Sankofa Place Breaks Ground: 120 Affordable Units in Inglewood

Venice Community Housing, Linc Housing and the Social Justice Learning Institute (SJLI) have broken ground on Sankofa Place at Centinela, a 120-unit affordable apartment project at 400 Centinela Avenue in Inglewood, according to Urbanize LA. The $44 million project will house residents earning 30 to 80 percent of the area median income.

The deal is as much about an institution as it is about apartments. SJLI, a community nonprofit focused on education and youth programs, is getting a permanent 25,000 square foot home built into the project, the first time the organization will own rather than lease its space.

Why it matters

Inglewood sits inside Los Angeles County but runs its own building department, separate from the City of Los Angeles permitting system most of this desk’s coverage draws on. A 120-unit groundbreaking there is also a signal that LA County’s regional affordable-housing financing agency, LACAHSA, is reaching past the City of LA’s own LAHD pipeline into independent cities. The SJLI piece adds a second layer: a community nonprofit trading rent for equity, a structure more affordable developments are using to anchor long-term tenants.

The numbers

Sankofa Place pencils at $44 million total cost for 120 units, or roughly $367,000 per unit, in line with other Southern California affordable deals this cycle. LACAHSA is in for a $7.5 million loan, with the balance coming from unitemized state and local sources that Urbanize LA’s report did not break out. A separate state grant is funding off-site work, including a bikeway segment parallel to Florence Avenue and money toward electric buses, costs that do not show up in the project’s own line item but are tied to the approval. Income limits run 30 to 80 percent of area median income, a wider band than many 100 percent AMI-restricted projects in the county.

What’s next

Completion is expected in 2028. Watch for the building permit to surface in Inglewood’s own records, since the project will not appear in the City of LA’s LADBS or LAHD datasets the way an Los Angeles city project would. Watch too for how LACAHSA structures its next few loans outside the City of LA core, since Sankofa Place is an early test of the county agency funding projects in cities that run independent permitting.