British company will replace old building with pricey condos and stores.

By Roger Vincent
LOS ANGELES TIMES
Friday, April 13, 2007

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — It might be the ultimate Beverly Hills teardown.

British developers paid $500 million this week for the once-grand Robinsons-May department store in one of the priciest property sales ever in Southern California.

The buyers said they would proceed with the previous owner’s plans to raze the store on Wilshire Boulevard and build a condominium and retail complex designed by Richard Meier, architect of the Getty Center.

The extraordinary price catapults Los Angeles County real estate values into the realm of such top European markets as London and Paris.

“We intend to see this vision through and bring Beverly Hills what will truly be the world’s most luxurious address,” said Nick Candy of Candy & Candy Ltd., the London-based firm behind the acquisition known for building “superpremium” residences.

The new complex will have 252 multimillion-dollar condominiums at the western gateway to Beverly Hills and overlook the Los Angeles Country Club.

“Candy & Candy in the U.K. is what Tiffany is to jewelry here,” said Laurie Lustig-Bower of brokerage firm CB Richard Ellis, which represented Candy in the transaction. “Therefore, they believe they will achieve record prices for their condos.”

“It’s of historic proportions in sheer magnitude,” said broker Carl Muhlstein of international real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield who was not involved in the deal. “This is huge.”

The sale is a huge jump in value from the $33.5 million that the seller, Beverly Hills-based New Pacific Realty, paid for the eight-acre site three years ago. New Pacific was planning to spend $500 million to redevelop the site.

Work could start by early next year, but hurdles remain. Neighbors are likely to object to the potential effect on traffic from the Candy & Candy project and others planned nearby.

But the new owners of the Robinsons-May property say their development would not generate any more traffic than the department store did.

Perhaps Candy’s best-known development is One Hyde Park, an ultraluxury project in London where residences are selling for almost $10,000 per square foot, Candy said. The company declined to say how much the Beverly Hills units would cost.

“I believe this will be the One Hyde Park of the West Coast of America,” Candy said.