LA Affordable Rehab Tops New Builds at $908K a Door

Why it matters

The per-unit figures below are ours: total development cost divided by units from each LAHD project report. LAHD does not publish them as a cost-per-door metric. They are implied figures, not an agency benchmark.

The divergence is the point. 803 E. 5th St, a rehab run by Coalition for Responsible Community Development, implies about $908,000 per unit. Peak Plaza Apartments (Hollywood Community Housing Corporation) implies $756,000 and Prisma (Affirmed Housing Group) $751,000, both new construction. The rehab runs about 21% above the cheaper new build.

Concentration matters too. City money is uneven: $278,000 per unit at 803 E. 5th St, $135,000 at Peak Plaza and $75,000 at Prisma. The city share of cost ranges from 10% to 31%. The more expensive the door, the more the city carries.

The numbers

Project	Units	Total cost	City funding	Implied per unit
803 E. 5th St (rehab)	95	$86,230,369	$26,445,000	$907,688
Peak Plaza, 316 E Washington Blvd	104	$78,667,096	$14,080,000	$756,414
Prisma, 6914 W De Longpre Ave	98	$73,598,108	$7,341,441	$751,001

Blended, that is $803,000 per unit with city funding at 20% of cost. Funding dates span October 2021 to April 2026, so cost inflation is mixed into the gap.

With n = 3, this is a spread, not a trend. We have not seen the scope of the 803 E. 5th St rehab, and the supportive-housing mix differs by project (803 E. 5th St and Prisma are flagged supportive; Peak Plaza is not).

What’s next

All three sit at the Development stage; these are LAHD funding records, not completion costs. Final costs can move. We will recompute as LAHD refreshes the list, and track more projects to see if the rehab premium holds. For an earlier LA public-money benchmark, see the Weingart Tower deal and our Los Angeles market page.

Sources: LAHD dataset, record date October 19, 2026.