Curbed attended the opening of the West 27th Place development near USC today. The development, from CityView and Symphony Development, will be one of only four LEED Platinum certified developments in Los Angeles and the only student housing project in the nation to achieve that level of certification. The project has 161 rental units and will include 2,600 square feet of retail (including Five Guys Burgers and Fries, which you might have heard of). The development also includes 190 parking spaces for residents and 42 parking spaces for the retail (the development is located in the Downtown Parking District--one of the developers told Curbed that the city had pushed for zero onsite parking). And the development is already fully leased (class starts Monday!).

Former secretary of Housing and Urban Development and CityView Executive Chairman Henry Cisneros delivered a keynote address that focused on the development's contribution to the green building ethos of the city and university. Con Howe, former city planning director for Los Angeles, stressed that the development's location at the corner of 27th Place and Figueroa puts it along the Figueroa Corridor Streetscape Project area, which will start to see improvements in 2013.

As for the building itself, it has all the amenities you would expect for student housing: tanning booth (sign of the times: tanning booths are the most frequently requested amenity for student housing nationwide, according to Symphony Development President David A. Hilliard), salt water pool, gym, private study rooms (with windows, so no monkey business), and, our favorite, a washer and dryer in every unit. Some of the rooms have great views of Downtown and other rooms literally overhang the 110 Freeway. Hilliard shared one anecdote of note: installing extra sound protection in all the windows and sliding glass doors earned additional LEED points--noise mitigation begets environmental mitigation, apparently. West 27th Place offers studios and one to four bedrooms, with rooms ranging from 425 square feet to 1,364 square feet.

Now that West 27th is open, the development horizon of the Figueroa Corridor is a little hazy, although some of the planners in attendance prognosticated that the Geoffrey Palmer-developed Lorenzo project across the street would be the next student housing development to come online along the Corridor.

· West 27th Place [Official Site]

· Demanding Concessions, Planning Commission OKs Lorenzo [Curbed LA]