“Townscape Partners and their consultant team who helped facilitate the demolition of the historic Lytton Savings will not be following through with their approved plan to build at 8150 Sunset Boulevard: the site is for sale.” reads a statement by The Los Angeles Conservancy on the non-profit’s official social media platforms. “Despite Conservancy advocacy and legal efforts, and those of the Friends of Lytton Savings that began in 2013, the 1960 Modernist bank was demolished in 2021.”
The statement is in response the news that the lot located on the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Crescent Heights is back on the market. Multiple websites are advertising the sale of a 2.5-acre property that was once home to The Garden of Allah and the recently demolished Lytton Savings Bank Building.
Via crexi.com properties 8150 Sunset BoulevardTownscapes Partners secured approvals in 2016 for a pair of mid-rise buildings featuring up to 203 residential units above 57,300 square feet of retail space designed by Frank Gehry, the architect who created the Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles. The completion of the new construction was set for some time in 2023. Townscapes currently has a page with the renderings of the 8150 Sunset Blvd Project on their website, but the link to the actual project has been removed and redirects to a dead Bluehost link.
http://www.townscapepartners.com/projects.
The Los Angeles Conservancy describes the dramatic, folded plate concrete roof and glass-walled banking floor of the former Lytton Savings as a striking departure from traditional bank design when it opened in 1960.As financial institutions nationwide analyzed the need for progressive banking methods following World War II, architects responded by radically reinventing the bank’s form.
Lytton Savings (as part of larger Lytton Center) typified these national postwar banking trends through its modern architectural design, transparency, and integrated art component, and is one of Los Angeles’ earliest remaining examples of this transformative shift in postwar-era bank design.Located at the corner of Sunset and Crescent Heights Boulevards at the western edge of Hollywood, Lytton Savings and larger Lytton Center occupies the former site of the Garden of Allah; the storied Hollywood inn with surrounding villas was purchased by Lytton in 1959 and razed to make way for the firm’s new home office.
Townscape is known for bait and switch. They had multiple iterations of projects for this land, but within the development community, it was well know they never planned to build anything here. They wanted to clear the land and sell.
Require the important elements of the bank building to be rebuilt into whatever ends up being built on the lot.
Frank Gehry is an arrogant, talentless hack whose only skill seems to be convincing people with money that his work is meaningful and important.
You really shouldn’t post when you have no idea how things work. Stop embarrassing yourself.
Townscape used the Gehry name to add credibility to this ghost project. It was never going to be built. Townscape now has a nearly 3 acre shovel ready site to sell and we have no McDonalds!
It was an ugly old building that didn’t need to be saved. The reason the project didn’t get build is because of groups like the Los Angeles Conservancy that cause developers to spend tons of money fighting off legal challenges to save a pointless building like Lytton Savings.
Flaunting your ignorance is not a great look, UCSBGRAD.
Ugly to you maybe, but t was a specific style that was of an era. BTW Townscape is known for bait and switch. They had multiple iterations of projects for this land, but within the development community, it was well know they never planned to build anything here. They wanted to clear the land and sell.