L.A. Lofts :

Despite popular misconceptions to the contrary there has been a thriving rehabbed loft scene centered around L.A.’s downtown arts district since the mid-to-late seventies when artists seeking affordable and large work-friendly studios that could double as living spaces moved in from communities ranging from Long Beach to Santa Monica defying zoning restrictions that had made dual usage occupancy illegal at the time. But that all changed with the passage of an “artist in residence” ordinance and so today there are well over twelve-hundred rehabbed loft spaces available for both living and working in downtown Los Angeles and hundreds more in the surrounding areas.

Though the availability of lofts in the Los Angeles area doesn’t compare volume-wise with the offerings in New York or Chicago—owning to L.A.’s lack of North Eastern or Mid Western style urban decay, the loft space housing boom that began in the early nineties had its effect here in L.A. as well and now the same deserted warehouses and abandoned office spaces that once marred the downtown areas of Los Angeles are giving the L.A. housing market’s “usual suspects,” duplexes in the hills, high-rise apartments and beach-front condominiums a fair run for their money.

Of course anyone, but especially those new to searching for housing within the L.A. Metroplex, who’s interested in either renting or purchasing a loft needs to aware that because of that aforementioned absence of typical urban industrial sprawl there are far more new construction lofts on the market in Los Angeles than in other cities of comparable size. In an effort to keep pace with demand L.A.’s real estate developers have made the attempt to replicate the traditional loft space vibe within enlarged condominiums featuring ubiquitous exposed brick walls and unfinished wooden beams jutting across conspicuously vaulted ceilings.

For some, these “soft lofts” have represented the perfect stylistic compromise between the loft and the still popular condominium and those seeking the real deal from the L.A. housing market can still rest easily in the knowledge that even though they might be a tad more difficult to find out here than they would be in say Chicago . . . Downtown Los Angeles and its surrounding communities still offers the rehabbed warehouse space they desire.