North Hills set for big changes with ‘upscale’ apartments at Green Arrow Nursery site

Residents on one stretch of Sepulveda Boulevard in North Hills will be getting hundreds of new neighbors in a few years, from a four-building apartment complex at the shuttered Green Arrow Nursery and Hardware site.

The Los Angeles City Council this week signed off on the project at 8811 Sepulveda Blvd. The development at the 4.5-acre site is slated to include up to 364 residential units, accompanied by parking spaces for 557 cars and 405 bicycles.

On the side facing Langdon Avenue Elementary School, the buildings will be between two- and three-stories tall, while the apartments will rise to six floors on the Sepulveda Boulevard side.

The project will be a noticeable addition to this area of North Hills and could lead to more interest by investors in the neighborhood, according to Art Simonian, whose company, Metro Investments, is the developer.

While the area is not exactly a big draw for real estate investors, it shows promise, especially with new retail centers and developments coming in nearby, such as in Panorama City and Mission Hills, Simonian said.

“You got all these projects that are happening around us, and we’re at the epicenter,” he said.

Simonian added that he believes the apartments will be “a gateway project” that will “lead to a slew of changes.”

It also would offer new housing with “a level of amenities ... uncommon to the area,” he said, pointing to the several courtyards, a swimming pool, a jacuzzi area, children’s play space, an outdoor eating area and kitchen with a BBQ pit, and other features planned for the project.

Simonian did not provide a cost range but said the rent will be affordable, with the apartments expected to provide newer housing options that are in the price range of other area rentals.

The approved plans also call for roughly 11 percent of the units to be in the price range of households that are “very low income,” which comes out to be about 40 of the units.

Construction permits are expected to be issued within a year, with the project on track to be completed in 2020, according to Simonian.

Tony Wilkinson, vice president of the North Hills East Neighborhood Council, said the new real estate project could bring positive changes to the area.

“This is a community that could use a little gentrification,” he said, adding that he thinks a major displacement of the existing residents is unlikely.

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The apartments will be “a little bit more upscale than what’s typically in the neighborhood,” but the developers “really can’t come in with a dramatically different rent and succeed in this area,” he said.

Over the years, the area has become blighted and had problems with crime.

In 1999, the courts implemented an injunction against the Langdon Street Gang, which operates in the area. According to the Los Angeles Police Department website, the department has been working for decades to reduce criminal activity in the neighborhood by the gang.

The injunction encompasses the section of North Hills around Roscoe Boulevard to the south, Nordhoff Street to the north, Sepulveda Boulevard to the east and the 405 Freeway to the west.

It has long been a struggle to get developers and retailers interested in the area, Wilkinson added, with one of the deterrents being the existence of gangs in the area.

The nursery lot should be attractive for developers in a city where there is very little urban land left to build on, but that hasn’t been the case, he said.

“I wouldn’t say developers are rushing for it,” he said. “This is our problem in general.”

If it had not been for a new shopping center with a Starbucks at Sepulveda Boulevard and Nordhoff Street, “this developer might not have bought” the nursery site, he said.