Century Plaza Hotel Development Gets Start Date

By Gail Kalinoski, Contributing Editor

Nearly three years after the Los Angeles City Council signed off on plans to redevelop the iconic Century Plaza Hotel and build two 46-story luxury residential towers, the $2.5 billion project is set to begin in March when the historic hotel closes.

Michael Rosenfeld, CEO of Woodridge Capital Partners, who is leading the development plan, also announced the completion of $450 million in EB-5 funding for the project. The EB-5 funding was arranged through CMB Regional Centers.

“Mayor Eric Garcetti and his staff were instrumental in paving the way with their strong international outreach,” Rosenfeld said in a prepared statement.

The Century Plaza project, which should be completed in 2018, is expected to generate thousands of construction and permanent jobs and substantially increase tax and sales revenues for the city of Los Angeles.

Hyattt Hotel Corp., which currently operates the crescent-shaped, 19-story, 726-room property as the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza, will not be running the new hotel when it reopens in early 2018. A new operator had not been named. The hotel will be restored as a five-star facility with 394 guest rooms and suites and 63 residences. An open-air lobby will connect public plazas and fountains to a central two-acre garden surrounded by about 100,000 square feet of retail and restaurants on the site. Two 46-story towers, designed by Pei Cobb Freed, will feature 290 luxury residences.

After opposition from city officials, preservationists and residents, grew against the original plan in 2008 to knock down the hotel, New Century Associates L.L.C. revised the proposal to retain and restore it. The hotel, which opened in 1966, hosted many politicians, foreign dignitaries and celebrities and notable events like the Grammy Awards over the years. Every United States President since its opening had stayed there and it became known as the “Western White House” because President Ronald Reagan would stay there so often.

New Century Associates has since worked closely on the project with City Councilman Paul Koretz, the Los Angeles Conservancy, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, homeowners’ associations, businesses and labor organizations. The project received unanimous support of the City Council in January 2013, when it accepted the Environmental Impact Report and approved a 15-year development agreement for the six-acre site.

Rosenfeld, founder and CEO of Woodridge Capital Partners, a Los Angeles-based real estate investment and development company, formed Next Century Associates to develop the mixed-use project. Woodridge owns hotel, resort, residential and commercial properties throughout the U.S. The company, along with Oaktree Capital Management L.P., recently sold the Fairmont San Francisco Hotel for $450 million to Mirae Asset Global Investments. The two firms still own the Intercontinental Mark Hopkins Hotel and Stanford Court Hotel, both in San Francisco, among other holdings.