Thirty affordable housing units will be co-located with a new Department of Public Social Services office in the downtown Arts District, a Los Angeles County official announced Tuesday.
Supervisor Hilda Solis said the county struck an agreement with developer Urban Offerings Inc. to develop two sites currently occupied by a DPSS building and parking lot at 4th Place and Hewitt Street, respectively.
“This project is in line with my continued commitment to combat and prevent homelessness by fully utilizing county assets for community benefit,” Solis said in a statement. “The existing DPSS facility has been providing critical services for skid row and downtown communities since the 1960s, serving a caseload of over 40,000 clients a year.”
The new 43,000-square-feet DPSS facility will be state-of-the-art and the project will include 11,000 square feet of street-level retail space, 232,000 square feet of creative office space, and gallery space, Solis said. It will also include 870 parking spaces.
Residences for artists will be part of the affordable units.
Under the agreement, Urban Offerings can proceed with pre-development work on environmental documents, local surveys and community outreach. The final deal is expected to be structured as a 99-year ground lease allowing co-location of private uses.
“For 64 years, the DPSS Civic Center Office has helped residents in the Arts District, skid row, and Little Tokyo communities,” DPSS Director Antonia Jimenez said. “While we now offer customer service over the phone and online, it’s still important to give our customers a place where they may be assisted by our staff in person. We’re pleased that this project will give the community a fresh, modern office to visit whenever they need us.”
The DPSS will continue to operate in the area during the development period.