook community - but that concept was scuttled in 2017, when Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas instead proposed to relocate the library to a different site one mile west. See this report from Streetsblog for background on the issue.
Completion of the new apartment complex is on pace to occur this year.
The development site is located less than a block north of Firestone Phoenix, a smaller supportive housing complex now being built by A Community of Friends.
AMCAL is either in the midst of construction pre-development at additional affordable housing projects in Historic South-Central, Pomona, and Long Beach.
- 1600 E. Florence Avenue (Urbanize LA)
Looking for affordable housing? Visit lahousing.lacity.org/aahr
