A 1970s Brutalist Office Tower in Los Angeles Is Becoming 95 Apartments
A stepped concrete office building in Los Angeles that has stood empty for more than a decade is getting a second life as housing. Architecture studio KFA plans to convert the Sunkist building — a 1970s brutalist landmark in the Sherman Oaks neighbourhood — into 95 apartments, using a recently updated city ordinance that makes it easier to turn old commercial buildings into homes (Dezeen).
The 165,000-square-foot building was designed by AC Martin & Associates as the corporate headquarters of Sunkist Growers, the citrus cooperative whose name still labels the structure. It has been owned and operated by developer IMT Residential since 2013 and has been vacant since 2015, when Sunkist relocated (Dezeen).
After the building emptied, IMT brought in architecture studio Johnson Fain to restore the structure and bring it up to modern seismic standards. Johnson Fain also drew up a masterplan for the surrounding 8.3-acre site, now called Citrus Commons, including several new buildings (Dezeen).
The Sunkist building recently received Historic-Cultural Monument status from the City of Los Angeles — a designation that recognises its architectural and cultural significance and opens the door to certain preservation incentives. IMT then selected KFA, a Los Angeles-based firm with 50 years of housing and civic work across Southern California, to carry out the residential conversion. The choice was deliberate: KFA played a role in advancing Los Angeles' first adaptive reuse ordinance in 1999, the policy framework that first allowed older commercial buildings downtown to be converted to residential use (Dezeen).
That framework has now been expanded. The city's updated Adaptive Reuse Ordinance grants exemptions from certain zoning requirements and environmental reviews, and — crucially — extends beyond downtown Los Angeles to other neighbourhoods where the original rules did not apply (Dezeen). The Los Angeles Times reported in February 2026 that the former Sunkist headquarters would be among the buildings converted under the new measure, describing it as a well-known San Fernando Valley landmark (Los Angeles Times).
KFA's conversion takes advantage of the building's high ceilings. Units will range from studios to three-bedroom apartments. Under current zoning the minimum size for a new residence is 450 square feet; the smallest unit in the Sunkist project comes in at 516 square feet. On the podium floor, existing mezzanines will be kept and integrated into the apartments rather than ripped out (Dezeen).
Former laboratory and printing spaces inside the building will be repurposed as residential amenities. IMT plans to begin construction as soon as KFA's plans receive city approval (Dezeen).
What makes the project notable is the alignment of three forces: a landmark designation that protects the building's character, an expanded ordinance that removes bureaucratic obstacles, and a developer willing to invest in a structure that has sat idle for over a decade. The Sunkist conversion joins a wave of adaptive reuse projects now possible across Los Angeles under the updated rules, turning the question of what to do with the city's aging commercial stock from a downtown-only conversation into a citywide one.
