What is Legado Encino?

You will have noticed by now a large building going up on Ventura Boulevard opposite the Mercedes dealership. It’s Legado Encino, which is billed as a four-story, mixed-use development with 125 apartments in approximately 122,000 square feet, around 17,000 square feet of retail space and 108,000 square feet of subterranean parking.

The developers The Legado Companies and Fassberg Contracting Corporation issued a press release this week, presumably to generate buyer interest, saying “The Owners already have received substantial interest in the rental of the apartments as well as the commercial space.” Well, we will see… The project is slated for completion in early 2011.

In the press release the architects claim “The Legado Encino project has been honored by the City of Los Angeles as a successful example of their ‘New Urban Directions’ and ‘Livable Streets’ programs.” No doubt it will help boost the local economy by increasing population density, but how will structures like this produce “Livable Streets”? The answer is: they won’t. Instead we seem to be aiming for a Ventura Blvd that resembles the concrete-encased LA River, where cars race along it and pedestrians stay away. As for the retail locations, shopping at these stores will require using their underground parking – not the most appealing idea to locals.

Amusing update of May 2011 - after some residents saw the “Mondrian-like” colors of Legado Encino, they protested the appalling breach of decorum (Tuscan architecture might have satisfied them), so the developers have now repainted it in more chaste two-tone colors.