Leo Lee Breaks Ground on 219-Unit Koreatown Apartment Project

Developer Leo Lee held a groundbreaking for his long-pursued mixed-use project at 3800 W. 6th St. in Koreatown, Urbanize LA reported, a decade after he first moved to redevelop the site. The eight-story building will carry 219 studio, one-, and two-bedroom apartments over 8,748 sq ft of ground-floor retail, with a two-level basement garage for 173 cars, according to the outlet. Architecture firm EWAI designed the project.

Lee is also the developer behind Atto on Hobart, an 80-unit affordable complex a block away at 611 S. Hobart Blvd. that recently opened. The 3800 W. 6th St. project satisfies the city’s affordable housing requirement through that separate building rather than on site, Urbanize LA reported, and is fully market-rate.

Why it matters

A Koreatown groundbreaking after a decade of false starts, a scrapped hotel component, and multiple plan revisions is a signal for contractors tracking the submarket: a filed project is paper, but a crew mobilizing at 3800 W. 6th St. is 219 units of concrete, framing, and subcontractor work moving through Mid-Wilshire. The density bonus path Lee used, swapping an on-site affordable set-aside for a separate building he already completed nearby, is also a template other Koreatown builders could copy when a single parcel cannot carry both a market-rate building and its own affordable units.

The numbers

• 219 studio, one-, and two-bedroom apartments
• 8 stories
• 8,748 sq ft of ground-floor commercial space
• 173-space, two-level basement garage

What’s next

Urbanize LA reported that grading and shoring permits for the site have been approved, but the full LADBS building permit had not yet been issued as of the report. The project’s path from groundbreaking to vertical construction depends on that permit clearing, a step Los Angeles builders are watching given how long the site sat in entitlement limbo before this reset.