Spotlight: Los Angeles: High Hopes
New residential developments aim to change the way Angelenos live.
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ShareAugust 1, 2008
Los Angeles is going vertical, but its condominium prices are still horizontal compared with other major metropolitan areas. With luxury condos in Manhattan commanding an average price of $1,887 per square foot and units in London garnering close to $6,000 per square foot, buying in a Los Angeles high-rise, where units range from $500 to $1,200 per square foot, can seem like a bargain."California is the land of the single-family home," says David Wine, vice chairman and executive vice president of Related Companies. "In Los Angeles, people’s entire lives are centered around their estates, but that’s beginning to change."
Currently, there are three regions in Los Angeles that are seeing an influx of new development, and each area caters to buyers at different stages in their lives. Younger people are drawn to the artsy vibe of downtown and Hollywood. More established clientele that are still in the workforce tend to buy into high-end projects in Century City and Beverly Hills. The more traditional Wilshire Corridor—the one-and-a-half-mile stretch of Wilshire Boulevard that runs between Santa Monica and Beverly Hills—is appealing to empty nesters and retired couples.
"We conducted market research and what we heard repeatedly was that owners of large estates were ready to give up the burden of maintaining their estates and simplify their lives," says Wine, whose company is developing the Century in Century City. "They own multiple residences and are looking to travel more." Urban sprawl and increasing traffic also are compelling single-family-home dwellers to look at high-rises that are closer to city centers than their estate homes, which are often tucked into the hills, off of winding roads.
The Richard Meier–designed 9900 Wilshire in Beverly Hills, developed by London-based Candy & Candy, will appeal to the environmentally conscious with its goal of LEED Gold certification. Candy & Candy purchased the 9900 Wilshire site for a reported $500 million from New Pacific Realty Corp., which paid $33.5 million only three years earlier. Nearby, Montage Beverly Hills is building 201 hotel rooms and 20 private residences, which will be completed this fall.
Just west of Beverly Hills, spacious, amenity-rich, and well-landscaped developments along the Wilshire Corridor are aiming to make the transition from sprawling suburbia to high-rise city living easier for prospective buyers. The Beverly West, formerly known as 1200 Club View, will hold some of the largest new condo residences in L.A. and overlook the prestigious Los Angeles Country Club. The 35 units in the 21-story building are expected to be priced from $4 million.
Some developers are snapping up properties from other developers before they have even broken ground on a project. In July 2007, Elad Properties, the developer of the Plaza in New York, purchased the Carlyle Residences, a planned 24-story condominium tower on the Wilshire Corridor with 78 apartments, for about $140 million. And, two months later, taking advantage of the low dollar, Dubai-based Emaar Properties paid Chicago’s Fifield, the original developer of Beverly West, its $95.4 million asking price for the property.
Although the condo market has taken a downturn in other cities,
such as Miami and Las Vegas, Coco Clayman-Cook, founder of LA Condo Lifestyles,
is confident that the perennial desirability of Los Angeles will help insulate
the city’s newest high-rises. "There has never been this much condo development
in L.A., so there is a lot of inventory right now," she says. "However, this
isn’t a short-term phenomenon. The city is out of space, so the only place to
build is up. I see this as the start of the city becoming more like New York."
