Downtown Los Angeles hotel will have lobby on 70th floor

With work set to begin soon on a $1-billion luxury hotel in downtown Los Angeles, developer Korean Air revealed some details about the tower that is expected to dramatically alter the city’s skyline.

The skyscraper will be the second-tallest structure in Southern California at 70 stories, only slightly shorter than the US Bank Tower office building, said Yang Ho Cho, chairman of Korean Air.

The design is still a work in progress, but guests are expected to be whisked by high-speed elevators to the lobby on the 70th floor, where they will check in. The top floor will also have a restaurant, bar and infinity swimming pool.

Korean Air and Los Angeles architect A.C. Martin Partners Inc. have yet to settle on a shape for the building at Wilshire Boulevard and Figueroa Street or pick an operator for the four-star hotel. It will, though, be stacked starting with shops, restaurants and ballrooms on the lowest seven floors.

Next will be 20 stories — about 400,000 square feet — of offices for rent. The floors above will house 900 hotel rooms.

The tower will be swathed in photovoltaic lights that will be intense on the lower floors, lighter in the middle and intense again on top. Advertising will be included.

“It’s about art with built-in messages,” said Christopher Martin, chief executive of A.C. Martin.

Korean Air is selling the contents of the former Wilshire Grand hotel, which occupies the site now. Demolition of the hotel built in the 1950s is set to begin this summer. The new building will open in January 2017, Cho said.

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