Getty Buys Site on Sunset at Los Liones

The fate of the two-acre site on the corner of Los Liones Drive and Sunset was known last week when the Getty Trust closed escrow on the parcel located at 17311-17315 Sunset. The site, which had been on the market for a year for an asking price of $9 million, is currently home to The Outdoor Room and Color Design Art and the parking lot. Located just two blocks from the ocean and described as ‘a beautiful flat parcel in front with a rear slope,’ the parcel is zoned to allow the development of 62,000 square feet of commercial and/or office space, but found no buyers. Last fall, a proposal to build 64 condominiums fell out of escrow when the developer, Bob Bisno, chairman of TransAction Companies Ltd., decided it was too small a project for the risk involved. The risk he was referring to involved potential delays in consideration of the height variance required and possible traffic mitigation measures, including a traffic light at Los Liones. For sometime, Castellammare residents have asked for traffic mitigation at the corner, which currently has no light and have requested that a traffic study be done. Commuter traffic along Sunset often results in traffic backing up from the signal at Sunset and PCH, beyond the Castellammare light. According to Community Council representative Norma Spak, who serves as the council’s liaison with the Getty oversight committee, the Getty purchased the property with the intention of using the former Color Design Art building as office and storage space. In addition, the Getty said that they had no intention of doing anything with the nursery, which has a lease through July 2007, assuming the nursery would want to continue. Color Design Art, an interior design and merchandising firm for homes, which occupied part of the site since 1984, relocated to larger quarters in Culver City early this year. The Getty, which closed the Villa in Castellammare in 1997 for renovations, announced this winter its plans to reopen the facility in January 2006. The Villa, a replica of a Roman imperial country house, will exhibit the museum’s collection of Greek and Roman antiquities.