Pacifica Hotels, the Irvine hospitality arm of Santa Barbara real estate developer Invest West Financial Corp., has purchased the Ritz-Milner Hotel in downtown Los Angeles from Milner Hotels Inc. for an undisclosed amount.

The buyer has not yet decided when remodeling will begin at the 1920s property located at South Flower Street near Figueroa Boulevard.

According to hotel consultant Alan Reay of Atlas Hospitality Group in Irvine, Pacifica will be converting the building into a Wayfarer property – a brand concept of urban hostels offering both hotel-style and dorm-style rooms with common areas. There is another Wayfarer property in Santa Barbara.

“It’s a new concept for Pacifica [and] I think they see tremendous opportunities,” Reay said. “We are finding a tremendous amount of interest in downtown L.A. among our hotel investors because of the expansion of the Los Angeles Convention Center and other aspects of redevelopment going into downtown.”

Pacifica owns other hotels in the Los Angeles area including four coastal properties near Marina Del Rey. It sold a Hilton Garden Inn there in September to Florida-based REIT Chatham Lodging Trust for about $45 million.