Eight-story Selma Wilcox hotel in Hollywood approved by City Council

The Los Angeles City Council approved plans today to build an eight-story hotel at Selma and Wilcox avenues in Hollywood, and denied appeals lodged by four groups against project.

The developers requested a number of approvals from the city, including permission to build taller than what the site would normally allow. In a unanimous vote, the council granted all of those requests.

Selma Wilcox Hotel has been referred to as the second phase of the Dream Hotel, the 10-story hotel that opened next door in 2017. The new hotel will be developed by the same company, Relevant Group, but Selma Wilcox representatives had said that it was unlikely it would also be Dream branded.

Appeals came from community group United Neighborhoods for Los Angeles; Unite Here Local 11; the Sunset Landmark Investments, which was represented by a lawyer from The Silverstein Law Firm; and the Southwest Regional Council of Carpenters.

Opponents asserted that this development is the latest phase in a multi-stage attempt to build one giant entertainment district in the area. Detractors also accused the city of giving “piecemeal” permit and approvals to the project, breaking it up into pieces to mask the real impacts it would have on the neighborhood once completed.

The intersection of Selma and Wilcox has seen the opening of the Dream and the French-based Mama Shelter hotels in the last two years. An under construction Thompson Hotel is slated to rise two doors south of the Mama Shelter on Wilcox. About a half-block to the north, on Wilcox near Hollywood Boulevard, the 134-room Whisky Hotel is in the works.

The groups also raised concerns about whether the city had properly studied effects that the level of noise generated by the project and the amount of alcohol it would bring would have on residents.

David Wright of the Silverstein Law Firm referred to the project as the latest in a slew of “noisy, nuisance-making rooftop party hotels.”

At the request of Councilmember Mitch O’Farrell, in whose district the project is located, planning staffer May Sirinopwongsagon explained why planning staff was in favor of denying the appeals.

Sirinopwongsagon said that while the project was reviewed from two separate “baselines,” doing so is legal under the state’s environmental law, and that in both scenarios, planning staffers found that the project’s impacts could be mitigated. Those mitigation measures, including a requirement that the rooftop bar and lounge be enclosed to mute noise, were included as conditions of the city’s approval.