From the ninth floor of the tower at Beverly Hills City Hall, the traffic on Santa Monica Boulevard is quiet. Rodeo Drive and the surrounding shopping district look tiny. Inside, the ninth floor is stripped to bare walls and deserted. The iconic tower was closed in 1989 and has stood abandoned for more than 30 years. Now that is about to change.
A multi-phase project to reoccupy the tower with city offices is underway, and key to the restoration is a seismic retrofit slated to start in the next few weeks. It is expected to take nine to 10 months and cost about $9 million.
