Luxury tower near L.A. Country Club
by Luxury.Net
After a long time, the much awaited luxury condominium tower is being developed by giant United Arab Emirates real estate company Emaar Properties and has opened near the Los Angeles Country Club. In 2007, Emaar Properties bought the 22-story Beverly West tower at Wilshire Boulevard and Comstock Avenue for $65 million while it was under construction by a previous developer. Very soon the housing market crashed due to the economic downturn.
Until the previous year, Mohamed Alabbar, chairman of Emaar, kept the property off the market said Dario De Luca, president of the company’s Los Angeles operations. One of the Beverly West’s 35 units was sold in March for $5 million. The prices for the remaining units range from $1.5 million to $22.4 million.
The building at 1200 Club View Drive was designed by Los Angeles architect Richard Keating, whose projects include the Gas Company Tower office building in downtown Los Angeles and numerous residential high-rises. The Beverly West is intended to have a “timeless” look, Keating said. He further added “Our city is one of many images, architectural styles and periods, so it has been our desire to seek an architecture that remains quiet from a standpoint of form, and achieves its visual richness through detailing, materials and the play of light across the texture of the building.”
Emaar Properties said that Beverly West cost more than $325 million to build. The company also developed the world’s tallest building, the more-than-160-story Burj Khalifa in Dubai.
Stuart Gabriel, director of the Ziman Center for Real Estate at UCLA said that there is a small but potent demand for ultra luxury condos in the region. All the respective owners are wealthy enough not to feel buffeted by the economy and often own multiple homes. He also said, “Like New York, like Tokyo, like London, like Paris, Los Angeles is an international superstar city. There will be a demand among buyers that come from all over the world for a very high-end project.”
