Jamison Flips Stalled Koreatown Hotel to 114 Affordable Units

A fully-entitled Koreatown hotel that never broke ground is becoming affordable housing instead. Jamison Services’ newly launched affordable-housing affiliate, Arden Residential, has filed a case with the Los Angeles Department of City Planning to convert 679 S. Harvard Blvd. from an approved 110-room hotel into 114 income-restricted apartments.

Why it matters

The Harvard Boulevard parcel has sat on an unused hotel entitlement for years: a seven-story building with 110 guest rooms that was approved but never built. Rather than let the approval expire, Jamison is routing it through the city’s citywide housing incentive program, which trades streamlined review and development bonuses for income-restricted units. It is the same playbook Jamison and Arden have run on at least one other Koreatown site, a 975 S. Manhattan Place site that Jamison re-entitled from market-rate to affordable housing. Jamison is also partnering with Kennedy Wilson on projects expected to produce roughly 4,000 homes across the Los Angeles area. For developers sitting on stalled hospitality or market-rate entitlements, the incentive program is becoming the fastest route back to a buildable project.

The numbers

The prior approval covered a seven-story hotel with 110 guest rooms. The new filing, case EAR-2026-5289-AH-HCA, proposes 114 one- and two-bedroom apartments split between low- and moderate-income renters, with no on-site parking. The application was submitted to City Planning earlier this month, and architectural plans have not yet been uploaded to the case file.

What’s next

The case is pending before City Planning; no hearing date has been set in the record, and the design has not been finalized. The pivot is worth watching as other Los Angeles developers weigh whether to revive stalled hotel approvals or convert them under the same incentive structure Jamison is using here.