From Today's L.A. Times-
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la...,6668664.story
Excerpt-
Beverly Hills approves condo project
A $500-million condo-hotel plan may also win City Council passage. Many residents are concerned about traffic congestion.
By Martha Groves, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
April 11, 2008
To the dismay of residents wary of overdevelopment, the Beverly Hills City Council has approved a high-rise condo and retail project for the eight-acre site of the defunct Robinsons-May department store.
What's more, the council is expected Tuesday to approve an ambitious $500-million proposal by the Beverly Hilton to add condos and the West Coast's first Waldorf-Astoria Hotel to the mid-century Hilton's fabled site. The two projects would be next-door neighbors at Wilshire and Santa Monica, one of the busiest intersections in the region.
The 9900 Wilshire project would include a small amount of retail and restaurant space and 235 ultra-luxury condo units in two buildings -- one beginning at nine stories and stepping up to 13 and the other starting at 13 stories and rising to 15.
Candy & Candy, a London-based firm known for building "super-premium" residences, bought the property a year ago for $500 million from New Pacific Realty, a Beverly Hills firm that had paid $33.5 million just three years earlier. New Pacific was planning to spend $500 million to redevelop the site with a number of environmentally innovative elements.
http://www.9900wilshire.com/