The L.A. Live Convention Center hotel has already booked a full slate of conventions two years before it opens fulfilling its role of bringing action to the city’s starving convention business.
The project, part of Anschutz Entertainment Group’s $2.5 billion L.A. Live development, has booked 25 conventions one as far out as the year 2024. In total, the hotel project has advance bookings on more than 600,000 rooms, AEG said.
“Now downtown L.A. is able to provide what everyone wanted but didn’t have: a quality hotel right next to the Convention Center and surrounded by fun, upscale diversions,” said Michael Collins of the Los Angeles Convention and Tourism Bureau.
The 54-story hotel development, slated for completion in 2010, will house a JW Marriott hotel, a Ritz-Carlton hotel and 224 condominiums by Ritz-Carlton. The project will have 1,001 total rooms and 77,000 square feet of meeting space.
And there will be plenty for visitors to do when they aren’t wandering the halls of the convention center L.A. Live’s bars, restaurants and shops are already fully leased, said AEG Chief Executive Tim Leiweke.
The hotel recently scored two convention coups the annual meetings held by the American Society of Association Executives and the American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging.
“These huge events create great visibility for the city and show event planners that we have become a premier destination city for conventions,” said Karen Englund, the convention center hotel’s director of sales and marketing.
Currently, the hotel’s first event hosting is the American Society of Association Executives 2010 convention, scheduled for August of that year. That booking has resulted in 2,800 room reservations. The hotel expects to book other events prior to the executives conference.
Fashion Fun
Downtown Los Angeles’ Fashion District where you can buy anything from 100 yards of pink polka dot fabric to 100 pairs of rhinestone-studded jeans is still hot despite the ice cold real estate market.
That’s because vacancy rates remain low and there continues to be strong demand for wholesale and retail space, said Danny Soroudi of Maxxam Enterprises, a local real estate investment firm with an 800,000-square-foot downtown portfolio.
Earlier this year, the company opened a wholesale complex at 1025 Towne Ave. that is now more than 85 percent leased. The company is building the second phase of another development, called Crocker Fashion Plaza, which will open this summer.
“We’ve seen the more we build, the more demand there is,” said Soroudi, who added that in the past, the company never preleased its projects but now leases out about 25 percent of its new buildings before they are completed.
Soroudi said the company’s five buildings and 200,000 square feet in the district are fully occupied with ground-floor rents of roughly $6 per square foot per month. “The fashion district has been very strong for us,” he said.
Construction began on the company’s new ground up development at 1030-1144 Crocker St. last fall. The four-story building, which will include 18 ground-floor showrooms and three stories of office space, is adjacent to another of the firm’s Crocker Street developments.
British Invasion
Reality television mogul Nigel Lythgoe, who brought Britain’s “Pop Idol” television talent show to the United States as “American Idol,” is leading another British invasion of sorts. This week marks the second annual “Britweek,” a celebration of all things British in Los Angeles. Downtown will play host to two of the festival’s high profile events.
“The idea of Britweek is to raise awareness of the cultural and business relationships that tie Los Angeles and Southern California to the United Kingdom,” said Lythgoe, who launched Britweek last year.
Lythgoe, president of media company 19 Entertainment, said that he came up with the idea for a Los Angeles Britweek after visiting a similar event in Australia. “If they could have one, we certainly should,” he said.
This year, the event includes a concert series, film festival, art show and a fashion walk, taking place downtown and throughout Los Angeles from April 24 to May 7.
Downtown denizens who want in on the action have a few options: Duran Duran will be performing at the Nokia Theatre on May 4 and British composer Christoph von Dohn & #225;nyi will conduct the Philharmonia Orchestra of London at the Walt Disney Concert Hall on May 6 and 7.
Staff reporters Sharifah Chammas and Brett Sporich contributed to this column. Staff reporter Daniel Miller can be reached at
[email protected]
or (323) 549-5225, ext. 263.
