Boutique hotel opens near Miracle Mile in Los Angeles
With the hospitality industry showing signs of recovery, a new boutique hotel has opened on Wilshire Boulevard near the Miracle Mile district in Los Angeles.
A medical office building completed in 1951 was heavily renovated to create the 74-room Hotel Wilshire, which developers hope will appeal to business and leisure travelers visiting Beverly Hills, Hollywood and other nearby neighborhoods.
The hotel at 6317 Wilshire Blvd. was developed by OSM Investment Co., which also owns the Elan Hotel on Beverly Boulevard.
“We perceived an opportunity to do a more upscale boutique hotel that had a higher level of service and amenities” such as a restaurant and bar, said Michael Orwitz, a principal at OSM. Chef Eric Greenspan, who has been executive chef at the Foundry on Melrose, operates the restaurant called the Roof on Wilshire.
The design by Killefer Flammang Architects also put a swimming pool on top of the six-story building, which required structural upgrades to support the pool, Orwitz said.
Hotel Wilshire is managed by Greystone Hotels. Rooms start at about $200 a night.
L.A. high-rise is bought outright
A downtown Los Angeles high-rise office building known as Pacific Financial Center has been acquired by local investor Walter J. Conn for $50 million.
Conn, who is chairman of real estate brokerage Charles Dunn Co., bought controlling interest of the 17-story tower at 800 W. 6th St. from Equity One Inc. Conn had been a co-owner of the building with the Florida-based real estate investment trust.
“My partner in the building wanted to sell their interest,” Conn said. After an intricate loan assumption process, Conn is the full owner. It was the third-largest acquisition this year downtown, according to Charles Dunn, which is a tenant in the tower.
The building, designed by well-known architect William Pereira and completed in 1973, is undergoing a $5-million renovation, Conn said. A ground-floor retail space formerly occupied by a bank is to become a steak and tapas eatery called Leka Restaurant and Lounge by the end of the year.
Equity One decided to sell its half-interest in the property in July, and Conn went along with his partner’s wishes to place it on the market. By mid-July there were 11 offers, he said, most of them from foreign investors.
Conn decided to exercise his first right of refusal at that point to buy the partner’s interest.
Watson Land leases Carson property to logistics firm
Watson Land Co. has leased a 300,000-square-foot industrial property in Carson to AZ West, a division of logistics firm AZ Container Freight Station.
The lease is one of the largest in the South Bay this year, Watson Land said. The six-year agreement for the property at 2220 E. Carson St. is valued at $12.5 million.
The move doubles AZ’s warehouse space in the area around the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to more than 500,000 square feet in two buildings. The company is a port logistics specialist handling bonded and non-bonded distribution.
Toyota tentatively agrees to port deal
Toyota Motor Corp. would remain at the nation’s second-largest seaport for 20 years under a lease deal tentatively approved by Long Beach harbor officials.
The Japanese automaker imports as many as 300,000 cars a year through its Southern California port facility.
A committee of the Long Beach Board of Harbor Commissioners voted last week to approve a $240-million lease with the automaker, the Associated Press reported. The full board is expected to approve it next month.
The lease would allow Long Beach to remain a major Toyota hub. It would require Toyota to take steps to reduce pollution from its port activities and to use energy-efficient designs for new buildings.
