Eighty-two affordable apartments for seniors will rise on a half-acre site at 14th Street and Wilshire Boulevard after construction began in July 2026 on Tierra Apartments, a project that includes 40 permanent supportive homes for older adults who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless.
Hollywood Community Housing Corporation (HCHC), a nonprofit that operates 31 properties and 1,243 units across Los Angeles County, is developing the project on the former public parking lot at 1211-1217 14th Street and the adjacent parcel at 1402 Wilshire Boulevard, once home to an Unleashed by Petco store. The parking lot closed permanently on Sunday, June 28, to clear the site.
The City of Santa Monica authorized a $13.5 million loan from its Housing Trust Fund to help finance the development. The total estimated project cost is $77.7 million, according to a HUD environmental assessment filed in March 2026.
Half of the 82 units will house low-income seniors at affordable rents. The other 40 are permanent supportive housing reserved for residents aged 55 and older, with all units set aside for households earning 30% or less of area median income. The Santa Monica Housing Authority approved up to 40 Project-Based Vouchers for those units, worth an estimated $18.9 million in federal funding over 20 years.
Residents in the supportive housing building will have access to mental health services, crisis intervention, individual therapy, substance abuse programs, medication management, and benefits assistance, according to city staff. The revised project also added security personnel for the supportive housing building and upgraded the smallest units from studios to one-bedrooms.
"The central challenge to getting more units through the pipeline is now the gap between approval and construction, as financing constraints and development costs have stalled housing projects across the region and state," Councilmember Dan Hall said, according to the Santa Monica Lookout.
The project's path to construction included a 4-to-3 closed-session vote by the prior City Council in August 2024 that consolidated senior housing onto two parcels and eliminated a third site at 1146 16th Street to reduce parking impacts. The newly seated Council unanimously approved the amended project in December 2024.
Tierra Apartments is one piece of a larger effort. A companion 48-unit family building, the Ollie Apartments at 1217 Euclid Street, will bring the combined total to 130 affordable units. Those 130 units count toward Santa Monica's state mandate to plan for 8,895 housing units, including 6,168 affordable ones, by October 15, 2029.
HCHC's new CEO, Victoria Senna, took the helm on Tuesday, April 1, 2026, after leading the organization's housing development department since 2017. The nonprofit's portfolio has nearly doubled since Senna joined the development team.
Construction completion is estimated for 2028, based on HCHC's 2024 impact report, though no firm date has been confirmed since work began.
What's next for Santa Monica housing
The city has approved more than 6,400 total housing units, with roughly 470 to 480 under construction as of early July 2026, according to city data. The Off-Site Affordable Housing Incentive Program, adopted by the City Council in August 2025, has attracted 11 projects, with three already under construction.
