Hope on Alvarado – Handsome shipping container complex will provide housing for homeless

Curbed Los Angeles

September 27, 2017

Retailers in LA have been using shipping containers to sell their wares for a while, but now the metal containers are making a jump to the housing market. A new 84-unit transitional housing project in Westlake will use shipping containers as the main building material, announced KTGY Architecture + Planning, the project’s architect.

Developed by Aedis Real Estate Group, the complex, named Hope on Alvarado, is the first in a series of similar shipping container developments to be built in LA over the next year.

The four-story building will be located just south of Beverly Boulevard and will hold 84 studio and one-bedroom apartments, measuring between 400 and 480 square feet. Hope on Alvarado will be oriented around a central courtyard, and every resident will have their own bike parking space.

There will be parking space for the staff who work in the ground-floor office space, which will hold support services for residents.

The project will take six months to build. While the foundations are being poured onsite, the containers and many of their interior finishes will be constructed offsite, says KTGY associate principal Mark Oberholzer. Developers plan to start construction in 2018.

Earlier this year, a smaller, 16-unit shipping container complex in Orange County opened. Like this one, it will also offer housing for the formerly homeless.