The recent opening of a Whole Foods grocery store at Eighth & Grand, the iconic new mixed-use residential building designed by Carrier Johnson + CULTURE, is being hailed as a “significant milestone in the renewal of downtown,” the Los Angeles Times has reported.

“It’s creating quite the buzz around town,” says Kyle Peterson, Los Angeles director for Carrier Johnson + CULTURE, from his office a few blocks away on West 7th Street. Peterson explains that the well-known grocery store speaks to the livability, cache and increasing convenience of life downtown.

Known for the firm’s role in helping revitalize the Downtown San Diego over two decades, Carrier Johnson + CULTURE has recently emerged as a major architecture player in the Los Angeles market. Eighth & Grand, also known as “G8” locally, is a 700-unit luxury apartment complex with 737 parking spaces, extensive retail and amenities, and a long street mural by Italian artist Jacopo Ceccarelli. Above the mural, its rhythmically punctuated glass and concrete facades have attracted critical acclaim and a long waiting list of buyers.

The project is just one win for Downtown LA. A local real estate expert notes that more than 10,000 residential units are currently under construction in the area, as reported in the Times, and over the next two years the number of area residents will jump from today’s 55,000 to an estimated 80,000 people.

For more information on Carrier Johnson + CULTURE in Los Angeles or Eighth and Grand, please contact C.C. Sullivan.