New high-rise to house homeless people on L.A.’s Skid Row

Tents line the street in Skid Row in Los Angeles, California on Sept. 17, 2019. (ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images)

Posted: Sep 28, 2021 / 08:23 PM PDT

Updated: Sep 28, 2021 / 08:23 PM PDT

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Construction kicked off Tuesday on a 19-story homeless housing project designed to reshape a corner of skid row in the image of more well-to-do environs.

The 278-unit Weingart Tower will replace a parking lot at 555 S. Crocker St., around the corner from the Weingart Center, the project’s developer in collaboration with affordable housing developer Chelsea Investment Corp. The building is expected to open in December 2023.

Weingart Tower is the first stage of a project that will eventually comprise 382 units, dwarfing Weingart’s existing facility, in the 11-story former El Rey Hotel, which is already more than twice as tall as any other building around it.

The metal-and-glass high-rise will “improve the neighborhood through architecture,” Weingart Chief Executive Kevin Murray said in announcing the conceptual plan by Joseph Wong Design Associates in a 2017 interview. AXIS/GFA Architecture + Design is the project architect.

Read the full story on LATimes.com.