China's Biggest Commercial Developer Buys Former Robinsons-May Site in Beverly HIlls

The Wanda Group, China’s biggest commercial property developer, announced today that it has bought the site of the former Robinsons-May department store in Beverly Hills and plans to invest $1.2 billion to establish a mixed-use development at the site.

“Wanda successfully beat out more than ten bidders from Asia and North America for the project,” the Beijing-based company said in an statement on its website. “The Los Angeles project is expected to aid China’s entry into Hollywood’s film industry and generally promote Chinese culture abroad.”

The purchase price wasn’t disclosed.

The 8-acre site, at 9900 Wilshire Boulevard, changed hands -- to a Hong Kong and Signapore concern -- in 2010 for nearly$148 million.

Asserting that the project “will serve as the Wanda Group’s first important step into Hollywood,” Wanda said it will set up a Los Angeles office -- presumably at the Beverly Hills site --- which will handle entertainment investments.

Wanda has been expanding outside China aggressively since its $2.6 billion acquisition of the AMC theater chain in 2012.

Wanda has sought to raise its profile in Hollywood, donating $20 million last year to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ soon-to-open film museum on the campus of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Robinson’s Beverly Hills, opened in February 1952, before being rebranded as Robinsons-May when the companies merged in 1993. The Beverly Hills department store was shuttered in 2006, two years after it was acquired by New Pacific Realty for $33.5 million.

--City News Service

Patch Senior Editor Penny Arévalo contributed to this report.