Hollywood wrap star: sheath over Sunset & Vine Tower serves as giant display for Motorola.

BLAME it on the asbestos.

When CIM Group Inc. was told that its apartment conversion of the Sunset & Vine Tower would require the building to be wrapped in expensive plastic sheathing, the development company sensed a money-making opportunity.

So for the last three months, the exterior of the 6290 Sunset Blvd. tower has served as a nearly 20-story outdoor advertisement for Motorola Inc. and features promos of its new KRZR cell phone.

This is the first advertisement of its kind in Los Angeles--though the method has been widely used in New York City and Europe--but don't expect it to be the last. Advertising experts say that they expect temporary building wraps to become a popular medium in Los Angeles, especially in Hollywood and downtown, as those parts of the city become denser and see more foot traffic.

"It's a good use of the space for temporary installations," said Stephen Freitas; chief marketing officer for the Outdoor Advertising Association of America. "It is a natural extension in Hollywood. Certainly L.A. is a market that is conducive to broad, wide-display advertising."

CIM, which bought the office tower in 2003, decided on selling the space after learning that the conversion process would require asbestos removal. And as part of that process, the building would have to be wrapped to prevent the release of asbestos particles, which can cause cancer. The building is also getting a new exterior, so the wrap also serves to cover scaffolding that had been erected around it.

CIM Principal Shaul Kuba said the Motorola advertising, which will remain up a total of at least nine months while renovations are completed, will generate $333,000 in revenue--not enough to cover the roughly $1 million cost of erecting the scaffolding and wrapping the 85,000-square-foot building.

"We are absolutely making money off of the ad, but it won't cover the cost of putting up the plastic wrap, which is part of the removing the asbestos," said Kuba. He said he wouldn't wrap a building for the advertising unless the wrapping was required for another reason.

However, when the construction is complete the building will include permanent exterior large-scale advertising. Those plans have drawn criticism from some local groups for being too big.

More ads

Now, with other rehabilitation projects on the horizon in Hollywood and downtown, many of which could require measures such as asbestos abatement, this sort of advertising will likely become more prevalent.

"With downtown metropolitan areas it's ideal," said Eric Niemeyer, associate director at Outdoor Media Group, an outdoor media company that is a division of Omnicom Group Inc. "You want to combine vehicular and pedestrian traffic. At places like Hollywood and Highland you are seeing more pedestrian traffic."

Temporary advertising does require city approval, but certain areas of the city, such as Hollywood, have sign ordinances that permits large scale advertising signage.

One of the reasons that the advertising is more prominent: Technologies have made large format printing economically feasible, though it can still cost advertisers $60,000 to $100,000 per month, according to Kelley Puckett, an account executive at Outdoor Media Group.

And because of the extremely large size of this sort of advertisement, it is often pricier on a per-month basis than typical large-scale permanent advertising.

"It definitely requires more dollars for production sometimes," Puckett said. "It can be expensive."

Carol Schatz, president of the Central City Association, which represents the interests of downtown businesses, said that the group has spoken with developers about including advertising that promotes downtown living on the exteriors of wrapped buildings, but it has never been done.

But with a slate of condo conversions still on the horizon in the area, and the occasional office building getting a re-facing, she thinks it is likely that downtown will start to see this sort of temporary advertising.

"If it's significant revenue to a developer that's something they are going to look at," Schatz said.