Initial renderings of the $300 million Frank Gehry-designed mixed-user at 8150 Sunset were revealed this morning via Architectural Record.

The 2.6 acre site developed by Townscape Partners is located at the intersection of Sunset and Crescent Heights Boulevards at the easternmost end of the Sunset Strip. The 333,600 square foot project will feature 249 residential units and 65,700 square feet of retail spread over five architecturally distinct buildings and organized around a central plaza. 

The three-story buildings in the middle of the site will contain flagship retail, cafes, and restaurants. The structures will feature flowing glass facades broken up with wooden vertical elements. Several rooftop terraces are also visible in the renderings.

Residential towers will sit at the east and west edges of the site, with an 11-story apartment tower on the east end and a 15-story condominium tower on the west end. Both towers will feature curving white facades with large punched windows and will also contain rooftop terraces.

The last of the five buildings sits in the center of the site and will consist of two three-story penthouses with twisting limestone facades.

The lot currently contains a strip mall which Townscape Partners initially considered integrating into the new project but later rejected in order to build something more programmatically and architecturally unique. Before the strip mall, the lot was once home to the storied Garden of Allah hotel. Guests and tenants of the included Gloria Stuart, Dorothy Parker, Errol Flynn, Greta Garbo and the Marx Bros. Urban legend has it the demolition of the Garden of Allah and subsequent construction of the strip mall and parking lot was Joni Mitchell's 1970 song Big Yellow Taxi.

Townscape Partners will be submitting the plan for Environment Imact Review later this month. They hope to break ground in late 2016 or early 2017.