Last summer, word broke that the Jewelry District's fabulous but empty Foreman & Clark building at Seventh Street and Hill would be renovated as a mixed-user. But now it seems like it might instead add to the ever-growing list of hotels heading for Downtown. A one-sentence note in a piece in The Hollywood Reporter says that "At press time, the 1929 Foreman & Clark building at Hill and Seventh Streets, a former department store turned jewelry mart that closed in April, is being renovated to transform into the first Hyde Hotel from SBE." That's the SBE that runs trendy party hotels SLS and the Redbury and douchey clubs like Greystone Manor and the famously-exclusive-in-the-early-aughts Hyde.
It's not clear how many hotel rooms there would be or if condos would be part of the project too. The Hyde brand is set to open two hotels in Florida (Miami and Hollywood Beach) in 2016. The website calls them the Hyde Hotels & Residences and says they're "redefining what it means to live, play and travel for design, tech and culture pioneers." Ok!
Broker/blogger Brigham Yen says that previous rumors of a hotel at the site had involved New York's Gansevoort Hotel, but those reportedly fell through.
The 1929 Foreman & Clark building was designed by Curlett & Beelman Architects, whose other works include the Park Plaza Hotel in Westlake (which is being redeveloped by the owners of the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel). Floors two through four of the F&C building were once home to the flagship store for men's clothiers Foreman & Clark.
If this Hyde Hotel materializes, it will have lots of company. A block away, near Seventh and Olive, the former Bank of Italy building, a 12-story building dating back to the 1920s, is poised to become a super-cool hotel. At Eighth and Olive, the enormous Commercial Exchange building is being converted into Freehand, a hip, stylish take on the hostel from the The Line Hotel's Sydell Group.
· Hollywood's New Hotel Boom in N.Y. and L.A.: "Upscale, Not Uppity" [THR]
· Downtown's 1929 Foreman & Clark Building Going Mixed-Use [Curbed LA]