NELA Homes, a Los Angeles-based developer, has received approval from the Los Angeles City Council for a mid-rise hotel in Hollywood.
NELA, located in the eastside neighborhood of Highland Park, proposed the hotel at the end of 2020. In the interim, the firm obtained a zoning change from the City Planning Commission, which was approved before this week’s City Council vote, Urbanize LA reported.
The site is located at 6445 West Sunset Boulevard, near the intersection of Sunset and Cahuenga, in a neighborhood where Relevant Group has developed four independently branded hotels.
NELA’s 13-story, 175-room hotel will replace an existing commercial building. The project will include 11,400 SF of commercial space, including a rooftop restaurant and a 72-car garage.
Construction is expected to take nearly two years. The 173-foot-tall hotel will be designed by Archeon Group.
The project was delayed by opposition from a union-affiliated group called SAFER, an affiliate of Laborers International Union of North America Local 270. The group argued that the hotel’s construction could lead to formaldehyde exposure, according to Urbanize LA’s report.
In January, Townscape Partners, a developer that demolished a midcentury bank in Hollywood to make way for a Frank Gehry-designed apartment building, has put the 2.5-acre property up for sale, Urbanize LA reported.
The West Hollywood company listed the entitled site for the controversial project at 8150 Sunset Boulevard. An asking price was not disclosed.
The now-vacant lot at Sunset and Crescent Heights Boulevard was previously occupied by Lytton Savings Bank, which opened in 1960 after the demolitions of the historic hotel Garden of Allah.
The bank’s controversial demolition in 2021 followed a battle of several years by preservationists trying to save the building. Architects say the bank building couldn’t be moved because the bank was too wide for Sunset Boulevard.
Townscape Partners, which took down the historic building, had won approvals in 2016 for a pair of 178-foot-tall high rises with 229 apartments and 65K SF of shops and restaurants. Earlier plans, which set off a three-year battle, called for a taller building.
Gehry, a world-renown architect most famous for the Sydney Opera House and founder of Gehry Partners in Los Angeles, currently is designing the Ocean Avenue project in Santa Monica and a redevelopment of the Los Angeles River channel.