Chez Costco

August 17, 2024 2:02 AM

A Warehouse Store Promises Housing for South LA, in Bulk - "A five-acre lot in South Los Angeles has been approved for a future Costco location with 800 residential units over the store, 184 of which will be set aside for low-income tenants. The Baldwin Village/Crenshaw-area project is slated to include studios, one-bedroom and two-bedroom units, along with a basketball court, rooftop pool and community gardens."[*]
posted by kliuless (35 comments total)

Welcome to Costco, I love you.
posted by fairmettle at 3:03 AM on August 17 [4 favorites]

from the helpful first link out [Joe Cohen]:
union labor requirements only apply to on-site construction. So to lower the amount of on-site labor needed, Costco turned to pre-fab building modules.

Pre-fab modules need to fit on trucks, which results in mostly small shotgun-style one-bedroom units.
posted by HearHere at 3:25 AM on August 17 [2 favorites]

Although the linked article says:

Prefabricated units don’t have to be so small: They range in size and architectural styles, with prefab processes producing everything from backyard sheds to single-family McMansions. Instead, other factors — namely high costs and regulatory burdens — are shaping the unit sizes.

which is more inline with my experience. It's certainly easier to build units that are limited to a single module but I go to work every day in a prefab office with an open central cube farm that is approximately 50'x36' surrounded offices. Hundreds of thousands of families have lived in single, double, and triple wide trailers.

I really hope this project is wildly successful. We have millions of acres of big box retail that could have housing built over. The Costco in my city is literally right on a main transit route (there is no stop there but that is a different issue). Views from even a single story of housing on the roof would be some of the best in the city.
posted by Mitheral at 4:37 AM on August 17 [25 favorites]

Oh it's beautiful, low-rise and yet ultra dense, transit enabled, right on a big employer / shopping centre. I want to see this, so much of this.
posted by seanmpuckett at 4:53 AM on August 17 [17 favorites]

Two apartments above every tire center and a $4.99 rotisserie chicken for every pot.
posted by phunniemee at 5:02 AM on August 17 [26 favorites]

I have long wanted to move into a condo building with a grocery store on the ground level. There's a building in Toronto that sits on top of a small shopping mall with a large grocery store and also a subway station and I always thought that would be the perfect car free lifestyle. Transit and convenience shopping. It even has a movie theatre in the building.

They have just built a new rental building across the street from my office that will have a grocery store in it and if it didn't mean moving to Quebec, I would so choose to live there.
posted by jacquilynne at 5:39 AM on August 17 [7 favorites]

I have long wanted to move into a condo building with a grocery store on the ground level.

We have this in West Seattle over a Safeway, right in one of the most walkable neighborhoods in this part of town, although I think they're apartments, not condos. They are relatively affordable (for Seattle), and there's lots of transit to connect you to the rest of the city. It seems like a pretty sweet set up.

Now that I think about it, there's also what are probably slightly nicer units above a Whole Foods over there, too. Those might be condos. And now I can think of several other spots around town that have this basic housing above a grocery store set up as well. However, I can't think of any that have movie theaters, so I guess we haven't quite kept up with Canada on that front.

This sounds like it's something that is especially badly needed in LA. Kudos to Costco for taking the lead on this, as they have in so many other kinds of basic decency.
posted by Smedly, Butlerian jihadi at 6:43 AM on August 17 [5 favorites]

Huh, costco needs these dwellings to be able to open a store there.

I agree that bigbox footprints are underutilized, so this is interesting. So many bigboxes do the horizontal thing instead where they rent sprawling storefronts which fail.

Underground parking is a must for that location - that was not listed as a high cost or regulatory burden. Probably because it is needed for the store to survive but that cant be cheap or else we’d be fighting for it everywhere.

I haven't been inside a costco for a decade but that parking lot is full and the traffic getting in there can stall a block or two.

I cant help comparing that a 350sqft apt is the size of two parking spaces, and the store needs both to build but only parking to be successful.

The units are very small and while they might work in an airbnb or SRO scenario, or students for a year, I don't see that working out longterm. I wonder if you work at costco if you could afford to live there outside the 180 set-asides.
posted by drowsy at 6:50 AM on August 17 [1 favorite]

I should say that I hope this project works out - I am skeptical only bc this pairing is forced. I would live over a grocery store any day, and 600 sqft units have appeal. A store that you have to drive to in order to do costco-specific shopping seems hard to align with the high density walkable model.
I think this could work as retrofits above existing stores already in sprawl with prefab units though so yay.


… I would make a law school above the store joke here but I am hoping someone else does a good job of it…
posted by drowsy at 7:00 AM on August 17

The units are very small and while they might work in an airbnb or SRO scenario, or students for a year, I don't see that working out longterm.

from the article: "Draft renderings show the units will be between 350 to 605 square feet in size."

i mean, my apartment is 11 tatami (~195 square feet) and i've been living here for 15 years or so
posted by emmling at 7:02 AM on August 17 [16 favorites]

The Downtown Vancouver Costco has entered the chat...
posted by HillbillyInBC at 7:03 AM on August 17 [3 favorites]

people living above the Costco may not spend much time shopping there because they will likely be living in small units that won’t fit bulk groceries.

This seems like a huge oversight on Costco's part. They really should have designed each tiny apartment with an oversized pantry. Come to the Costco. Live at the Costco. Stay at the Costco.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:08 AM on August 17 [11 favorites]

>The units are very small and while they might work in an airbnb or SRO scenario, or students for a year, I don't see that working out longterm.

from the article: "Draft renderings show the units will be between 350 to 605 square feet in size."

i mean, my apartment is 11 tatami (~195 square feet) and i've been living here for 15 years or so

It's a 'tell me you're American without telling me you're American' kind of thing. (As is the wonder at the concept of living above a grocery store, tbh.)

I hope this is good - Costco is one of the (relative...) good guys, and aside from anything else I'm finding I have an emotional need for that to continue.
posted by trig at 7:11 AM on August 17 [6 favorites]

I wasn’t dissing on anyone who lives in small spaces with my comment about 350, etc. And I am eager to hear more from people that do, so I aint even mad about dunkings. You are eco-hero level people.

I have not exceeded 500 sqft per resident in my life. I have lived with less too, but I dont want to steal valor here. I’ve lived in spaces where i had to fold my bed to have a guest over. I felt that it worked when the rest of the building/block/city can make other situations comfortable. To get back to TFA, maybe this building has that going on. I hope so!

Anyway, I hope the sizes and ratio and amenities were worked out with some local awareness of desirability to allow for community to grow. Blessings upon all who use less, ironically above a Costco makes it sweeter somehow. Maybe they will start a killer e-cargo bike lending scheme bc of this location and we all win.
posted by drowsy at 8:54 AM on August 17 [1 favorite]

Pneumatic tubes from the CostCo up into each unit for quick orders. Or maybe dumbwaiters.

In all seriousness though, this is interesting. As far as shopping goes though, my experience is that using CostCo requires a large house or apartment. Just 1 thing each of toilet paper and paper towels requires most of our coat closet. We have plenty of room, but I can’t imagine an 11 tatami mat space has a lot of room for buying months worth of supplies at a time.
posted by caviar2d2 at 8:59 AM on August 17 [2 favorites]

I think this could work as retrofits above existing stores already in sprawl with prefab units though so yay.

Functionally and aesthetically, sure, but putting residences on top of an existing big box store is a "rebuild the entire building" kind of thing - the roof structure already in place won't be able to take the load, and there might need to be a fire rated barrier between the store space and a residential occupancy above it.

The square footage seems fine to me - most apartments I've lived in have been around that size. And prefab units make a lot more sense to me than the whole thing with trying to repurpose shipping containers that the design community was trying to make happen.
posted by LionIndex at 9:04 AM on August 17 [9 favorites]

This sounds like it's something that is especially badly needed in LA.

Yes, forever stymied all the NIMBY/YIMBY/other local bickering and developer influence peddling.

The old Sears building is a prime example.

Seismic safety is always a concern with buildings that old (and probably with building over warehouses--see the whole soft story problem). I think the Sears building passes at least basic standards as the redevelopment talk has gone on for a while.
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:09 AM on August 17

I dont want to steal valor here.

I applaud the sentiment! And in a normal world, that would be a clever repurposing of a phrase.

But Americans do not currently live in a normal country and our mess spreads everywhere. In the US, currently, "stolen valor," which was coined to refer specifically to claiming to have won a military medal/award which you did not is in the process of being co-opted. The conservative right is on a mission to devalue that phrase by using it to mean something between "you could have done more with your service" and "you feel like you did something but you didn't by my standards."

We can do our veterans and the English language a solid by letting it stay at its original meaning.

I do NOT enjoy being this level of pedant, but we are in war to make sure words still mean things.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:20 AM on August 17 [7 favorites]

Residents could probably set up a pretty simple bulk-sharing shopping system (“It’s Jerry in 3A’s turn to buy paper towels this month”, etc)
posted by gottabefunky at 9:28 AM on August 17 [6 favorites]

Yeah, I was about to say - you set up a building-wide residents buying group ("who wants to go in on some cherry tomatoes?")
posted by trig at 9:31 AM on August 17 [6 favorites]

I am 100% on board with Costco communism
posted by Jon_Evil at 9:46 AM on August 17 [4 favorites]

It’s going to be a Costcominium, right? Your fees include a membership?
posted by clicking the 'Post Comment' button at 9:49 AM on August 17 [4 favorites]

I think this is a genius idea, especially near a southern California university campus. I have very fond memories of Costco runs with my roommates as an undergraduate. And students care much less than most people if their place looks ridiculous because every unoccupied square inch is full of bulk purchases.
posted by potrzebie at 9:51 AM on August 17

MetaFilter: I do NOT enjoy being this level of pedant, but
posted by Not A Thing at 9:58 AM on August 17 [8 favorites]

Well, this aligns well with my oft-ranted belief that every big box store should have a solar array on the roof!! OK, we've got the solar array providing power for the store and residents, we've got drowsy's e-bike lending scheme for transportation of goods and residents, and we've got a gas station (moar pumps and diesel, please) Now all we need is a dentist and urgent care on the premises, provide trees in the parking lot, and it's all gold!
posted by BlueHorse at 10:34 AM on August 17 [3 favorites]

Jeff Fong:

Costco’s current plans show modular housing, and the reason for that is kind of interesting. AB2011 — the specific legislation Costco is invoking — has a prevailing wage requirement. This sets a minimum for construction worker pay and ensures union labor remains cost-competitive. If developers aren’t allowed to pay less than what union labor costs, nonunion workers can't undercut them.

The rub here is that, for AB2011, this requirement only applies to on-site labor. Work done off-site can be paid at whatever rates the developer can negotiate. Costco seems to be planning to buy prefab modular units that are built at a factory somewhere else. This will let them save on labor costs.

posted by audi alteram partem at 11:39 AM on August 17

Seems like a great idea and a way to maximise land use.
I did joke at one time that at some point Amazon would build housing units beside their warehouses so staff could rent from Amazon, work for Amazon, purchase from Amazon, and live next door to their workplace. Genius!
posted by phigmov at 12:15 PM on August 17 [1 favorite]

It's a 'tell me you're American without telling me you're American' kind of thing. (As is the wonder at the concept of living above a grocery store, tbh.)

It might not be the American dream but there are plenty of people living in single wides in the 4-600 square foot range. And pre fabs are going to be way more comfortable than any single wide.
posted by Mitheral at 12:52 PM on August 17 [2 favorites]

Come to the Costco. Live at the Costco. Stay at the Costco.

Costco is love, Costco is life. (At least until a Trader Joe's moves nearb--uh, never mind.)
posted by Halloween Jack at 4:23 PM on August 17

people living above the Costco may not spend much time shopping there because they will likely be living in small units that won’t fit bulk groceries.


If you live there, part of your rent/membership fees should allow you to just wander down from your apartment, at 3am, to the main store, in your pajamas, half-asleep, wander over to the dairy aisle, swig some milk out of the carton, put it back on the shelf and then shuffle back off up to your apartment and go back to sleep.
posted by The otter lady at 6:40 PM on August 17 [7 favorites]

I lived in a 500-600sqft condo for years and though I maybe could've used more closet space, it was otherwise perfectly fine. But the size alone wasn't what people quoted in the article like Fields took issue with; they felt that 350-600 square feet was unlikely to appeal to families, which is a common issue with a lot of modern condo construction in North America, and thus the likely tenants were probably not going to be current members of the community who need cheaper places to live with their families, but single people and students coming more from outside the community.

Should this Costco development have to serve all the community's housing needs? Maybe not, but given how difficult it seems to be to build family-sized affordable housing in urban communities, someone's going to have to bear that load if things are to change.
posted by chrominance at 7:59 PM on August 17 [2 favorites]

When we first married, my wife and I spent four years in a 450sf apartment. The landlord was cool —he never raised our rent and let us tear out the junky pavers behind the back door , till it up with a dozen bags of manure, and plant a small garden. Then, when I finished community college and got a real job, we moved into a larger apartment with a second bedroom and the landlord let our security deposit ride, even though the rent doubled. We lived there for two years before we got our first house (2 br, 800sf). I spent a month fixing up the house before we moved out of the apartment and we didn’t have the time or energy to do a thorough cleaning to justify getting the security deposit back. I talked it over with our landlord and he said it wasn’t a problem—he always hired a cleaner to go through his apartments before putting them back on the market, so how about we split the cost? In the end, we got all but $100 of our original $450 security deposit back. Good guy. We used to send him Christmas cards.


I know it’s only tangentially related to the topic, but I felt compelled to share.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 8:48 PM on August 17 [3 favorites]

Metafilter: I know it’s only tangentially related to the topic, but I felt compelled to share
posted by LizBoBiz at 2:25 AM on August 18 [4 favorites]

It's a somewhat novel development for L.A. When I first heard of it, I thought it was going to be a redevelopment of the old Baldwin/Crenshaw mall that still seems to be mostly functioning.

The location isn't close to USC at all really, but is a reasonable walk from the train that goes there. It's going to be sandwiched between a fairly large and dense (for LA) apt complex on the east, and a large, less dense apartment complex across the street on the west.

It's kind of weird, as an LA Times article from last year painted the development as being pitched partly as a solution to a food desert in the area. Which is really curious, since the location currently has a full service Ralphs (Kroger) supermarket on it, and there's a Superior (local Latin American-focused supermarket chain) across the street from there. Both existing businesses would probably serve smaller apartment dwellers better than a Costco overall. It's not clear that the Ralphs (Kroger) will be replaced by the new development. I suspect so.

Regardless, small housing is small housing, and badly needed in LA, even if it attracts lots of students.
posted by 2N2222 at 5:11 PM on August 18

they felt that 350-600 square feet was unlikely to appeal to families, which is a common issue with a lot of modern condo construction in North America, and thus the likely tenants were probably not going to be current members of the community who need cheaper places to live with their families

Most cities in the US discourage, if not actively prohibit, large numbers of 3 bedroom units in apartments and condos, to prevent families from moving in. Families and especially children generally take more social services, crowd schools, make noise people actively complain about, etc.
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:35 AM on August 20