LOS ANGELES—A local developer has purchased two adjacent development sites, a commercial property and a residential property, totaling 26,000 square feet in the North Hollywood submarket from Dennis Scheer and Thomas Enslin and from 11135 Burbank Blvd RG LLC. The developer plans to build a 70-room boutique hotel on the site. It is scheduled to break ground in the fourth quarter this year.

Mariela Iamburg, VP of investment sales at Rosano Partners, assembled the two sites and marketed the property as a hotel development, working with the city to secure permits and approvals for the project. “The sellers of the larger commercial site came to me to sell the property. I then approached the owner of the second property to assemble a large-enough development site,” Iamburg tells GlobeSt.com. “We got an investment loan to purchase the small parcel. We originally wanted to market it as a mixed-use development site, but we discovered that there are too many restrictions that the city has off of that particular corridor. The next opportunity came about with the hotel, and the city was very excited about the idea.” Iamburg represented the sellers in the transaction, while Lux Realty represented the buyer, a local and unnamed developer.

Once the sites were assembled, Iamburg got ample interest from local developers. “I got a lot of calls, although we were marketing the property at the higher end of the market,” she says. “The sellers were really adamant about the price, which is really what pushed us to investigate all of the avenues for the property.”

The sale transaction was subject to the entitlements and approvals, and took 18 months to complete, including a nine-month escrow period. “It was a long process, and it was challenging. I have never worked in such cooperation with another broker, almost as though we were on the same team,” says Iamburg. The sales price for the two properties was not disclosed, but the larger commercial property was marketed at $1.7 million and the smaller property was marketed at $700,000, for a total of $2.4 million.

The NoHo area has an emerging arts district, and the planned hotel project will fit right in—and that thrills both the city and the local arts council, which helped to secure entitlements and approvals for the project. “This part of the San Fernando Valley is underserved when it comes to hotel rooms, and it has one of the highest occupancy levels, so much that it is comparable to San Diego,” says Iamburg. “This particular property ties in well with the NoHo area. The developers pledged to be very supportive of the local arts, and to dedicate rooms, exhibits or workshop space to the local arts. I think that this hotel will be very cohesive with everything else that is happening in NoHo.”

Another hotel property recently traded hands in the nearby submarket of Burbank. WH Partners and Starr Cos. has formed a joint venture to purchase the Burbank Airport Marriott Hotel, which is adjacent to the Bob Hope Airport in Burbank. The buyers of the property said that the hotel had a “strong and continuously improving performance,” which led them to the opportunity.