A Luxury Cost-Cutter

Those promoting Promenade Towers as a place to live have a message for the business community in downtown Los Angeles: rent an apartment there and save money on hotel bills.

An apartment in the twin-towered, 510-unit high-rise is being touted as good economics for companies who always have employees arriving from out of town. The apartments, located at 123 S. Figueroa St., are within walking distance or short bus ride of all downtown Los Angeles.

It’s also an ideal corporate perquisite, promoters say, for the chief executive who works downtown during the week and lives in Santa Barbara on the weekend.

Though apartments there aren’t cheap ($600 to $1,350 a month without frills) it sure beats spending a minimum of $59 a night for a room downtown, project promoters say. The complex already has a health club, swimming pool, bank and dentist’s office, with a restaurant, grocery story and barber shop to follow.

The biggest corporate customer so far is Union Bank, which has leased 16 apartments for employees in a management training program for commercial lenders. A bank spokesman says it’s cutting its lodging costs up to 10% by renting the flats. Carter Hawley Hale and Atlantic Richfield also have apartments there.

One of the best-known part-time residents is Dodger manager Tom Lasorda, who stays there primarily during the baseball season in lieu of taking the 25-mile drive home to Fullerton. Promenade Towers is a $60-million joint development between two large Los Angeles-area builders, Jona Goldrich and Nathan Shapell. About two-thirds of the units have been rented.