A SMART OFFICE, Yoube, is planned at 5570 Melrose Ave. Pictured, left to right, are building developer Mishel Mikail with Jenny Berglund Castro and Stephan Agerman of Yoube.
While many local retailers have closed shop and moved on, one company is moving in to the neighborhood.
Yoube a smart drop-in, co-work space will open its second location, at 5570 Melrose Ave., tentatively this summer on the ground floor of a brand-new, mixed-use apartment building.
“We love Larchmont. It’s very unique in Los Angeles. We were excited when this came up,” said Stephan Agerman, one of the company’s three owners.
Agerman and his associates searched the city before finding this location in a new building, the Gillis House, under construction at the northern edge of Larchmont Village.
Some in the neighborhood spoke out against it.
It was too tall, they feared, adding that it just would be one more boxy apartment building.
But developer Mishel Mikail of Crescent Capital Partners persevered with his mixed-use project, the Gillis House at 5570 Melrose Ave., (with its residence address at 647 N. Beachwood Dr.).
Responding to the circa-2017 criticism of the proposal’s renderings, Mikail said, “That’s not who we are. We are the owners. We’re the developer, and we’re going to keep this for a really long time.”
During a recent hardhat tour of the property, Mikail enthusiastically showed features of the five-story building with 52 apartments above ground-floor retail.