Work Begun on 192-Unit Complex : Housing: Apartments, offices and shops are planned for ‘24-hour environment.’ A Shinto service helped mark the start of the $33-million project.

Determined to increase the amount of downtown housing to help reduce traffic congestion and air pollution, city officials Monday broke ground for South Park’s third housing complex, a 192-unit apartment building at Olympic Boulevard and Hope Street.

“For a long time, we have talked about building downtown Los Angeles into a 24-hour environment, and it is happening,” Mayor Tom Bradley said. “(We need) to bring people who work downtown closer to their jobs so as to eliminate the need for automobiles to take them from home to work and back again.”

John J. Tuite, Community Redevelopment Agency administrator, said the downtown area now has more than 300,000 jobs, but only a few thousand housing units. He said the new Del Prado complex begun Monday is a modest start toward the goal set recently by the new Downtown Strategic Plan Advisory Committee of “no less than 100,000 people living here.”

“There is an increasing need for a jobs-housing balance downtown, and we are creating this in South Park,” said CRA commissioner Dollie Chapman. “This will be a real neighborhood.”

South Park is bounded generally by 8th Street on the north, Main Street on the east, the Harbor Freeway on the west and the Santa Monica Freeway on the south.

Fronting on the partially planted Grand Hope Park, the $33-million Del Prado will be a mixed-use complex, with 35,000 square feet of office space, shops and restaurants, as well as the 192 apartments. Because of a $3.7-million contribution from the CRA, 15% of the apartments must be set aside for low- and moderate-income renters.

The complex, of rose glass and white concrete and plaster, will include a 16-story tower and an eight-story tower connected by pedestrian walkways.

Set for completion in 1991, the complex was begun formally Monday with a Shinto service to consecrate the site. The ceremonies were conducted by the Rev. Alfred Tsuyuki, head minister of the Konko Church of Los Angeles.

“It brings good luck, and it is primarily for the safety of the workers,” explained Michael Reyes, president of Urban Pacific Development Corp., which has developed the complex. “We are not a Japanese developer, but the contractor--Sumitomo Construction America--is Japanese, so we wanted to do this.”

“Every time we start a construction in Japan, we pray to God for safety during the construction and success of our project,” said Takeshi Okamoto, assistant general manager of Sumitomo. “Sumitomo Construction America usually calls one of the Japanese Shinto ministers to pray to the gods for us and for the community, too. We feel comfortable with it.”

Led by Toshio Kato, general manager of Sumitomo, Bradley, government planners and development executives offered sacred stems of greenery to symbolize cooperation in the project.

After Tsuyuki purified, sanctified and blessed the ground to be broken, Bradley, Reyes, Tuite and Chapman lifted silver shovels of earth and spread it in all four directions of the site.

The two existing housing complexes in South Park, with a total of 470 units, are Skyline condominiums on 9th Street and the adjacent Metropolitan Apartments.

Eventually, the South Park area is to have 12,000 housing units, 10 million square feet of office space, retail stores and parks.