Los Angeles planning commission approves Chinatown office complex

Overview

Updated 1 hour ago

The Los Angeles City Planning Commission approved a five-story office building at 130 W. College St., on a parking lot beside the Chinatown Station on the Metro L Line. The project comes from the Riboli family, which owns San Antonio Winery, and would place roughly 225,000 square feet of offices above about 8,200 square feet of ground-floor shops and restaurants.

Commission approval is one checkpoint in a long entitlement path, not a construction start. Building permits and a possible City Council appeal still lie ahead, and the project enters a market where a recently completed office building nearby has sat empty for years.

Why it matters

One approved office building tests whether employers will still lease space beside a rail stop in a downtown market where new offices sit empty.

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Key Indicators

225,000

Square feet of offices planned

Spread across five stories above ground-floor commercial space.

8,200

Square feet of ground-floor commercial space

Intended for shops and restaurants facing the street.

Building stories

Includes a parking garage and a mid-block courtyard on Bruno Street.

Voices

Curated perspectives — historical figures and your fellow readers.

Organizations Involved

Riboli family

Developer and property owner

Proposing the 130 W. College St. office building

Family behind San Antonio Winery and Riboli Family Wines, and a longtime Chinatown property owner.

Grimshaw Architects

Architecture firm

Design architect for the project

International practice designing a contemporary building with a central courtyard and a corner plaza.

Los Angeles City Planning Commission

City commission

Approved the project on Oct. 30, 2026

The appointed body that reviews major development proposals and their environmental review before they advance.

Timeline

March 2023 October 2026

3 events Latest: Today

October 2026
Planning Commission approves the office complex
Today Approval

Commissioners clear the five-story, roughly 225,000-square-foot office building next to Chinatown Station.
Today
January 2026
Draft environmental report comment period closes
Environmental review

The city's draft review flags significant and unavoidable effects on historical resources and from construction noise and vibration.
January 20th, 2026 • 4:00 PM
March 2023
Riboli family unveils Chinatown office plan
Proposal

The family announces a five-story building with offices and ground-floor shops on a site beside Chinatown Station.
March 2023

Scenarios

Construction begins at 130 W. College St.

Possible Resolves by End of 2028

Discussed by: Urbanize LA, which notes the project has cleared a key discretionary step

No appeal reaches the City Council, or a council vote upholds the approval, and the developer pulls demolition and building permits. Crews then start site work beside Chinatown Station, putting the offices on track for a construction start.

City Council overturns the approval on appeal

Unlikely Resolves by Q2 2027

Discussed by: City planning process; no appeal had been filed when the commission voted

A neighborhood group or another party appeals the commission's decision to the Los Angeles City Council. The council votes to reverse the approval, sending the developer back to revise the project or reapply. Opponents have cited the review's findings on historical resources and construction impacts.

Riboli family shelves the office plan as demand stays soft

Possible Resolves by Q2 2029

Discussed by: Urbanize LA, which reports weak demand for new office space in Central Los Angeles

The approval never converts into construction. Office leasing stays weak, a recently completed building nearby remains empty, and the family either lists the site for sale or stops advancing the proposal. The parking lot stays as it is.

Historical Context

2 moments from history that rhyme with this story — and how they unfolded.

1980s–1990s

Downtown office construction boom and bust (1980s–1990s)

Los Angeles and other large American downtowns added large volumes of office space through the 1980s. Demand fell in the early 1990s, and vacancy climbed across the country's central business districts.

Then

Landlords cut rents and competed for a smaller pool of tenants.

Now

Several downtowns spent the next decade converting older office towers to other uses rather than filling them with employers.

Why this matters now

The 130 W. College St. project is being entitled into a similarly soft office market, where new space has to compete with existing vacancies.

20th century

Chinatown's industrial fringe along the Los Angeles River

The blocks around Alameda Street and College Street developed as a mix of rail, industrial and milling uses serving downtown Los Angeles. The Capitol Milling Building, across from the project site, is a remnant of that era.

Then

Rail and industrial uses gave way piecemeal to surface parking as the rail yards and mills wound down.

Now

The area became a patchwork of parking lots, historic buildings and new housing, with the Metro station adding a transit anchor.

Why this matters now

The project replaces a parking lot in that patchwork and sits beside the Capitol Milling Building the same family restored.