Carmel Partners, already busy with three big projects in Sawtelle and plans for new apartments in Long Beach, is retooling its proposed high-rise residential tower just south of Beverly Hills city limits.

In April 2022, the San Francisco-based real estate investment firm announced plans to build a 28-story building on the empty lot at 1050 S. La Cienega Boulevard. Originally, the proposed project would have consisted of a 28-story building featuring 290 studio, one-, and two-bedroom apartments above approximately 7,500 square feet of ground-floor retail. Parking for 426 vehicles was proposed in a podium garage and below-grade levels.

Street-level view of 1050 La Cienega looking southeastSCB

In the eight months since we last heard from the project, it has undergone changes detailed in a recent presentation to the P.I.C.O. Neighborhood Council's Land Use Committee. The revised plan retains the same 290 apartments from the original proposal - as well as 29 units of extremely low-income affordable housing - but redesigns the tower's podium from three stories to two. That change reduces the amount of parking from 426 spaces to 412, and a planned retail component from 7,500 square feet to 4,100 square feet. A proposed 4,500-square-foot publicly accessible open space at the northern property line remains unchanged.

Solomon Cordwell Buenz's new design for 1050 La Cienega also cuts the tower's height to a 24-story, approximately 271-foot-tall building - still good for the largest building in the near vicinity. Likewise, the tower's mass has been relocated from the northern side of the property to the southern edge.

1050 S La Cienega BoulevardGoogle Maps

The project, which has seen its environmental clearance approved on a separate track, has now fallen behind the schedule projected in its Sustainable Communities Environmental Assessment. That document estimated 1050 La Cienega would be built over an approximately three-year-period commencing as early as January 2023 and concluding by August 2025.

Delayed or not, Carmel Partners has established a solid track record with building towers in Los Angeles. The company is already building a 35-story high-rise in the Arts District, and has already completed similar towers in West Adams and Downtown.

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