A rooftop air taxi terminal could be coming to one of Los Angeles’ most recognizable luxury addresses. Reuben Brothers, the London-based investment firm that owns the Century Plaza complex in Century City, announced plans to build a vertiport on top of the property in partnership with Joby Aviation, the California-based company developing electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft. If the project clears regulatory and construction hurdles, residents and hotel guests would be able to book short-hop flights to destinations like Los Angeles International Airport, roughly seven miles away.
The announcement, made in early 2025, positions Century Plaza as one of the first existing luxury developments in the United States to pursue embedded vertiport infrastructure rather than relying on standalone facilities at airports or transit hubs. But as of spring 2026, the project remains in its proposal phase, with no public record of local permitting, environmental review, or FAA site-specific approval.
What Century Plaza is planning
Century Plaza already operates as a mixed-use complex anchored by the Fairmont Century Plaza hotel, which opened in 2023 after a major redevelopment. The property includes luxury residences and ground-floor retail along Avenue of the Stars, one of Century City’s main commercial corridors. Reuben Brothers’ plan would add a dedicated vertiport to the rooftop, designed to handle Joby’s five-seat eVTOL aircraft for point-to-point regional trips.
The developer has framed the vertiport as a premium amenity, emphasizing convenience for residents and guests who want to skip LA’s notoriously congested surface streets. A flight from Century City to LAX could take roughly 10 to 15 minutes by air, compared with 30 minutes to well over an hour by car during peak traffic. The corporate announcement does not include a construction timeline, cost estimate, or projected launch date, but it describes the vertiport as part of the property’s long-term development strategy rather than a conceptual exercise.
Where Joby Aviation stands
Joby Aviation is further along than most eVTOL competitors in the race toward commercial service. The company received a Part 135 air carrier certificate from the Federal Aviation Administration in 2025, a prerequisite for operating commercial air taxi flights. Joby’s aircraft, a piloted five-seat tiltrotor, has completed thousands of test flights at its facilities in California and is currently working through the FAA’s type certification process, which would clear the aircraft design itself for passenger operations.
Type certification remains the biggest technical milestone still ahead. The FAA has not yet granted type certification to any eVTOL aircraft for commercial passenger service in the United States, though Joby and rival Archer Aviation have both publicly targeted initial commercial operations in the near term. Until Joby’s aircraft is type-certified, no commercial flights can depart from any vertiport, including one at Century Plaza.
The FAA’s vertiport framework
On the infrastructure side, the FAA has published engineering and design standards that define what a vertiport must look like and how it must operate. Engineering Brief 105A, updated in 2024, lays out requirements for landing area geometry, surface markings, parking positions, and safety zones that account for downwash and outwash from aircraft. While the standards draw on existing heliport design principles, EB 105A treats vertiports as distinct facilities with their own criteria tailored to eVTOL operations rather than simply classifying them as a subcategory of heliports. The agency has also released broader design guidance aimed at helping developers, airport authorities, and local governments accommodate eVTOL operations safely.
These standards give developers a concrete technical baseline, but they are guidance documents, not binding regulations with the same enforcement weight as formal rulemaking. Meeting the published design criteria does not automatically guarantee FAA operational approval. The path from a compliant physical facility to certified commercial flights involves additional steps, including airspace integration, operator certification, and coordination with local air traffic management, that the agency has not fully codified for urban eVTOL services.
Regulatory and neighborhood hurdles
No public filings from the Los Angeles Department of City Planning confirm that zoning approvals or environmental impact assessments have been initiated for the Century Plaza vertiport. Rooftop aviation facilities in dense urban neighborhoods typically trigger review processes covering noise, safety corridors, visual impact, and emergency access. Century City is surrounded by residential buildings, commercial offices, and the heavily trafficked Santa Monica Boulevard and Avenue of the Stars corridors, all of which would factor into any environmental review.
Permitting a rooftop vertiport in this setting is likely to be complex. Beyond FAA expectations, the project would need to satisfy local building codes, Los Angeles Fire Department requirements, and California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) obligations. Regulators would be expected to examine how flight paths intersect with existing structures, whether emergency landing options exist if an aircraft encounters trouble near the building, and how eVTOL operations would interact with existing helicopter traffic and LAX approach paths.
Los Angeles sits in an active seismic zone, adding another layer of structural scrutiny. A rooftop designed for repeated aircraft operations would need to demonstrate resilience beyond what standard FAA vertiport geometry guidance addresses. No publicly available record shows that Joby or Reuben Brothers has completed a site-specific engineering evaluation covering Century City’s wind patterns, building height interactions, or seismic loading requirements for the proposed facility.
An untested market
Even if the vertiport is built and certified, the business case remains unproven. There is no independent data on demand for short-hop eVTOL flights from Century City to LAX or other regional destinations. Pricing has not been disclosed. Scheduling, passenger throughput, and integration with ground transportation networks are all undefined. Joby has previously suggested that per-seat pricing for air taxi rides could eventually approach the cost of a premium rideshare, but the company has not published fare structures for specific routes.
The Century Plaza vertiport is not the only eVTOL infrastructure project targeting the Los Angeles market. Archer Aviation has announced plans for air taxi service in the LA region, and several vertiport developers are exploring sites near LAX and in downtown Los Angeles. How these competing projects interact, and whether passenger demand materializes at the volumes needed to sustain regular service, will shape whether rooftop vertiports become a viable feature of LA’s transportation landscape or remain a niche curiosity.
What to watch in public filings and certification timelines
For Century City residents and anyone tracking the project, the clearest signals of progress will come from public filings rather than corporate announcements. A CEQA notice of preparation, a zoning variance application with the LA Department of City Planning, or an FAA airspace review filing would each indicate that the vertiport has moved beyond the proposal stage. Joby’s type certification timeline is equally important: without a certified aircraft, no vertiport in the country can begin commercial passenger service.
As of spring 2026, the Century Plaza vertiport is best understood as an ambitious early test case. A credible developer and a leading eVTOL manufacturer have committed to a specific site in one of the country’s most congested metro areas, backed by a real, if still evolving, federal regulatory framework. But the gap between a rooftop rendering and a paying passenger stepping onto an air taxi remains wide, and the project still needs local permits, environmental clearances, FAA site approval, and a certified aircraft before it can deliver on its promise.
More from Morning Overview
*This article was researched with the help of AI, with human editors creating the final content.
