LOS ANGELES — Tenants at The Normandie, a newly constructed 84-unit apartment building at 1124 S. Normandie Ave. in Pico-Union, say they were living in the building before it had a valid certificate of occupancy — and that the document surfaced only after they pressed city officials about it.
The building itself is verifiable: a five-story development of studios and one-bedrooms at 1124–1140 S. Normandie Ave., completed in late 2024 by developer Goodson Real Estate with Bittoni Architects, built under the city’s Transit Oriented Communities program with eight units set aside for extremely low-income renters. Drake Real Estate Group, a Los Angeles property management firm, currently lists at least three rental units in the building on its website, confirming the tenants’ account that the company manages leasing there.
One tenant, a single mother who contacted News Observed and says roughly 15 residents have organized around conditions in the building, told News Observed that when tenants sought help from City Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez’s District 1 office, staff told them the building had no certificate of occupancy. The tenant says residents then checked with the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety, and that a certificate “was magically issued the same day,” despite what she described as a fire permit being on hold. The building sits in Council District 1, and the phone number the tenant provided for her contact with the council office matches CD1’s City Hall office line. She says the office stopped responding after the certificate question was raised. Observed could not match the staffer names she provided to a public CD1 roster. The certificate’s actual issuance date — the make-or-break fact — is a public record obtainable from LADBS.
The tenant also described a smoke-alarm incident on Aug. 5, 2026, around 12:10 p.m., saying alarms sounded for roughly 20 minutes with no fire department dispatch until she called herself. She says multiple police and fire incident reports exist for the address, though no report numbers have been provided.
Tenants also allege an on-site property manager has yelled at and threatened residents in retaliation for police presence at the building. The tenant additionally raised a serious allegation that units in the building are being used for sex trafficking; Observed found no court record, law enforcement statement, or news coverage connecting the address to trafficking, and this claim remains entirely unverified.
While conditions at this building are unreported elsewhere, Drake Real Estate Group has a documented pattern of tenant complaints at other properties. The company holds a 2.6-star rating across more than 250 reviews, with recurring complaints of unreachable management and poor maintenance; Better Business Bureau complaints include a tenant reporting weeks without hot water; and the company has been named as a defendant in at least three Los Angeles Superior Court cases, including a 2025 intentional-tort suit brought by a tenant at a different property. One Yelp listing marks the company’s San Vicente Boulevard office as closed as of June 2026, even as its website actively lists units.
No mainstream outlet has covered tenant conditions at The Normandie; existing coverage is limited to development-trade write-ups and rental listings. Drake Real Estate Group, Goodson Real Estate, and Councilmember Hernandez’s office should be given the opportunity to respond before publication.
Drafted by News Observed Editorial AI, human reviewed and published.