In 2009, the National Trust listed the hotel as one of America's 11 most endangered historic places. Next Century and the preservation groups now say that they have worked collaboratively to come up with a proposal that would preserve the hotel while allowing for new development on the hotel site at 2025 Avenue of the Stars.

The plan unveiled in 2008 called for a 240-room hotel and 163 hotel residences, 130 luxury condos, 100,000 square feet of office space and 106,000 square feet of retail shops and restaurants, a spa and a fitness center. Cost of the new plan has yet to be determined, pending final planning and approvals.

The revised development project will undergo the customary city review and approval process, including a full environmental impact report (EIR) which will be submitted later this year. It will also be reviewed by the Cultural Heritage Commission for eligibility as a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument. Any new development "will have to be consistent with the Century City North Specific Plan," according to Los Angeles City Council member Paul Koretz. Michael Rosenfeld, executive manager of Next Century Associates, notes that the preservation of the hotel "could only be achieved if sufficient additional development was permitted on the site."

Completed in 1966, the Century Plaza Hotel was built as the centerpiece of Century City, a "city within a city," that was conceived 50 years ago as a progressive approach to urban planning. Century City rose on the former back lot of 20th Century-Fox Studios. The hotel was designed by architect and engineer Minoru Yamasaki, who was also the architect of Century City's Theme Towers and New York's World Trade Center towers.