LA’s Office-to-Resi Boom Continues as Jamison Closes $195M Downtown Tower Deal
While New York and other East Coast cities have been prominent in the reuse of office space, specifically office-to-residential conversions, Los Angeles is also one of the most active markets in this regard.
In fact, a recent report from RentCafe showed that LA was the second-busiest in the country by residential unit count with 5,640 units in the pipeline as of November 2025. Only Manhattan was higher with 10,885 units.
One of the busiest developers in the LA metro in office-to-residential conversions is local-based developer Jamison Properties. The family-owned firm specializes in adaptive reuse with a focus on LA around downtown and Koreatown. Currently, the firm has three projects under construction with 10 more in its pipeline.
Last week, Jamison closed on $195 million in construction financing from Prime Finance Partners to convert the 33-story ARCO Tower at 1055 W. Seventh St. into 686 residential apartments. Once complete, it’s set to be the largest office-to-residential conversion in LA.
About a mile west of downtown, the 620,000-square-foot tower will see its office space converted to multifamily housing with the possibility of ground-floor retail and amenities. By forgoing a full structural seismic retrofit, Jamison will save roughly 10% on construction costs.
Such locations, and the likes of where Jamison has focused, are some of the more tightly gridded areas in LA and, as such, have the potential for mixed-use living with walkable amenities. Notably, additional residential density in these neighborhoods could boost foot traffic for local businesses, particularly during evenings and weekends.
For this specific property, construction work is already underway. Plans were first filed three years ago, while the tower’s last reported tenant — L.A. Care, a health provider — vacated two years ago.
Other significant projects from Jamison include the 495-unit residential conversion at 3550 Wilshire Blvd. (Walker Tower), which received permits in July 2025 and is currently in early conversion stages. Another involves tentative plans for a residential conversion of the World Trade Center at Figueroa and Third streets, which is a 10-story building that opened in 1975.
According to GlobeSt, Los Angeles is planning to amend its building code to expedite the permitting process for the residential conversion of office buildings that were built after 1975.
Of course, the suitability of which downtown offices might be appropriate for apartment conversions is uncertain. That said, the housing shortage that is present in LA (and in many of the country’s largest cities) — combined with the general availability of office space — creates opportunity.
On that note, though, Los Angeles’ office market is becoming comparatively tighter. According to Yardi Research, its vacancy rate of 14.4% at the end of 2025 was the fourth-lowest among major markets and the tightest in the Western region, down 110 basis points year-over-year.