New York City Based Micro- and Coliving Specialist, Ollie, Planned at Simon Baron Development’s 640 South Main Street in Downtown Los Angeles

6/1/16

Ollie Becomes the Largest Coliving Community on the West Coast With 301 Micro Apartments

New York City (NYC) based micro-housing and coliving specialist,Ollie, today announces its West Coast arrival. In partnership with developer Simon Baron Development(Simon Baron), who recently announced the firm’s acquisition of 640 South Main Street in Downtown Los Angeles, Ollie will design, lease and operate the 301 micro-apartments at the property, where residents will share access to approximately 30,000 square feet of communal amenity space. The deal creates the largest coliving community on the West Coast and makes Ollie the first large-scale coliving concept to go bi-coastal.

“Our team couldn’t be more excited to build on the current momentum and get started in Los Angeles,” stated Chris Bledsoe, co-founder of Ollie. “Thanks to the efforts of the Los Angeles Community Action Network (LA CAN) and our partner Simon Baron, sorely-needed residential units are being preserved in the Downtown area, creating an unprecedented opportunity for Ollie to reimagine the living experience for hundreds of Angelenos, including those who have been priced out of the formal housing market and others who simply desire more than space alone from their landlords.”

Ollie, a phonetic word play on “all inclusive,” helps residents save money, save time and have fun. Blending together the highly efficient space planning techniques of micro-housing with modern-day principles of communal living, or “coliving,” Ollie lowers the rents, furnishes the apartments and curates a living experience typically only available to guests at luxury hotels – including an amenity rich building and a wide array of useful complimentary perks:

  • Ollie’s micro-apartments are outfitted with high-end, dual-function furniture systems from Resource Furniture that optimize the living space -- among other items, beds that transform into sofas and desks into tables;
  • Residents enjoy other complimentary conveniences, like hi-speed wifi, cable, and housekeeping – helping to eliminate major hidden living expenses of conventional apartments;
  • Plus, Ollie has teamed up with home concierge service Hello Alfred under an exclusive partnership in the micro-housing category that provides all Ollie residents with a free weekly visit from a home manager who performs chores and runs errands.


“We’re thrilled to bring Ollie into the project,” stated Matthew Baron, president of Simon Baron. “Today’s announcement marks a major step forward in innovating the housing stock to meet the needs of an evolving urban renter. By understanding that space is merely one of many attributes that defines the living experience, Ollie is demonstrating how micro-apartments can be used not only as a tool to reduce rent but also to enhance quality of life.”

Bledsoe added, “For too long, the industry has been pushing the same inventory, designed exclusively for the upper reaches of the market. This is misaligned with the incomes of real Angelenos, and it fails to address the demographic shifts that have diversified the city’s household compositions away from the traditional nuclear family.”

Roughly six in 10 of the city’s renters are single – a sharp increase from the 1970s, when the average age of marriage nationally was just 22 years old. Millennials – who are delaying marriage and home ownership at unprecedented rates – now make up the biggest demographic cohort in Los Angeles, registering nearly one-third of the total population. As a result, according to the American Community Survey, individuals living alone make up 30 percent of all Los Angeles households, while another 10 percent consist of unrelated roommates living together. Millennials, and a growing number of empty nesters, are living differently. They are seeking ways to live lighter and more communally, spending more of their time and disposable income on acquiring experiences with friends rather than accumulating “stuff.”

Ollie addresses these emerging social constructs, in part, by staffing a live-in community manager who, in cooperation with social concierge Magnises, organizes both in-building and out-of-building experiences, everything from group meals on the rooftop catered by pioneering up-and-coming local chefs; mixers held in unique venues, featuring celebrity mixologists, live music and special giveaways; to day trips, like tubing in the summer or skiing in the winter; and even group travel opportunities.

Renters are seeking more walkable cities and ways to proactively reduce their carbon footprint. In a city where the average commuter now spends more than twenty hours in traffic each month, Ollie’s new Los Angeles location offers a viable alternative to car-dependency, benefitting from an ongoing Downtown Renaissance that has brought more employment opportunities to the area, an influx of retail services, and by 2020, additional mass-transit options like the Los Angeles Streetcar.

Ollie’s Downtown Los Angeles announcement coincides with this week’s opening of Ollie at Carmel Place in Kips Bay – NYC’s first official micro-apartment building – brought to market in concert with Monadnock Development. Ollie plans to announce additional locations this summer.

About Ollie

Ollie™ is a leading micro-housing and co-living platform. In partnership with institutional real estate investors and developers, Ollie revolutionizes the living experience for urban renters through an “all-inclusive living experience” that combines thoughtfully appointed furnished micro-studios and co-living suites with extraordinary lifestyle-relevant services, abundant amenities and unique community engagement activities. For more information visitwww.ollie.co.

About Simon Baron Development

Led by Jonathan Simon and Matthew Baron, Simon Baron Development is a real estate firm controlling over $1.7 billion of real estate primarily located in New York City and the surrounding areas. The company’s portfolio is over 1.5 million square feet and includes projects in both the residential and commercial real estate sectors. Originally founded in 1990 by Simon, the firm focuses on opportunistic, value add acquisitions and looks for opportunities that require development, redevelopment or repositioning. www.simonbaron.com

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