Koreatown Office Tower to Become Apartments

A Calabasas developer is buying the former Getty Oil Co. headquarters on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles for more than $20 million and plans to transform it into an upscale apartment building.

Upside Investments Inc. is in escrow on 3810 Wilshire, a 22-story high-rise that was completed in 1963 by oil tycoon J. Paul Getty. Union Bank was the anchor tenant and amenities in the marble-clad tower designed by noted Los Angeles architect Claud Beelman included a posh private social establishment called the Los Angeles Club on the top floor.

The building was the site of Getty Oil’s headquarters. Getty Oil was sold to Texaco in 1984, the same year that Getty Oil completed a new headquarters building in Universal City. By that time the Wilshire district was struggling as an office market and the former Getty building endured its share of woes. The property has been mostly empty for at least a decade, said Sean Baker, president of Upside Investments.

Real estate sources said the buyers were paying more than $20 million to an East Coast financial institution for the building. Baker said a confidentiality agreement prohibited him from revealing the price or the seller, but he confirmed the sale and said he intended to spend an additional $25 million converting the property to residential use.

Baker expects to take title next month and begin work in September. The makeover will include adding to the roof a pool, a garden, a sauna, a fitness center, conference rooms, a small restaurant and a bar.

The first two floors will be for retail tenants. Baker hopes to sign a large bookstore for a 25,000-square-foot space on both floors and fill in the rest with a coffee shop and other small stores serving the Koreatown neighborhood.

Santa Monica design firm REA Architects will oversee the conversion, which is to include one- and two-bedroom units priced between $1,050 and $2,480 a month, or about $1.60 to $1.85 per square foot.

The building is kitty-corner to the historic Wiltern Theater, across the street from a subway stop and within walking distance of a grocery store and several restaurants and shops. “We think it’s the premier building on the premier corner in the Mid-Wilshire area,” Baker said.

He and Gary Simons, chief executive of Upside Investments, have developed or bought 1,500 units in the Koreatown district since 1985. They are also in escrow to buy Crenshaw Imperial Plaza in Inglewood with plans to redevelop the 17.8-acre mixed-use project.