Koreatown's largest commercial landlord is betting that the neighborhood's future is residential, not corporate.

Jamison Properties has 15 office buildings in Koreatown and Westlake that have been converted into apartments, are under construction or are proposed for conversion, according to a review of city records by The LA Local. Together, the projects could produce 3,652 apartments, though more than 900 of those units remain proposals only.

The push comes as office vacancy along the Hollywood/Wilshire Corridor hit 27.6% in the first quarter of 2026, according to CBRE data compiled by IPG. Countywide, more than 50 million square feet of office space sits empty.

Mayor Karen Bass's expanded Adaptive Reuse Ordinance, which took effect in February, is accelerating the trend. The original 1999 ordinance applied only to buildings near downtown. The new version lets owners convert any commercial building at least 15 years old into housing through a streamlined, by-right approval process citywide. City officials estimate the change could unlock more than 43,000 new homes across Los Angeles.

Garrett Lee, CEO of Jamison Properties, called the ordinance "monumental for the city" when he was serving as the firm's president in a February Los Angeles Times report, saying it "addresses both the housing shortage and the long-term office vacancy issue."

Lee took over as CEO after his sister Jaime Lee stepped down from the role in April. In a March interview with the Los Angeles Times, Jaime Lee said the firm had been "pencils down on ground-up construction for two years" and was focused entirely on converting its existing office buildings into apartments.

What's already open

Eight Jamison conversions were completed between 2013 and 2025. Two more opened recently and are now leasing:

Grayson at 695 S. Vermont Ave. offers 255 apartments inside a 19-story former office tower built in 1971 as an expansion of Pacific Indemnity Co.'s headquarters. It sits a short walk from the Wilshire/Vermont Metro station.

Mason at 3325 Wilshire Blvd. has 236 apartments in a former 13-story office building, with 15,000 square feet of ground-floor retail and a 450-space parking garage. Jamison called it the firm's 10th adaptive-reuse project. The conversion was financed in part with $60 million in taxable multifamily housing revenue bonds.

Earlier completed projects include the Westmore (127 units at 3075 Wilshire, opened 2013), the Crosby (216 units at 3350 Wilshire in a 1957 Welton Becket-designed tower that once served as Texaco's West Coast headquarters) and Atlas House (248 units one block west of MacArthur Park, opened 2022).

Under construction

Walker at 3550 Wilshire Blvd. is the largest single project: a 20-story office tower being converted into 507 apartments.

Work is also underway at 3424 Wilshire Blvd., the former Los Angeles-area headquarters of IBM and later the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Jamison bought the 13-story building from the archdiocese in 2008 for $31 million and secured $60 million in construction financing in late April to convert it into 260 apartments with racquetball courts, a fitness center, karaoke rooms and an outdoor deck.

Still proposed

Three more conversions totaling 939 units have not broken ground: Wilshire Park Place at 3700 Wilshire (370 apartments inside an 11-story tower designated a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument in 2018), 520 S. La Fayette Park Place (141 apartments) and 600 S. Commonwealth Ave. (428 apartments in a 19-story tower that has long housed Los Angeles Superior Court offices).

What it means for renters

The Koreatown and Westlake conversions are market-rate apartments. Average asking rents in Koreatown stood at $1,980 per month as of mid-2025, the most recent submarket data available from Lee & Associates; in Westlake, the figure was $1,605. Rent data for the new Jamison units has not been released.

Developers still face headwinds including higher construction costs, Measure ULA's transfer tax on large property sales and softening rents. Architect Karin Liljegren, who specializes in adaptive reuse and helped craft the new ordinance, told the Times in February that Measure ULA "is really impeding developers from doing any development in the city of Los Angeles."

Jamison acknowledged a request for comment from The LA Local but did not respond. No construction completion dates have been announced for the Walker or 3424 Wilshire projects.