CENTURY CITY, CA-The owners of the Century Plaza will preserve the hotel while also developing residential, office, retail and public open space on the 5.75-acre property under a new plan that was unveiled recently. Owner Next Century Associates LLC's new plan includes

394 hotel rooms and 63 luxury condominiums in the preserved hotel building; a new ballroom that will still be the largest on the Westside of Los Angeles; two 46-story buildings to the west of the existing hotel that will comprise up to 290 luxury condominiums, 94,000 square feet of restaurant and retail space, and up to 100,000 square feet of office space. The plan also features

landscaped public plazas with fountains, water features, public art and outdoor cafes, plus a planned future Metro stop at the corner of Avenue of the Stars and Constellation Boulevard.

The new design is by architect Henry N. Cobb of Pei Cobb Freed & Partners and "establishes the 1966 hotel as the focal point of the property," according to Next Century, which has

also retained Gensler as executive architect and Marmol Radziner and Associates as its preservation architect. Rios Clementi Hale Studios is the landscape architect for the project.

The existing 726-room hotel has been a gathering place for celebrities, politicians and world dignitaries. It 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.

Earlier this year, at the behest of Los Angeles City Councilmember Paul Koretz, the Los Angeles Conservancy, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and Next Century Associates worked collaboratively and reached an agreement on a plan that would preserve the hotel and would include new development on the property. Next Century Associates LLC is an affiliate of Woodridge Capital Partners LLC, a real estate investment company with hotel, residential and commercial assets throughout the US.