Koreatown ‘Opus’ Towers Project Lifts Union Members to New Heights

By Grant Slater

In Koreatown, IBEW 11 members are putting the finishing touches on two residential towers that have been rising over the Koreatown landscape north of Downtown Los Angeles for more than three years.

Jamison Services, Inc., the neighborhood’s most prolific builder, is putting up the Opus Towers across the street from the Wilshire/Normandie station on LA Metro’s Purple line.

Private construction efforts like this one that takes up half a city block between Wilshire Avenue and Sixth Street and operates under a Project Labor Agreement are engines of economic stability and growth for IBEW members, both new and old.

Brett Moss, the Business Agent for the northern part of District 1, said that because the Opus Towers residential project isn’t publicly funded, the contract offers the developers some flexibility to bring on a diverse array of workers with different skillsets and levels of experience.

One of those workers is apprentice Hakob Hakobyan, who goes by Jack on the job. Right out of college, he first went to work in a pharmacy, pushing pills and doing paperwork as a low-level employee.

“I hated it,” said Hakobyan. “I didn’t see myself going far. The stress and the workload at the pharmacy was crazy.”

Then, earlier this year, a family friend in the construction industry suggested he apply to become a union electrician – a move he had been eyeing for several years. Hakobyan put in his two weeks’ notice at his “boring” pharmaceutical office job and never looked back.

That family friend was Haik Turdjian, a general superintendent for Conti Electric, who was running work on the residential Opus condominium project. That’s where Hakobyan ended up working in August as an apprentice.

“Ever since, it’s been a smooth ride,” Hakobyan said. “It’s amazing. I work with four to five different journeymen. All of them came up with different people as they journeyed through their apprenticeship, and they all have different skills to teach me.”

At 25 years old, Hakobyan will be able to make more as an electrical worker than he would have in the pharmaceutical industry after years of schooling and a pile of student debt, he said.

“I wish I had started sooner, but better late than never,” he said.

The towers broke ground in April 2021 and started to climb toward the sky in May 2022. Turdjian, the general superintendent, said that more than 100,000 man hours have flowed into wiring up the towers’ 428 units, two skydecks and associated amenities.

In addition to housing, Opus will also feature a dog park, fitness centers, a club room, co-working spaces, a game room, a private screening room, and an indoor golf range.

The two towers, one 14 stories and the other 22, have provided consistent work for more than 50 IBEW 11 electricians, Turdjian said.

Among those 50 electricians are nine CWs, or craft workers, who have entered the union and started to climb the ranks of IBEW 11 by wiring up and trimming parts of these towers.

Just a few years ago, Raul Espinoza Armenta worked in construction, hanging around Home Depot, hoping that work for the day would drive into the parking lot.

He applied to become a union electrician, but the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic delayed his entry, and he signed up for a two-year stint in the Army Reserve. Now, he balances his reserve duties with his job as an Inside Wireman Apprentice on the Koreatown towers project.

“It’s interesting. It’s a challenge for me, first of all, because, I’m an ESL,” said Espinoza Armenta. “I like the program, the way of the union. I like the benefits they have.”

Espinoza Armenta put in more than 1,200 hours on the project, passed his apprenticeship exam, and moved up from the lowest level of CW.

“He was out here for eight months and proved his work ethic,” said Moss, the District 1 Business Agent. “He showed up every day. The company saw that in him and sponsored him into the apprenticeship program.”

New workers like Espinoza Armenta rely on practical knowledge they gain in the classroom, along with experience on the job site from veterans like Marco Molina, an Inside Journeyman Wireman who has been with IBEW Local 11 for almost 25 years.

“Working with the younger guys, and trying to show them what you’ve learned along the way is satisfying,” Molino said. “You have to be very patient, which I didn’t know how to do in the past. But now that I’m older, it feels good to hand over what I’ve learned. You know, I can’t take it with me.”

Now Molino is just a couple of years from a retirement that has been made possible by his work as a union electrician. It’s also allowed him to buy a house, decent cars, and braces for his kids.

That’s a success story, and that’s what the union is all about.