Bev Hills switcheroo

It's almost unfair to dredge up the bullish scenarios that developers had been offering a year ago. Almost. A new proposal for the former Robinsons-May department store property in Bev Hills brings to mind what the developer, British-based Nick Candy, was telling me way back when… say in August of 2007. I was preparing a piece for Los Angeles magazine (link not available) on the boom in ultra-luxury condos on the Westside and was wondering how the then-subprime crisis might impact his plans.

Nick Candy, speaking from Monaco where he lives most of the time, says he has no doubts – about the economy or anything else. Eight acres of unobstructed land next to Los Angeles Country Club and within blocks of Century City and Rodeo Drive, assuring breathtaking views of downtown and the ocean, could be as sought after as the Montage, maybe more so. Besides, he says, the very wealthy are almost recession-proof. “This isn’t aimed at the subprime debt market and those sorts of home buyers,” he says, almost with a sniff. “I think we’ll be in very good shape in 2010.”

Humility can be a good thing. The new proposal calls for Candy and his Christian brother to reduce the number of condos and add a hotel, roughly the size of the Peninsula across the street. The Candys had originally wanted to steer clear of a hotel, but the prospect of steady room revenues will improve their chances of getting construction financing, especially considering how condo sales have stalled (Christian Candy's CPC Group had owned the Bev Hills property with Iceland's Kaupthing Bank, which has gone into receivership).

This new model flies in the face of what some developers had been pushing: Building a hotel and then having a few luxury condos supplement room revenues (as with the new Montage in Bev Hills). The Candys’ refashioned project will now have to get re-approved by the city - and it'll be interesting to see how that plays out. Keep in mind that in three weeks Bev Hills voters will decide on whether to sign off on a high-rise Waldorf-Astoria hotel and two luxury condo towers at the intersection of Wilshire and Santa Monica boulevards. That's right next to the Candys' property. More hotel rooms mean more congestion, though the Candys insist that it won't be bad when compared with the traffic that the department store generated.