High-rise condo tower proposed for Beverly Hills

A $450-million residential tower has been proposed on the eastern tip of Beverly Hills, where the developer behind the project intends it to be a striking presence at the entrance to the city on Wilshire Boulevard.

Millennium Partners Los Angeles filed plans with Beverly Hills officials last week to build the 34-story high-rise to be called the Eastern. If approved, it would have 249 units, most of which would be market-rate condominiums. The developer would set aside 22 units as affordable apartments for rent.

The Eastern would stand on land now occupied by a strip mall at an unusually wide intersection where San Vicente Boulevard crosses Wilshire diagonally.

“It’s an incredibly visible site because it’s at what we call a ‘bow tie’ intersection and because it forms the eastern gateway to Beverly Hills,” architect Gary Handel said. “We’re very excited about this specific site.”

The tower would be a “bookend” to One Beverly Hills, a nearly $5-billion high-rise complex of condominiums and a hotel that is under construction on the western edge of Beverly Hills near the intersection of Wilshire and Santa Monica boulevards, Handel said.

One Beverly Hills is expected to house some of the priciest condos and hotel suites in the country when it opens in 2028, with units selling for tens of millions of dollars.

“That’s not the market we’re going for” at the Eastern, said Mario Palumbo Jr., managing partner of Millennium Partners Los Angeles. “It’s a very different product.”

At an average of 1,500 square feet, units at the Eastern would be smaller than other condos on the market in Beverly Hills and priced below $3 million, Palumbo said. They would range in size from studios to three-bedroom units.

The ground floor would have two restaurants, he said, and 473 parking spaces spread across three subterranean and four above-ground levels. Greenery would cascade down the side of the four-level parking podium, which Handel said is meant to “anchor” the building in its location and be welcoming to pedestrians.

“The tower itself becomes a sculptural element itself sitting on top of that podium, rising up from it in a very dramatic arched shape that steps up from the west to the east with a series of setback terraces that culminate in a structural crown at the top of the building,” he said, “which we think will become an iconic element on the Beverly Hills skyline.”

Millennium Partners Los Angeles said the 34-story high-rise on the eastern tip of Beverly Hills would be called the Eastern.

(Millennium Partners Los Angeles)

Handel is the founder of Handel Architects, which is designing the Eastern with landscape architecture firm Rios.

Former Beverly Hills Mayor Willie Brien endorsed the Eastern in a statement, saying it “is exactly what the city called for in the General Plan when it thoughtfully designated properties at its gateways as appropriate locations for multifamily housing and increased density.”

The Eastern is designed to maximize density at a location adjacent to mass transit and larger structures of similar height that already exist and are planned in the city of Los Angeles across San Vicente Boulevard from the project site, Palumbo said. The site is near a future Metro subway stop at Wilshire and La Cienega boulevards set to open this year.

“We are putting high-rise housing where it belongs, and more critically, adding to the city’s housing stock,” Palumbo said.

Millennium Partners Los Angeles is the local arm of New York developer Millennium Partners, which is known for building large-scale projects such as Millennium Tower in San Francisco, a luxury condo skyscraper that experienced sinking and tilting, prompting lawsuits from condo owners. The litigation was settled and the tilt has been arrested after a major foundation upgrade, Palumbo said.

In Hollywood, Millennium Partners proposed a $1-billion residential and office development including two high-rise towers that would have flanked the famed Capitol Records Tower. It faced opposition from nearby homeowners and a finding by the California Geographical Survey that an active earthquake fault ran under site. Millennium Partners disputed the finding but last year withdrew its request to the city of Los Angeles for approval to build the project.

Also in Hollywood, Millennium Partners, in partnership with developer Shorenstein, have city approval to build a 15-story office tower at Sunset Boulevard and Wilcox Avenue next to the CNN building. Work on that project will begin when an anchor tenant has committed to moving in, Palumbo said.