Development News

In Downtown, the concrete frame of a new Moxy Hotel tower is now more than 20 stories above street level at Lightstone Group's Fig + Pico development. The project, named for its located at the northeast corner of Figueroa Street and Pico Boulevard, will eventually stand 38 stories in height. Plans call for a total of 727 guest rooms located above a podium structure containing 300 parking stalls, amenities, a small conference facility, and ground-floor restaurant space.

SCG America, the U.S.-based subsidiary of Shanghai Construction Group, has completed work on its first Los Angeles area development - a condo tower in Downtown's Historic Core. Perla on Broadway, located at the southeast corner of 4th Street and Broadway, is billed as the Historic Core's first new residential high-rise in more than a century. The 35-story building includes 450 residential units atop a podium structure containing parking and approximately 7,000 square feet of ground-floor commercial space.

With the arrival of a tower crane this week, construction is now ramping up for Mitsui Fudosan America's new residential high-rise at the intersection of 8th and Figueroa Streets in Downtown Los Angeles.The project, which broke ground in July 2020, will consist of a 42-story building featuring 438 studio, one-, and two-bedroom apartments above a parking podium lined with 7,500 square feet of ground-floor retail space.

Seattle-based development firm Housing Diversity Corp. is planning a new micro-unit apartment complex just south of Pico Station in DTLA. The proposed project, slated to replace a surface parking lot at 1411 S. Flower Street, calls for the construction of a new eight-story building containing 227 apartments – the bulk of which would average approximately 265 square feet in size.

A small commercial building near the intersection of 2nd and Spring Streets could make way for a new high-rise development. The proposed project, slated for a property at 216 S. Spring Street, would consist of a 17-story tower featuring 120 studio apartments above approximately 2,500 square feet of street-fronting retail and restaurant space.

Work is nearly finished in downtown Los Angeles on CitizenM, a hip hotel for international travelers made of prefabricated rooms that were craned into place like a child’s building blocks. CitizenM points to its modular construction approach — like high-stakes Lego — as one reason the company is able to keep costs low and charge less for rooms than its rivals as it looks ahead to a post-pandemic world.

Maxxam Enterprises is seeking approvals to redevelop a 1970s industrial facility with a new eight-story, 195,000-square-foot building at 676 S. Mateo Street containing up to 185 live/work apartments - including 20 very low-income affordable units - above roughly 23,000 square feet of ground-floor commercial space and a three-level, 211-car underground parking garage.

CoreSite, a data center firm focusing on major metropolitan areas, launched the first phase of a major development in Downtown Los Angeles called LA3. The development, once complete, will be a 160K SF facility with 18 megawatts of capacity. CoreSite said this week that Phase 1, encompassing 51K SF and 6 MW of capacity, is open for business.

Architectural plans posted by the Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council offer a sneak peak at updated designs for a proposed high-rise development at the intersection of 12th Street and Grand Avenue. The project, called Arris, is being developed by City Century. Plans call for razing a 1930s warehouse and surface parking lot at 1201 S. Grand Avenue, making way for the construction of a new 40-story tower.

Located at 1101 N. Main Street at the intersection of its namesake, Llewellyn Street, the new complex features generous two-bedroom, one-bedroom and studio apartments with enviable amenities. The unit mix also includes 15 spacious ground-floor units with individual entrances and direct access to private outdoor patios. Llewellyn started pre-leasing in October and will open for residents in January.

The 315-room hotel is coming to 4th and Spring. After breaking ground last spring, Downtown LA's citizenM Hotel has topped out and is moving towards the finish line in the Historic Core. Located at the northwest corner of 4th and Spring Streets, the 11-story project will feature 315 guest rooms and underground parking. It is being developed in a joint venture between the Dutch hotel chain and Los Angeles-based BLVD Hospitality.

The first phase in the historic preservation-minded rehabbing of Union Bank Plaza (UBP) in Downtown Los Angeles has wrapped up. Completed in 1967, the 40-story office tower, designed by Harrison & Abramovitz and Albert C. Martin & Associates in the International style, became the first L.A. skyscraper to be named as a Historic-Cultural Monument (HCM) earlier this year by the city’s Cultural Heritage Commission following a unanimous 5–0 vote.

Hollywood-based developer Relevant Group has retooled its plans to revamp the historic Morrison Hotel as the centerpiece of mixed-use, high-rise complex. Relevant Group, under a proposal which was first unveiled in 2016, is seeking to convert the longtime SRO apartment building back into a hotel. The more than century-old building, combined with 15-story, 190-foot-tall expansion on to an adjoining property, would include approximately 444 guest rooms.

Angels Landing, a $2 billion hotel development proposed for the Bunker Hill neighborhood of downtown Los Angeles, will create thousands of new jobs and generate millions in annual tax revenues for L.A., according to new analysis. The report by New York City-based BJH Advisors comes as the project's environmental impact report (EIR) is being reviewed by L.A. City's land use and planning officials.

Architect Frank Gehry has unveiled renderings for a proposed expansion of The Colburn School in Downtown Los Angeles. The project would replace surface parking lots bounded by 2nd, Olive, and Hill Streets with a pair of concert halls. The larger of the two venues, planned at the southeast corner of 2nd and Olive, would be a glass-enclosed structure with seating for up to 1,100 attendees. The smaller hall, fronting 2nd and Hill, would have a boxy, metal exterior and seating for up to 700 people.

While the COVID-19 pandemic forces Americans to avoid each other and challenges the desirability of offices, museums and other shared institutions, the builders of a $1-billion project in downtown Los Angeles are betting that the city will revive and people will come together again in large numbers. Work on the Grand, a long-anticipated mixed-use complex designed by architect Frank Gehry has reached the halfway mark as construction carries on unobtrusively through the pandemic.

Mack Real Estate Development is seeking approvals to redevelop a surface parking lot at the southwest corner of the intersection with a 51-story residential tower. Plans call for 536 studio, one-, two-, and three-bedroom dwellings above 4,178 square feet of ground-floor commercial space. CallsonRTKL is designing the tower, which would rise to a sloping rooftop roughly 606 feet above ground level.

Real estate investor Silverstein Properties agreed to acquire downtown Los Angeles' U.S. Bank Tower, the second-tallest building in the city and the third-highest in California, from a unit of Singapore-based real estate investor and developer Overseas Union Enterprise Ltd.

South Park, the area of downtown near L.A. Live and the Convention Center, is home to some of the most ambitious projects in L.A. There are 996 multifamily units under construction and an additional 6,752 units proposed in the area, according to data from the Downtown Center Business Improvement District.

Architectural plans submitted earlier this month to the City of Los Angeles offer a first glimpse of a proposed hotel development in Downtown's South Park neighborhood. The project would replace a surface parking lot at the northwest corner of 11th Street and Grand Avenue. Plans call for the construction of a 13-story building featuring 160 guest rooms, a ground-floor restaurant, basement parking, a conference facility, and a rooftop pool and bar.

An Australian developer is pushing ahead with new plans for a $500-million skyscraper in downtown Los Angeles that would house both condominiums and a hotel. Crown Group has been planning to develop property it owns at Hill and 11th streets since 2018 but recently reworked its proposal to include a trendy hotel in a newly designed 43-story tower meant to evoke a California redwood tree.

Brookfield Properties has completed the first phase of its renovation of the California Market Center in Downtown Los Angeles, the company announced last week.

Markwood, an investment and development firm based in Beverly Hills, is bringing an adaptive reuse project into the mix at West Ninth and South Hill Streets in the Historic District. The firm is converting the historic parking garage, formerly known as the May Company Garage, into a modern office space.

Construction on new elements will ramp up in 2021, according to staffers with Gruen Associates, which is on the design team. If all goes as planned, both phases are scheduled to be complete in 2024.

Downtown LA’s revival was kicked off by the passage of the Adaptive Reuse Ordinance and the opening of Staples Center in 1999, but in many respects the DTLA we know today is a product of the 2010s.

"The plaza at City National 2 Cal is undergoing a major renovation, removing its trademark watercourt in favor of more green space and benches. New signage at 2 Cal Plaza reveals the new name of the space as The Yard."

The Riboli family, owners of the San Antonio Winery, has spent the past three years rehabilitating the property, which sits just north of Metro's Chinatown Station at 1231 N. Spring Street. The collection of eight buildings - ranging between three and five stories in height - comprises approximately 60,000 square feet of office, retail, and restaurant space with parking for approximately 30 vehicles.

Five years after breaking ground in Downtown Los Angeles, Greenland USA has put the finishing touches on a mixed-use development first envisioned during the Reagan administration.

In the last decade, major developments proliferated across Los Angeles, but no place boomed quite like downtown. The once 9-to-5 neighborhood saw billions in investment and emerged as a vibrant destination replete with residential projects, new restaurants, and cultural destinations.

The Ace Hotel Downtown Los Angeles, including the Theater at Ace Hotel, has sold for $117 million to an unnamed buyer. Parks Hotels & Resorts Inc., which had only recently taken ownership of the property, executed the agreement to sell. The price amounts to $643,000 per room for the 182-room hotel.

The Los Angeles City Council’s planning and land use management committe approved the project’s Sustainable Communities Environmental Assessment, which allows for a streamlined environmental review for projects that are in line with regional transportation plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions—mainly by creating dense housing near public transportation. The tower would sit directly over the entrance to Metro’s Pershing Square subway station at the northeast corner of Hill and Fourth, where the Historic Core and Bunker Hill meet.

The Freehand Hotel’s rooftop bar Broken Shaker and The Exchange all maintain a strong presence in Downtown Los Angeles. As of yesterday, the Sydell Group — Freehand’s parent company that also owns NoMad and The Line hotels — announced it sold Freehand Hotels and Broken Shaker to London-based hotelier Generator and Queensgate Investments for $400 million.

In a milestone for downtown’s Historic Core, an office building designed in the 1920s by two of L.A.'s most prominent architects has been restored for duty on a recovering stretch of Spring Street a few blocks from City Hall. The Art Deco-style tower opened in 1928 as the headquarters of the Title Insurance and Trust Co., one of the city’s biggest financial institutions in an era when Spring Street was hailed as the “Wall Street of the West."

Plans for what could become one of Downtown’s most unique-looking skyscrapers received unanimous approval today from the city’s planning commission. The 53-story hotel and condo tower would rise on a slim, L-shaped lot that wraps around the Pershing Square building, also owned by the tower’s developer, Jeffrey Fish of JMF Enterprises.

After years of work repurposing a 1920s-era building, the owners of a new Downtown hotel are preparing for its October opening. The building at Broadway and Eleventh Street will open as a Hoxton hotel, a chic British brand with locations in London, Paris, New York, and Portland.

In 2016, the Los Angeles Department of City Planning launched DTLA 2040 – a multi-year update of the Central City and Central City East Community Plans that determine land use and development rules for the Downtown area.  Though the final plan is still months away from publication, a draft document unveiled this week give a glimpse of what it will entail.

The Fashion District’s California Market Center is undergoing a $170 million, Gensler-designed renovation that’s aimed solidly at attracting tenants beyond the fashion industry….The upgrades officially kicked off in November. To passersby, the most obvious work might be the removal the two-story former bank building at the corner of Ninth and Main street.

An official project website provides a first glimpse at the more modest plan for Angels Landing, the proposed high-rise complex slated for the coveted Bunker Hill Y-1 parcel. The project, which would rise at the northwest corner of 4th and Hill Streets, is envisioned with two towers - standing 64 and 46 stories.

Los Angeles’s downtown was little more than a sleepy office district not too long ago, where tens of thousands of suburbanites would clear out by the end of the workday and scores of classic Beaux-Arts and Art Deco buildings sat vacant or underutilized....Today, cranes dot the skyline and construction routinely diverts traffic as Downtown Los Angeles — a neighborhood known as DTLA — undergoes the biggest development boom since the Roaring Twenties, when the area was then the center of the entertainment industry.

Architect Frank Gehry, billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad and civic leaders held a ceremonial groundbreaking on Monday for the Grand, a long-delayed massive development on Grand Avenue in downtown Los Angeles. Broad told attendees that the project stems from a vision of Grand Avenue becoming the arts, cultural and civic district for the region.

Choice is excited to announce that PNK Group Investments has begun construction on the Cambria Hotel Los Angeles - Spring Street in Downtown Los Angeles. Slated to open in 2020, the 13-story, 180-room hotel is the adaptive reuse of a Historic Core District building built in 1927 that was once the office for the Los Angeles Police Department Vice Squad.

The iconic Southern California Edison building, better known as The CalEdison, in downtown Los Angeles has been sold. New York-based GreenOak Real Estate has acquired Hermes Investment Management and the Lionstone Investment’s collective interest in the CalEdison in a deal reported at more than $140M.

After a unanimous City Council vote today, part of Times Mirror Square—the Downtown campus that housed the Los Angeles Times for more than eight decades—is a city landmark. The landmark status applies to the oldest part of Times Mirror Square: a 1935 building by Hoover Dam architect Gordon Kaufmann and a 1948 addition designed by Rowland Crawford. That will not pose threat to the site’s redevelopment.