Construction Started on Luxury Office Building

Entertainment mogul David Geffen and health-care executive Dr. Bernard Salick have started construction on a luxurious $60-million office building in Beverly Hills called the Maple.

Although demand for Westside office space has cooled considerably in recent months, some real estate professionals predict the market will be stronger late next year when Geffen and Salick complete their four-story, 165,000-square-foot project at 407 N. Maple Drive.

Entertainment-related companies are the Maple’s most likely tenants, said Tim Siuta, who oversees construction for Salick’s Beverly Hills-based company, Bentley Health Care Inc. Real estate brokers at CB Richard Ellis and Beitler Commercial Realty represent the landlords.

Salick and Geffen have been funding construction costs themselves, Siuta said. But now that concrete is being poured for the subterranean parking garage, the developers are close to completing a construction loan in the low $40- million range from City National Bank, said Geffen’s business manager, Richard Sherman.

The Maple’s designer is New York-based Gwathmey Siegel & Associates. The building will feature a blue-green granite exterior and an oval-shaped courtyard. Crews spent much of the last year demolishing older structures--including a former Bentley outpatient clinic--on the site Geffen and Salick have controlled for a decade.

The property is a block from the new 80,000-square-foot Gwathmey-designed office building at 331 N. Maple that Geffen had started developing, sold unfinished to a Universal Studios affiliate, then bought back once Universal opted not to use it.

Geffen, through the Beitler firm, has been trying to lease 331 N. Maple to a single tenant, but also is considering tenants that would lease individual floors, Sherman said. Geffen’s financial strength allows him to be very selective about who moves in, Sherman said.

Brokerage services company Cushman & Wakefield reports that 11.6% of Beverly Hills’ 5.7 million square feet of office space is available today--compared with 9.8% a year ago. Average asking rents in the city have dropped slightly from $36.85 a square foot a year ago to $35.65 today.