from www.latimes.com – The bunny is bouncing back to Beverly Hills.

Playboy Enterprises Inc. will move its Southern California offices to the former Hilton Hotels headquarters near Beverly Hills City Hall, the magazine publisher said Monday.

Playboy, based in Chicago, has agreed to rent 45,000 square feet in a building owned by Tishman Speyer. The New York developer acquired the former Hilton buildings at 9336 and 9346 Civic Center Drive in January and launched a $30-million makeover of the complex built in the 1980s in hope of making it appeal to prosperous tenants.

“We bought the project with the expectation we would be attracting premier media and technology companies,” said Mark Laderman, regional managing director for Tishman Speyer.

Playboy, which markets its brand through media properties and licensing initiatives, will occupy a floor and a half at what Tishman Speyer now calls the Office at Beverly Hills. Lease terms were not disclosed, but Tishman Speyer is asking for about $4 per square foot per month for space in the complex, according to real estate data provider CoStar Group.

The move is a consolidation for Playboy, which rents 12,400 square feet on Broadway in Santa Monica and 63,000 square feet on Media Center Drive just south of Glendale. Since the early 1960s, the publisher has also had offices on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood and on Beverly Drive in Beverly Hills.

Playboy’s Los Angeles-area offices are home to the magazine’s photo studio, as well as some of its editors and writers. Other operations include the Playmate promotions department and Playboy’s annual jazz festival, spokeswoman Theresa Hennessey said.

Offices in Beverly Hills will be closer to Playboy founder Hugh Hefner’s mansion in Holmby Hills. Hefner, 85, “is still extremely involved with the magazine,” Hennessey said.

Wolcott Architecture / Interiors of Culver City will design the new offices and plans to blend a vintage aesthetic with a modern twist, Playboy said. The move is scheduled to be completed by May.