The former Marriott hotel in downtown Los Angeles will be reflagged as a Hyatt Regency, marking Hyatt’s return to the downtown area after an eight-year absence.
The 491-room hotel, which was built in 1983, will get $20 million in renovations prior to its official reflagging in May.
China-based Shenzhen New World Group, which acquired the property out of foreclosure in 2010, pulled Marriott’s flag last August and has since called the property the L.A. Hotel Downtown.
The property was one of a handful of large hotels built in downtown’s Bunker Hill area in the 1970s and 1980s after that area was largely redeveloped as Los Angeles’ business center, starting in the 1960s.
Los Angeles’ largest hotel, the 1,354-room Westin Bonaventure, opened a block from the Hyatt Regency site in 1976. The Sheraton Los Angeles Downtown, which was a Hyatt Regency until a conversion in 2005, was built in 1973.
The burgeoning downtown area largely has been the stronghold of Marriott International. A dual-branded JW Marriott/Ritz-Carlton hotel opened a few blocks south of Bunker Hill at the massive L.A. Live entertainment district in 2010, while a dual-branded Courtyard by Marriott/Residence Inn is slated to open across the street from that site next year.
Los Angeles’ only other Hyatt Regency is the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza in the city’s Westside region. That 726-room hotel, which was built in 1966 and designed by World Trade Center architect Minoru Yamasaki, will be redeveloped into a building with 394 hotel rooms and 63 luxury condominiums, with construction set to start next year.
There is also a 522-room Hyatt Regency in Long Beach.
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