^ I love the way old bldgs in dtla are being brought back to life!
Some of the rooms in the fig hotel may now be nicer than what's found in the biltmore hotel, which is also being slowly renovated on the inside. Some of that hotel's bathrooms....believe it or not....contain the type of industrial looking urinals often used in public restrooms! No wonder the biltmore's rating on yelp is quite low, far below what a supposedly upper tier hotel should receive.
I recall some of the hotel rms in the old wilshire grand hotel before it was torn down appeared to still have furnishings straight from the 1950s, back when it was the hilton statler hotel. A total renovation of that bldg must never have been carried out in over 50 yrs, perhaps due to that hotel's revenues ever being high enough to justify the expense? whatever the reason, yikes!
I think of visitors to LA through the yrs staying in those rms, or more recently staying in the tired old rms of the biltmore hotel, then dropping by the macys plaza bldg before its conversion into the Bloc. the sights that ppl would find in such locations wouldn't be exactly the best greeting card for out of town guests visiting dtla.
All these changes & improvements aren't arriving a day too soon!
Quote:
Developer Capital Foresight Opens Max Lofts, Its Second Neighborhood Project
ladowntownnews.com, Gary Leonard
Last summer, the Bel Air-based developer Capital Foresight opened the 77-apartment Garment Lofts in a 1926 building at 217 E. Eighth St. It was a rare residential play in the Fashion District, a community known as a hub for daytime workers, but that has lagged behind other Downtown districts on the residential front.
Now Capital Foresight has doubled down on the district. On July 1, move-ins began at the 96-unit Max Lofts. The project transformed a 1925 Art Deco structure previously known as the Maxfield Building. The 14-story edifice at 819 S. Santee St. is just south of the Garment Lofts.
Work on the Maxfield Building started in early 2013, according to Richard Moody, director of construction at Capital Foresight. PSL Architects handled designs for a project where the work includes new walls and the partitioning of the individual units, as some floor plans had been completely open in the past.
“We gutted the building completely, down to the concrete,” Moody said. “It was just a shell. We kept all of the original window frames and duplicated the front doors to the units.”
Leasing began in June, and according to building general manager Jorge Rios of Cannon Management, 22 units were occupied by mid-July. He noted that, similar to many other Downtown buildings, rents rise on higher floors. He also said that units on the west side of the building, which offer views of the Downtown skyline, are generally $50-$100 more than those on the east side of the project.
Although the Fashion District lacks the residential critical mass that has developed in some other Downtown neighborhoods, new businesses that appeal to loft dwellers are creeping in. That includes Coffee Colab, at 305 E. Eighth St., and Pop Obscure Records, which sells vinyl albums, at 735 S. Los Angeles St. Smith said that the neighborhood is becoming more active, particularly on streets east of Broadway, and that the Max Lofts continues that evolution.
ladowntownnews.com, Gary Leonard
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