Millennium Partners Los Angeles has filed an application with the city of Beverly Hills to build a 34-story mixed-use building at the intersection of Wilshire and San Vicente Boulevards. Located at 8300 Wilshire Blvd., the development will take the place of an existing single-story shopping center. The project includes 249 residential units ranging in size from one to three bedrooms, and developers are also considering two food and beverage destinations on the ground floor.
Beverly Hills’s current height limitations on mixed-use buildings range from three to five stories. The proposed development —called The Eastern — would exceed those limitations by between 29 and 31 stories.
The developer hopes to trigger the state density bonus law with the project. To qualify under that law, new developments must designate a certain percentage of units for affordable housing. In this case, 22 of the 249 units will be earmarked for affordable housing.
“State law is being invoked so that this application, as it is today, can move forward,” said Brian Lewis, a spokesperson for the project. “The state has said we have a housing crisis, and we need to be producing more housing and providing incentives to produce that housing. This is one of the laws that allows that to happen.”
Beverly Hills must plan for over 3,000 units of new housing by 2029, with more than half of those units designated for very low or low-income households.
Mario Palumbo, the managing partner of Millenium Partners Los Angeles, told the Courier that developers have met with members of the city’s planning staff and individual city councilmembers, but details of how the project might move forward have not yet been ironed out.
“We’ve just been informing them of our aspirations for the site and asking for their feedback,” he said. “One of the things we’ve heard time and time again is that, as noted in the Beverly Hills General Plan, this is exactly the site that Beverly Hills has contemplated having incremental height and density to support increased production of housing units. We’ve heard that time and time again. If not here, then where? Where is it appropriate for Beverly Hills to build housing?”
Palumbo emphasized the project’s location on the edges of the city and noted that developers chose the location in part because of its proximity to the planned stop on Metro’s Purple Line Extension. Given that location, commuters working in downtown and other surrounding areas, such as Culver City and West Hollywood, would have the option to take up residence in Beverly Hills.
“We are big proponents of putting density near transit,” he said. “We can’t go on thinking that we can put single-family houses around transit stops and that that’s a sensible land use policy … allowing the Golden Triangle to maintain its current character by producing additional housing units at the edges of the city is really, I think, what makes the most sense for the city. It allows it to both generate the housing units that need to be generated, but also to maintain the special charm and feel and character of the center of Beverly Hills.”
