Westlake sits immediately west of Downtown across the Harbor Freeway, wrapped around MacArthur Park — which was Westlake Park until 1942, when it was renamed for General Douglas MacArthur. It is the second most densely populated community in Los Angeles County, after Koreatown next door.
That density is mostly pre-war. Much of the housing here is 1920s apartment buildings put up when this was a fashionable address, and a good deal of it has never been substantially altered. For a buyer that means courtyard buildings, wood floors and original detail, and it also means the maintenance history of a hundred-year-old structure.
Two Metro lines run under Wilshire and Alvarado, which is a real part of the value here: this is one of the few parts of the city where a household can genuinely function without a car. Anything you buy in Westlake should be looked at with a pre-war building's questions — soft-story retrofit, plumbing, electrical, and the rent-stabilization rules if there are tenants.
Ask Mario about WestlakeWhat to check in Westlake
- Whether a soft-story building has completed its seismic retrofit, and who paid for it.
- On any building with tenants: the rent-stabilization status and the existing rents, before you model anything.
- The plumbing and the electrical service on a pre-war building.
- Parking, which on these lots is frequently none.
Questions about Westlake
Is Westlake the same as MacArthur Park?
MacArthur Park is the park, and Westlake is the neighborhood around it. The park was called Westlake Park until 1942, so the two names get used for each other constantly.
Is Westlake mostly rentals?
Mostly, yes — it is one of the densest parts of the county and the housing stock is largely apartment buildings. That makes it a market where a lot of what changes hands is income property rather than a home to move into, which is a different purchase with different questions.
Downtown is not one market. It is a few hundred buildings, and the building decides nearly everything — what the dues are, what they actually cover, whether a lender will write a loan in it at all, whether the parking space is yours or the building's, whether the "loft" is a 1920s office floor with twelve-foot windows or a 2008 tower with a pool deck. Two units a block apart with the same square footage and the same price can be completely different purchases. I would rather spend the first conversation on the building than on the tour.
Licensed in California since 1993, in a market that has to be read one building at a time.
Mario Cabello, REALTOR® · CA DRE #01163184
