Dive Brief:

• Developer Lightstone Group has released new details of the latest high-rise development planned for Los Angeles’ South Park entertainment district, according to the Architect’s Newspaper.
• Fig + Pico, taking up slightly more than 1 acre across the street from the Los Angeles Convention Center, will feature two mixed-use hotel towers. Renderings from design firms Gensler and Yabu Pushelberg show that the complex will also include retail, meeting areas and parking.
• If the Los Angeles Department of City and Planning approves the project, construction could begin as early as late 2017, with completion scheduled for 2022.

Dive Insight:

Developers have said the downtown area needs hotel rooms and that demand will only rise after a planned enlargement of the convention center is completed.

According to a 2017 outlook report from JLL, hotel occupancy rates in much of the country are stable, but there was only a 1.5% increase in development in the third quarter of 2016. The exception, however, is in large metros like Los Angeles, where development is expected to exceed that pace. 

Los Angeles has seen a steady stream of high-rise development in the last few years, and, in response, activists have drummed up support for a March referendum on the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative that could deliver a two-year ban on high-density projects that require rezoning.

In advance of the vote, developers are trying to quickly push through their rezoning paperwork. For example, in late December, an American subsidiary of Chinese developer Sheng-Long Group proposed three mixed-use residential towers in downtown Los Angeles across the street from entertainment venue L.A. Live. The $1 billion Olympia complex would provide more than 1,350 residential units, restaurants, stores and community amenities.