Seven stories and some commercial space on the corner
We’re getting our first look at the new mixed-user planned for the now-vacant Velvet Turtle lot at southeast corner of Hill and Ord streets. The seven-story structure will rise to 89 feet high and hold 162 apartments, according to environmental documents for the project filed with the planning department today.
Renderings from Avant Development, which is behind the project, offer a glimpse of the approximately 5,000 square feet of commercial space slated for the ground floor of the project (apparently at the corner of Ord and Hill).
Residents and visitors to the commercial element of the mixed-user will use the project’s 2.5-level underground parking garage, which will have room for 229 cars. The project will also have 417 bike parking spaces.
Only an empty shell remained of the Velvet Turtle, once a popular eatery, when the site was razed in 2014. Joseph Chang of Avant Development tells Curbed they’re aiming for a groundbreaking in the fall of 2017, and that construction is expected to take less than two years.
Since the project’s preliminary filing in August, three new developments have been proposed for the neighborhood, which together would bring nearly 1,200 new units to Chinatown.
Two of the projects would rise just north of the Cornfield Park, which is slated to (finally) reopen in the coming year. The third development would be about a block away from the Chinatown Gold Line station.