The Street Seen: In the Works
2651 Main Street @ Hill
The Architectural Review Board (ARB) will review the renovation plans from Belzberg Architects for a proposed one-story commercial / retail building at 2651 Main Street.
Built in 1921, this 2,488 sq-ft former workshop and retail space was yellow-tagged after the 1994 Northridge Earthquake. The building was again yellow-tagged by the City for building safety (structural and electrical) violations in 2018, and has been vacant since. The vacant mixed-use/retail space (both parcels) was offered for sale at $4.5MM in February 2019 and sold in Oct 2020 for $2.0MM.
The site consists of two Los Angeles County Assessor parcels with a combined 75 ft Main St, frontage and a total area of 7,488 sq-ft:
2651 Main APN 4288-002-032 50 ft x 100 ft (5,001sq-ft)
2653 Main APN 4288-002-033 25 ft x 100 ft (2,486 sq-ft)
Like most of Main St, both lots are zoned Neighborhood Commercial (NC Main Street). In order to preserve the character of Main St, consolidation of parcels is not permitted (SMMC 9.11.030 E3) if the consolidation would result in a parcel that exceeds 6,000 sq-ft. New construction would allow up to 2-story to 27 ft, but with an FAR of 0.75 and a rear yard set back of 10 ft to the adjacent Ocean Park Low Density Residential (OP2) neighbors to the east.
The building is not identified on the City Historic Resources Inventory. For many years (1921 to circa 1960), the building was occupied by Hughes Sheet Metal Works (Photo 1 and Photo 2). Ocean Park in the early 20th century had a number of sheet metal, iron works, and machine shops on Main St. More recently (before the 2018 yellow tag) the buildings housed Bumble Bee (women's clothing), Duganne Ateliers (fine art printmaking), Earthstone Pottery / Shaktipot Pottery (pottery classes), and Ten Women (local artisanal goods).