The Los Angeles Convention Center is at a crossroads. City officials held a big, flashy design redesign competition that led to the selection of one victorious design, but that winning design might be thrown out altogether in favor of an entirely different, and larger, mixed-use development created by a private developer. Whichever version of the convention center moves forward, though, it's intended to have some company in the form of a hotel with about 1,000 rooms spread across two towers, plus "ground-level retail space, parking, sky lobbies and amenities for hotel guests." There is already a developer selected for the project, but weirdly they haven't been named yet.
The hotel would rise on "three parcels bounded by Figueroa Street, Pico Boulevard, and Flower Street," according to a memo from the Los Angeles City Council's Economic Development Committee. The space is only occupied by a parking lot right now, says Urbanize LA, and the city's been eager to add more hotel stock in the area around LA Live.
The mysterious developer has asked the city for tax breaks on the project like the ones given to the nearby Metropolis and Wilshire Grand developments. (The letter actually says that the developer "has indicated that the proposed hotel requires financial assistance to construct this project.") So far, the city's gotten $150,000 from the mystery developer to fund an "independent economic analysis" of the project. Back in 2012, the city put out a request for bids from developers who could get a classy hotel (four-star or boutique) on the site, but nothing ever came of it despite two interested bidders.
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