Latest news with #SolesteYoungCircle
Miami Herald
01-05-2025
- Business
- Miami Herald
A Guy Fieri food favorite is making way for a new Hollywood high-rise
Locals strolling Hollywood's Young Circle may have noticed changes afoot within the aging La Piazza complex, a low-slung shopping strip crowned with apartments on Hollywood Boulevard. A Cricket phone retailer is shuttered. The FedEx facility is gone, too, having moved to Tyler Street. And one of La Piazza's last holdouts, J28 Sandwich Bar — an 11-year-old Peruvian eatery and TV-famous favorite of 'Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives' host Guy Fieri — is expected to close its location by the end of May. They're clearing out to make way for a long-promised demolition. In La Piazza's place will rise Soleste Young Circle, a sleek, 23-story apartment tower and the latest luxury residences to spring up along the busy traffic circle. At 1845 Hollywood Boulevard, Soleste Young Circle will feature 378 units, swanky spas, resort-style pools with cabanas, a fitness center and roughly 7,000 square feet of ground-floor restaurants and shops. Go to for the full story.
Yahoo
30-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Luxury apartments are headed to Hollywood, and that means spots like J28 Sandwich Bar are out
Locals strolling Hollywood's Young Circle may have noticed changes afoot within the aging La Piazza complex, a low-slung shopping strip crowned with apartments on Hollywood Boulevard. A Cricket phone retailer is shuttered. The FedEx facility is gone, too, having moved to Tyler Street. And one of La Piazza's last holdouts, J28 Sandwich Bar — an 11-year-old Peruvian eatery and TV-famous favorite of 'Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives' host Guy Fieri — is expected to close its location by the end of May. So what's happening here? Answer: They're clearing out to make way for a long-promised demolition. In La Piazza's place will rise Soleste Young Circle, a sleek, 23-story apartment tower and the latest luxury residences to spring up along the busy traffic circle. At 1845 Hollywood Boulevard, Soleste Young Circle will feature 378 units, swanky spas, resort-style pools with cabanas, a fitness center and roughly 7,000 square feet of ground-floor restaurants and shops. It joins the fleet of new and under-construction high-rises now ringing Young Circle, and if you ask Hollywood Mayor Josh Levy, the project represents one of the final puzzle pieces helping the city realize its urban vision of a vibrant downtown. 'With high-rises like these, we wanted to transform Young Circle into a center of economic growth, and that plan is succeeding,' Levy said. 'We need more density. All the restaurants down there can't just survive on Friday and Saturday night dinner business. They need breakfast and lunch clientele and people who live at the doorstep of those commercial spaces.' Which is why the transformation of La Piazza into Soleste Young Circle has been a long time coming, said Raelin Storey, Hollywood's assistant city manager. 'The La Piazza parcel has been a gap in the redevelopment around Young Circle and the vision for the area that was put in place 20 years ago,' Storey says. 'The new residents who will live at Soleste Young Circle will add to the vitality of the local economy.' Soleste's developer, Miami-based The Estate Cos., hasn't announced when it plans to demolish La Piazza or break ground, but city records show it applied for 12 building permits on Dec. 4, all awaiting approval. A demolition permit wasn't among them. Developer Robert-James Suris, a partner at The Estate Cos., could not be reached for comment about the Soleste project's timeline despite multiple attempts by email, phone calls and texts. Hollywood's Community Redevelopment Agency, which owned the land under La Piazza for decades, agreed to sell the building and land in July 2023 to 1845 Young Circle Holdings LLC, which is owned by The Estate Cos., for $1.5 million, according to property records. (The land and building are currently valued at almost $9.2 million.) Though some businesses have already cleared out ahead of La Piazza's expected teardown, a few remain, including a dry cleaner, a salon-spa and an independent coffeehouse, Le Cafe In. A Papa John's pizzeria is still there but its franchisee, Coastal City Pizza LLC, recently registered for a new space a block north at 1860 Radius Drive, in the Radius Hollywood condo. Also hanging on are Marco and Javier Rondon, the chef-owners behind the acclaimed J28 Sandwich Bar, who have fretted over the Soleste project ever since the city gave the green light in 2023. The goal is to relocate, Javier Rondon told the South Florida Sun Sentinel, though soaring rents nearby and a 'lack of turnkey spaces' have delayed the move-out, leaving the restaurant in limbo. For now, J28 is operating on a month-to-month 'verbal agreement' with its landlord after the 10-year lease ran out a year ago, he said. 'We did so much remodeling already, it's hard to let it go,' said Rondon, who estimates they spent $100,000 on J28's build-out. 'But if we move anywhere else, our rent will be doubled, which means our prices will double. 'And no one wants to spend $30 for sandwiches in Hollywood,' he added. Rondon thinks J28's Hollywood legacy is worth saving. Known for chicharron and lomo saltado sandwiches on crusty, housemade white rolls, the eatery has drawn praise with a high-profile stint on Food Network's 'Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives,' a rare four-star review in the Sun Sentinel and a spot on Yelp's 'Top 100 Places to Eat in Florida' list. Their food costs are high because of imported ingredients such as rocoto peppers, aji amarillo and lucuma, a Peruvian fruit, he said. 'If we moved, we'd lose quality,' said Carmen Spangaro, Javier Rondon's wife. 'We couldn't make bread from scratch or have imported goods anymore, which is not authentic Peruvian.' For his part, Hollywood's mayor, a self-proclaimed J28 fan, doesn't want to see this 'displaced tenant' leave the city. So Levy and Hollywood's CRA have suggested nearby storefronts, including at Block 40 Food Hall on the southern end of Young Circle, he said. 'As far as I know, J28 is in negotiations with other brokers, [but] they're not finding anything,' Levy said. 'Sometimes a tenant needs some place very specific.' And their specific need is a space that's move-in ready, Rondon added. He's still looking. So Rondon has privately told fans they'll close in late May, ahead of the wrecking balls. He stressed that he doesn't blame Soleste's developer for J28's possible demise. 'The developers gave us plenty of warning and they're doing the right thing,' he said. 'But our fan base knows us here. We tried to drag it out as much as possible, but everybody's moving out and it's the end of the line.'
