A long-planned 34-story apartment tower that would be the tallest building in West Hollywood has been approved by the Planning Commission as the city maneuvers to add housing on its east side.
The more than $400-million high-rise with shops and restaurants at street level is set to rise on La Brea Avenue on the site of a former concrete plant that served Los Angeles for more than a century before closing in 2024.
West Hollywood officials endorsed the unusual scale of the planned project by Los Angeles developer CIM Group as part of the city’s push to comply with state requirements demanding more housing.
If approved by the City Council, the complex at 1000 N. La Brea Ave. will have 514 units including 128 units set aside to rent at affordable rates for residents with lower incomes.
In addition to the 34-story tower, it will have a connected 17-story high-rise with a swimming pool on the roof.
City zoning typically restricts commercial buildings to about seven stories, so “some people are a little bit surprised” by the near-skyscraper scale of the tower, said Lina Lee, a managing director at CIM.
The current tallest building in West Hollywood is the 31-story Sierra Towers, a luxury condominium building on the city’s western border with Beverly Hills dating to the 1960s that has long been a celebrity haunt.
“It’s been done before,” Lee said, and the planned high-rise would be like a “bookend” on the opposite end of the city.
A city staff report said the tower “represents a substantial benefit to the community in the form of much-needed housing units for households of varying income levels” and moves the city closer to meeting state-mandated goals for new housing.
CIM estimates that the building could house 1,000 residents.
To help make the project financially feasible for the developer, the city endorsed advertising on the building in the form of five static displays and one full-motion video billboard. The city is to collect a share of the advertising revenue from the billboards.
The tower is to fill the West Hollywood portion of the former Cemex Hollywood Concrete Plant site, which straddles the city border with Los Angeles.
On the L.A. side of the property, CIM is building a two-story office and retail building facing Sycamore Avenue that is nearly complete.
Sycamore Avenue is the heart of Hollywood’s burgeoning Sycamore District, which includes upmarket boutiques, restaurants and art galleries that have sprung up in the former industrial district.
It’s also a media hub with offices and studios for businesses including Sirius XM, Spotify, Sony Music Publishing and Jay Z’s Roc Nation.
If the West Hollywood City Council approves the La Brea tower, CIM would start preliminary development work with the intention of breaking ground late next year or in early 2028.
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