Beverly Hills Developer Revives Kate Mantilini Site With Rooftop Restaurant Twist

The long-dormant hotel conversion at Beverly Hills' Gibraltar Square has a new twist: a nearly 5,000-square-foot restaurant perched on an 11th-story addition, replacing an earlier plan that would have revived the former Kate Mantilini space as the project's dining draw. The mid-century office tower at 9111 Wilshire Boulevard, once the headquarters of Gibraltar Savings and Loan, has sat in limbo for years as its owner, West Hollywood-based Charles Company, worked through entitlements, a pandemic, and a legal scandal involving one of its own founders.

According to Urbanize LA, the revised plans reduce the hotel's guest room count from 154 to 147 while adding the rooftop restaurant and reconfiguring a third-floor pool deck. The proposal, filed with the city as PL2500289, seeks amendments to both a Conditional Use Permit and a Historic Incentive Permit, according to a City of Beverly Hills filing. That Historic Incentive Permit would allow a building up to 149 feet tall at the site, per the same filing, and city approvals are still required before either revised permit takes effect.

A Mid-Century Landmark Gets a New Chapter

Gibraltar Square's oldest structures — a cantilevered 10-story office tower and a low-rise bank building — were developed between the 1950s and 1960s, designed by architects Pereira and Luckman for Gibraltar Savings and Loan, the station's report notes. The property was later expanded with another bank building designed by Maxwell Starkman, which architecture firm Morphosis reworked in the mid-1980s before it became the now-defunct Kate Mantilini restaurant. That restaurant, opened at 9101 Wilshire Boulevard in March 1987 by Hamburger Hamlet founders Harry and Marilyn Lewis, closed in June 2014 but remains a piece of Hollywood lore as the filming location for the diner scene between Al Pacino and Robert De Niro in Michael Mann's 1995 film Heat, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The Beverly Hills City Council designated the Gibraltar Square property — including the tower and the former Kate Mantilini building — as City Landmark No. 30 in 2016, according to the City of Beverly Hills. That landmark status governs the structural alterations now under review, and the developer's project architect on the current revisions is officeuntitled.

Years of Delay, Entitlement Extensions, and a Federal Case

Charles Company acquired the 9101–9111 Wilshire Boulevard property in 2013 through an affiliated entity, Oakshire LLC, for $13.75 million, per The Real Deal. The Beverly Hills Planning Commission originally approved the hotel conversion in January 2020, clearing the way for a 154-room hotel with restaurant space and amenities, but the developer later sought entitlement extensions through January 2023 citing post-pandemic economic challenges, the outlet reported.

The delays coincided with legal trouble for one of the company's leaders. Real estate developer Arman Gabaee, also known as Arman Gabay, co-founder and co-managing partner of Charles Company, was sentenced in December 2022 to four years in federal prison and ordered to pay a $1.15 million fine after pleading guilty to bribing a Los Angeles County real estate official to secure a $45 million county lease, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Heavy construction on the Gibraltar Square hotel project has still not commenced, though the hotel entitlement has remained active through permits for refurbishments of portions of the building.

In January 2023, the City of Beverly Hills recognized that the hotel entitlement for 9111 Wilshire Boulevard had been formally exercised, a determination that led city officials to remove the parcel from the city's 2021–2029 Housing Element site inventory, according to city documents.

A Pattern Across Charles Company's Portfolio

The Gibraltar Square revisions arrive alongside other shifts in Charles Company's Southern California holdings. In June 2026, the developer overhauled plans for its long-vacant Melrose Triangle site at 9060 Santa Monica Boulevard in neighboring West Hollywood, dropping 225,000 square feet of planned office space in favor of a 282-unit residential complex, as reported by Urbanize LA. Charles Company had also proposed a high-rise on the Sunset Strip as part of its broader development ambitions in the region.

The developer's projects have drawn regulatory scrutiny elsewhere too. As Hoodline previously reported, a 2025 Los Angeles County Superior Court order forced Charles Company to fence, secure, and begin demolishing its long-blighted Hawthorne Plaza mall site by this August, a property the developer had previously targeted for redevelopment before the site fell into years of blight.

Despite the reduced room count, the revised Gibraltar Square plans are described as maintaining the appearance initially approved back in 2020, according to a Beverly Hills Planning Commission presentation detailing the changes. Whether the commission grants the requested height exception for the rooftop addition on a designated local landmark, and when construction might finally begin after years of extensions, remain open questions as the application heads toward review.