West
Developer Decides to Revise, Not Raze, L.A.'s Century Plaza Hotel
August 17, 2010
Although he'd planned to demolish it, developer Michael Rosenfeld has had a change of heart, deciding instead to transform with a top-to-bottom makeover the historic Hyatt Regency Century Plaza hotel in Los Angeles, the
Los Angeles Times reported last week.
Facing criticism from city preservationists, Rosenfeld has proposed spending $1.5 billion not only to remodel the hotel, but also to build two high-rise towers behind it.
Specifically, Rosenfeld wants to downsize the hotel from 726 guest rooms to 394, converting nearly half of the existing rooms into 63 luxury condominiums; reduce the size of the hotel's ballroom, which would still be the largest on the city's Westside; and construct two 46-story skyscrapers that would be connected to the hotel via its lobby, featuring up to 290 condos, 100,000 square feet of office space, and 94,000 square feet of restaurants and retail stores.
"This construction project is both an immediate and long-term investment in the future of our city," said Los Angeles Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa. "The Century Plaza hotel project will preserve the character of an iconic destination while creating a new and improved mixed-use development in the heart of the Westside."
A Space Age landmark in the Century City neighborhood of Los Angeles, the Century Plaza is considered both architecturally and culturally significant. Designed by the architect of the World Trade Center in New York, it was opened in 1966 and in the years since has hosted astronauts, presidents and movie stars.
Rosenfeld purchased the Century Plaza in 2008. Pending approval from city officials, work on his plans is scheduled to be complete by 2014.
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