Beverly Hills is in line to get another electric vehicle showroom and dealership.
Faraday Future filed plans with the city to open a 13,000-square-foot showroom for its cars at 464 North Beverly Drive, according to city planning documents. Faraday Future did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The showroom and dealership would open on the ground-floor level of an eight-story commercial building owned by Beverly Hills-based Maxxam Enterprises. It will be the company’s first physical dealership.
Gardena-based Faraday Future signed a lease for 10 and a half years, with two additional five-year extension options, the firm disclosed in an earnings release last month, without detailing financial terms. It’s also looking for space to open a second flagship store in the U.S.
The Beverly Hills dealership will require an extensive exterior and interior tenant build-out, according to the city’s planning division. MG2, a Seattle-based architecture firm, is designing the project.
The length and location of the lease suggest an ambitious debut on the consumer market for an outfit with a checkered history in its start-up phase. Faraday secured its dealer license from the state of California earlier this year, meaning it can start selling cars at California dealerships and across the country online. The company is yet to release an actual car, but is scheduled to release its FF 91 flagship model SUV in the third quarter.
The firm ran up hundreds of millions of dollars in debt after launching in 2014. In 2017, founder Jia Yueting invested $900 million of his own money into the firm, with most of it coming from loans that went unpaid in China. By the end of the year, the firm was left with a few million dollars.
Evergrande, the now troubled Chinese real estate conglomerate, then pledged a total of $2 billion into Faraday Future — a deal that ended in legal disputes and Evergrande backing out. After securing a $9 million lifeline from the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program, Faraday went public in July via a special purpose acquisition company.
After debuting at about $14 a share, the company’s share price stands at $2.32 for market capitalization of around $800 million, as of Tuesday morning.