Douglas Emmett’s housing plans for the corner of Wilshire and Westwood Boulevards are coming into focus. 

On Wednesday, the Santa Monica-based real estate investment trust filed an application with the City of Los Angeles to convert a 17-story, approximately 247,000-square-foot high-rise at 10900 Wilshire Boulevard into nearly 200 apartments, Urbanize Los Angeles reported. In addition to the conversion of the office tower, Douglas Emmett also plans to erect a new seven-story building on a portion of the site with more than 100 residential units. 

Douglas Emmett is looking to turn the office building into 199 one- and two-bedroom apartments. The new building, set to rise next to it on a current parking site, would have 124 apartments, making a total of 323 new units. Parking for 416 vehicles would also be included in the project, and the existing ground-floor commercial space in the office tower would be retained. VTBS Architects is handling designs for both structures. 

Douglas Emmett purchased the office building, known as Murdock Plaza, from Tishman Speyer early last year for $131.1 million, or $539 per square foot, The Real Deal previously reported. The firm acquired the tower through a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure. Last summer, during its second-quarter earnings call, Douglas Emmett first announced its intention to convert the office building into offices, albeit with a total projected unit count of 320, TRD reported. 

Office-to-residential conversion projects such as the Murdock Plaza proposal have become instrumental in helping the City of Los Angeles inch towards its lofty state-mandated housing goals. According to a RentCafe report released in February, the city has more than 83 million square feet of office space that could be suitable for conversion into housing. While the Westside hasn’t seen many such projects, the office-heavy downtown Los Angeles and Koreatown neighborhoods have become the de facto adaptive reuse hotspots in the city.  

Douglas Emmett owns several office properties on the Westside and first broke into the residential market in the neighborhood in 2019 with the $365 million acquisition of The Glendon apartments at 1060 Glendon Avenue. 

— Chris Malone Méndez

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Douglas Emmett plans Westwood office-to-residential conversion 

Douglas Emmett buys Murdock Plaza in $131M deed-in-lieu sale

Douglas Emmett dives into multifamily pool with $365M resi buy in Westwood