What’s the Buzz on the corner of La Brea and 6th where concrete forms are peaking out from behind the plywood construction fence? Â A new modern building will add to the fabric of the ever-evolving La Brea corridor – and is expected to be a home decor store topped by an office or cafe and two residential units.
Formerly the site of an eclectic home furnishings operation where most of the goods were outdoors in an open-air lot, the new building will have a modern glass and concrete look, with four stories facing La Brea Ave, stepped down to two stories in the rear, adjacent to the residential backyards of the neighborhood behind it.
David Bina, who owns Deco Fabrics across the street at 467 S La Brea, is building the new four story mixed-use property. Per the 2011 permit, the new building will include first floor retail for a furniture or home decor store, a commercial office or cafe on the second floor, and residential units on the third and fourth floors. The vertical portion of the building is all up front on La Brea. The ground floor retail space will be topped by roof top parking on the second level, accessed via the back alley.
Brad Conroy of Conroy Commercial is hoping a brand store may lease the entire structure, but no tenant is nailed down quite yet. Drawings of the front facade are not yet available, but Conroy shared elevations that show the front La Brea Ave and 6th Street facades will have large expanses of  windows, a welcome invitation to stollers and window shoppers who now are drawn to the area in greater numbers.
“As Jerry Rapport of Rapport International Furniture once noted, this section of La Brea is pretty much the exact middle of the entire city when you look at a map,” Conroy told the Buzz. “This area draws people from both the west side and the east side. With the older housing developments like Park LaBrea being augmented now by many big complexes in the area, it’s a great place to focus business and shopping.”
Once devoted to car dealerships, this stretch of La Brea Ave is quickly becoming a more pedestrian-friendly shopping zone,  including the Mood Fabric store, the new La Brea Bakery (soon to expand into the former Rita Flora space) and the new MIX stores. Just how the Orchard Hardware store, now under construction across the street on La Brea at 4th will fit into the mix is yet unknown: OSH and developer CIM have not released drawings of that development yet for public consumption, but we’ll know more soon.
Thank you! I’ve been wondering what was happening on that corner. Looks cool!
Am I the only one struck by how awful that building is? I love modern architecture, but this structure, with its over-scaled facade towering above La Brea, is offensively horrible. A blow to the neighborhood. Boooo!