L.A. Live Gains More Hotels

Another pair of high-rise hotels will be built across the street from L.A. Live, adjacent to the already completed J.W. Marriott and Ritz Carlton towers in downtown Los Angeles, AEG announced April 19.

The 22-story, 377-room tower will house two hotels: Courtyard and Residence Inns by Marriott, to be built on an “entitled” site to be purchased by the developers from AEG, according to a statement from AEG Worldwide.

The development team is composed of Williams/Dame and Associates, the firm behind three new South Park neighborhood residential towers, Seattle investment firm American Life, Nomad Ventures and Regional Center Management Los Angeles. Equity funding will come from the EB-5 Investor Green Card Program.

The announcement should bolster AEG’s bid to construct an NFL football stadium and expanded convention center with the addition of the hotel rooms and hospitality businesses that necessarily come with a project of its size. And timing is everything – a city council committee met for the first time to discuss AEG’s stadium proposal just the day before the hotel project was announced.

Construction on the 300,000 square-foot building is expected to begin in March 2012, and be ready to open two years later.

“This is one of the most important announcements in the continuing revitalization of downtown Los Angeles and the Convention Center District,” said AEG President/CEO Tim Leiweke in a statement.

“From AEG’s standpoint, the highest priority for Los Angeles has to be creating more hotels in and around our Convention Center. If we can fix our Convention Center and, in turn, find other hotels like this, we can single-handedly put tens of thousands back to work and change the dynamics of our city forever.”