Townscape Partners, a developer that demolished a midcentury bank in Hollywood to make way for a Frank Gehry-designed apartment building, has put the 2.5-acre property up for sale.
The West Hollywood company has listed the entitled site for the controversial project at 8150 Sunset Boulevard, Urbanize Los Angeles reported. The asking price was not disclosed.
The now-vacant lot at Sunset and Crescent Heights Boulevard was once home to Lytton Savings Bank, with a Googie zig-zag roof, which opened in 1960. It replaced the historic hotel Garden of Allah.
The bank’s controversial demolition in 2021 followed a years-long battle by preservationists to save the building. It couldn’t be moved because the bank was too wide for Sunset Boulevard, and because cutting it up would have been too costly.
Townscape Partners, which destroyed the building, had won approvals in 2016 for a pair of 178-foot-tall highrises with 229 apartments and 65,000 square feet of shops and restaurants. Earlier plans, which sparked a three-year battle, called for an even taller building.
Gehry, a star architect and partner at Gehry Partners in Los Angeles, is designing the Ocean Avenue project in Santa Monica and a redevelopment of the Los Angeles River channel.
Permit applications with the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety Department indicate Townscape initiated a plan check process in 2019, seeking approvals for three buildings of up to 13 stories.
No activity has been shown since the middle of last year, according to Urbanize.
While entitlements for Townscape’s Gehry-designed project remain active, marketing materials make no reference to the approved plan, instead advertising the property’s location within an area eligible for the city’s Transit Oriented Communities incentives.
Townscape Partners, owner of a midcentury luxury tower at 8899 Beverly in West Hollywood, made a splash last year when it announced a $100 million penthouse package, still unsold.
— Dana Bartholomew
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