Residential development at Warner Center is booming, with hundreds of apartments currently under construction and fully completed, with leasing currently underway and official openings scheduled in the next quarter.
Eight years ago, Los Angeles City Council approved the Warner Center 2035 Specific Plan that City Councilmember Bob Blumenfield had been championing as a vehicle to simultaneously spur development in his district, address a statewide lack of housing and cultivate Woodland Hills as the “downtown” of the San Fernando Valley.
Cut to the present day and, as the accompanying map shows, more than 6,500 units are presently in process at Warner Center with more to come.
Warner Center is a business district and the commercial heart of Woodland Hills – a concentration of office towers, campuses and industrial parks bordered by Vanowen Street to the north, the 101 freeway to the south, De Soto Avenue to the east and Topanga Canyon Boulevard to the west.Last year, as the e-commerce-challenged and now defunct Fry’s Electronics chain closed, Kaplan Management Co. quietly purchased the property that hosted the “Alice in Wonderland”-themed Fry’s in Woodland Hills and soon after announced an incoming project that will introduce another 880 units, along with a hotel, at the 6100 N. Canoga Ave.Across the street, Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield’s billion-dollar redux of its Westfield Promenade property at 6600 Topanga Canyon Blvd. — dubbed Promenade 2035, in concert with Blumenfield’s Warner Center 2035 Specific Plan — will, along with more office, hotel and retail spaces, bring 1,440 apartment units in the next 15 years.
One of the most high-profile developments is the cluster of interconnected residential towers being developed by California Home Builders. The projects comprise a quintet of amenities-laden apartment buildings: Q Topanga, located at 6263 Topanga Canyon Blvd.; Q at Erwin, located at 6140 Variel Ave.; Q Variel, at 6200 Variel Ave.; Q East, to be erected at Erwin Street and Variel Avenue; and, at 358 units, the biggest of the five, the Q at DeSoto at 6109 DeSoto Ave.
More units comingAnd there is still more afoot, as the map indicates: Texas outfit Hanover Co.’s Hanover Warner Center at 21050 W. Kittridge St., will add 395 units. Fairfield Residential has 275 units in the pipeline at 21001 W. Kittridge St. And Strategic Partners’ Evolution Warner Center will establish another 271 units at 6606 N. Variel Ave., to name a few.
For the most part, the pandemic did not stop these developments from moving forward. California Home Builders Chief Executive Shawn Evenhaim said that his Canoga Park-based firm is on track to finish all the Q buildings on schedule, despite the momentary pandemic-inflected hiccup the construction industry saw last spring when a statewide work stoppage occurred.
“The Q Variel is completed and is in leasing,” Evenhaim said. “The Q Topanga will be completed this summer and occupancy will commence Sept. 1.” Meanwhile, construction on the Q DeSoto has been slated for this fall.
“The other two will follow,” Evenhaim said.
California Home Builders also has 206 units coming in at 21300 Califa St.
Beehive of Residential Building
