BKNM aims to build a 47,800-square-foot office building in Santa Monica.
The Santa Monica-based developer led by Ben Vandebunt has filed plans for the two-story offices at 3402 West Pico Boulevard and 2337 Centinela Avenue, Urbanize Los Angeles reported. The building would replace a parking lot.
The Mid-century modern-style building would lie along the 10 Freeway, next to a three-story, 44,800-square-foot building that once served as headquarters for The Recording Academy that stages the Grammy Awards.
The new V-shaped building, to be called Pico Green, would include a large courtyard with 40 new trees.
The offices, designed by ShubinDonaldson of Culver City, would be built from “hybrid massed timber” and include floor-to-ceiling lattice windows. A three-level underground parking garage would serve 242 cars and 30 bicycles.
“The two-story office building and rectilinear form is appropriate to the existing three-story office building that will remain on the site,” city staff say in a report. “The new roof line generally aligns with the height of the freeway overpass, with the two-story massing sitting below the freeway.
The staff report recommends approval of the proposed project.
The 2.2-acre property has had a string of owners, each with a different plan for the triangular site, according to Urbanize.
In 2011, Dallas-based Trammell Crow bought the property from what is now known as The Recording Academy for $10.5 million, with plans to build 260 apartments.
Brentwood-based Hudson Pacific Properties acquired the site in 2014 for $18.5 million, then sold it in 2017 to help pay for its $200 million purchase of Hollywood Center Studios, now Sunset Las Palmas Studios, in Hollywood.
The buyer of the former Grammy building was Cypress Creek Renewables, a solar company led by Matthew McGovern, for $35 million. The firm set up its headquarters there.
Vandebunt of BKNM, a visiting scholar at USC Marshall School of Business, is a co-owner of Cypress Creek Renewables, plus numerous real estate and startup companies, according to a biography.
— Dana Bartholomew
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