Saturday, June 14, 2008

Hollywood Franklin - not leasing anymore

This is a bit of old news but meant to pass it on awhile ago. The building that was the subject to my last post was all set to open mid-april to may and abruptly closed up shop and turned away anyone who wanted to lease it out.

I went for a tour and saw some interesting units - very overpriced but in the current Hollywood market i'm sure they would have been rented eventually. I went the second weekend they had an open house, saw people putting down deposits and seemed busy. Then - the pulled down the "now leasing" sign and according to a poster over on Curbed started returning deposits. (Curbed LA)

Comments seem to jump between scientologists and selling the unit off as condo's. Someone who seemed to know what was going on said it was a mishap with DWP and shoddy construction work which i wouldn't be that surprised by. In any case, the building is fully built out and no one is going in and out anymore.

Friday, March 7, 2008

New Kid on the Block: Hollywood Franklin

It looks like the building at 6400 Franklin is finally opening it's doors and looking to rent units in the somewhat near future. The building is located on Franklin between Cahuenga and Vine adjacent to the Alto Nido apartment building. They put up signage on the building a few weeks ago and the website has an interest list. They promise "exclusive rental flats"

The building has been undergoing renovations for at least the past 6 months and probably longer. Looks like they still have a ways to go when you look in from Franklin. One bedrooms and Studios available - i have it on some authority that rents for studios with be in the $1250-1300 range and one bedrooms will be in the $1650 range and occupancy is slated for early April if everything goes well with the city ... so maybe sometime in July they might be moving people in.

I got an email about an open house this weekend - Saturday from 10-5 and Sunday from 11-5. Will be interesting to see what they did with the building.

Saturday, December 29, 2007

Minneapolis Light Rail

I spent the days before and after Christmas this year traveling between my adopted home on Ivar Hill and my childhood home in northern Minnesota. I left southern California before the sun rose on the 20Th on a very pleasant experience with Super Shuttle (only $25 from Hollywood) after a smooth flight on Northwest I landed in Minneapolis in the afternoon where i got the pleasure of taking the relatively new light rail line from the airport to downtown where i was meeting up with my ride the rest of the way home.

The light rail line - called the Hiawatha line - has two stops in the airport (one at each terminal) and arrived promptly once i got to the stop. The ticket machine accepted my credit card and took my $1.50 for a ticket ($2 during rush hour) and similar to L.A. i didn't need to show my ticket to anyone to board the train.

I sat down and watched the roughly 20 minute trip to downtown pass outside the windows of the train. At every stop you could see signs of great revitalization in the form of new development. At my stop downtown i could see other travelers waiting for the train to take them to the airport. Overall it was a very pleasant experience - I'm sure it doesn't serve that many places in Minneapolis but it seems like a fairly sound foundation to start building a system on. If you are traveling to Minneapolis consider the Hiawatha line for your transit needs. Once you get downtown the bus system is convenient.

Hiawatha Line

Sunday, December 16, 2007

Seen in Hollywood

Walking home Friday night and i stumbled across this impromptu fountain at the corner of Hollywood and Wilcox. That is a fire hydrant that for some reason was gushing water about 20 feet in the air - a few onlookers were getting wet but mostly people just driving by.

Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Village Pizzeria Update

The storefronts at 6363 Yucca are progressing nicely with construction crews in and out of there everyday. I'm not around during the day at all to see if they are moving in ovens and other equipment yet but construction does seem to be moving. Last week they added the steel roll down doors. A few days ago noticed they had installed all glass doors in one of the openings. The store is shaping up to be a really nice addition to a strip of Yucca that is striving for a new identity.

I'm anxiously awaiting the first slice.