The hulking, vacant Sears on Santa Monica Boulevard at St. Andrews Place has been empty since 2008 and it's been a few years since there's been any news from the retail/residential project planned for the site. But the LA Business Journal now says that not only has the property been sold to prolific Hollywood developers CIM Group, they're planning an even larger-scale mixed-user that would result in up to 700 apartments and 300,000 square feet of retail shops. This new plan also envisions the company preserving the Sears and rehabbing it.
The 5.3-acre property on Santa Monica between St. Andrews and Wilton also includes an empty lot and some "boarded-up retail properties"; it set CIM back $43.5 million. The seller was Continental Development Group, which had planned its own mixed-user on the site back in the late aughts. The project clashed with the La Mirada Avenue Neighborhood Association, notorious for opposing Hollywood development, which sued the developers. The project was approved in 2007, but Continental never found financial backing to build what they were calling Paseo Plaza—a 437-unit complex with 380,000 square feet of retail.
CIM's hoping to have construction underway in about a year.
· CIM Buys Old Sears Hollywood Site for Development [LABJ]
· Sears-Killing Paseo Plaza on the Move Again in East Hollywood [Curbed LA]