Onni Group wants to add 14-story office in Hollywood

Eyes another 200K sf at former Howard Hughes HQ

7000 Romaine Street and 948 Sycamore Avenue (Google Maps)
7000 Romaine Street and 948 Sycamore Avenue (Google Maps)

Onni Group wants to add a 14-story office complex to a Hollywood site that was once the headquarters for the late tycoon Howard Hughes’ business ventures.

Vancouver, Canada-based Onni filed a permit application for a new 200,931-square foot addition at 7000 West Romaine Street, 930-956 North Sycamore Avenue and 931-953 North Orange Drive, according to documents filed with the city’s planning department.

The proposal for the property calls for the retention of the existing 66,904-square-foot office building at the site. The addition, which will be called Sycamore and Romaine, sits on a through-lot that touches North Orange Drive and North Sycamore Avenue. The planned structure will be split between 194,538 square feet of office space and 6,393 square feet of retail.

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Onni bought 7000 Romaine Street and 948 Sycamore Avenue for $40 million last January. The firm can add as much as 268,000 square feet to the site under the city’s Hollywood Community Plan.

The property, which was built in 1931, was originally commissioned by Hughes. It was initially used for Multicolor Films, a Hollywood production company owned by the reclusive entrepreneur. Later, it turned into the headquarters for the businessman’s ventures. The property is up for designation as a historic-cultural monument, with a vote by the Los Angeles City Council set for September.

The project adds to the Onni’s development pipeline in Los Angeles. Earlier this month, the firm bought a 1.4-acre site at 5350 Wilshire Boulevard with plans to build an apartment complex. That development is one of several for Onni in Los Angeles. Other projects in its docket include the conversion of a Long Beach strip mall into multifamily housing, a 347-unit residential tower in the Arts District, and the redevelopment of the former Los Angeles Times building in Downtown L.A.