mission hills happenings

lots of new stuff happening on washington in mission hills - two new condo projects and the big makeover at paseo de mission hills. the first condo project pictured above, mission florence, invites you to "live beautifully" (isn't that required for southern california already?) in a rather generic-looking way. i do like the stone touches at the bottom of the building, and the big balconies, but does every new project have to be colored brown?

apparently the builders at the new project behind donut star, palomo nuevo, just down the street agree - they've coated their grim narrow townhomes with more brown. it is a nice example of infill however. and the picture doesn't do the project justice, the sun prevented a west-facing shot of the entry to the project.

there is some interesting architecture going on at paseo mission hills (bordering goldfinch) in the third and fourth pictures above, where they've taken the facade off the westernmost building on the block and exposed the appealing original trim work. i like the contrast that the modern facade to its right provides. and the spanish-style building on the east end of the block, with bright green and yellow tile at its base, is a big improvement over the drab exterior that the old mission hills cafe presented. lots of ground floor commercial space to fill here and at florence, and all along goldfinch where the paseo's developer bought several properties. but given that the nearby mission hills commons managed to fill theirs, it hopefully won't be a problem.