From Bloomberg
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-05/where-to-eat-sleep-and-shop-in-downtown-la
"The emergence of Downtown Los Angeles, dubbed DTLA, is no news flash: The area has been on the rise since the late 1990s. But that was the start of a long uphill climb. By 2009, it had already undergone the transition from bleak badlands to vibrant cultural mecca, thanks to early pioneers like the L.A. Live entertainment complex and the Standard Hotel. Since then, a slew of new hotels, restaurants, and museums have joined, and the neighborhood is showing no sign of slowing down.
'I don’t think it would be inaccurate to say that 15 years ago, it was an urban wasteland,” said real estate developer Tom Gilmore, referring to DTLA. An architect by trade, Gilmore almost single-handedly spearheaded the inner city’s rejuvenation. He first took note of DTLA’s architectural stock in the early ’90s: The inner city was a ghost town with potential, brimming with abandoned beaux arts and art deco buildings.'
Gilmore’s strategy? To purchase and convert four old buildings into loft apartments, then add bars and restaurants. The timing couldn’t have been better. Simultaneously, Staples swooped in to build its 21,000-seat arena, and Lillian Disney (Walt’s wife) had lined up Frank Gehry to design a metallic curved concert hall—venues that were sure to draw thousands of visitors.
Those three projects and the Broad Museum have been cornerstones to a $20 billion investment in DTLA—with cash coming not just from Gilmore, but from a handful of forward-looking hoteliers, foreign companies, the city of Los Angeles, and several private sources.
In the past 15 years, more than 3,500 hotel rooms have been added within the DTLA area, with several notable newcomers arriving in 2017, such as the 889-room
InterContinental (now the tallest building on the West Coast, at 73 stories) and the offbeat, $30 million
Hotel Figueroa, a redo of a 1926 icon.
The neighborhood’s highest-profile opening yet, the
NoMad, is coming this month to the historic Giannini Place building. After standing empty for 17 years, it’ll now have 241 Italian-inspired rooms designed by Jacques Garcia, a library, a rooftop pool, and a restaurant by Daniel Humm and Will Guidara (of New York City’s
Eleven Madison Park). A Soho House is reportedly on its way, too, this summer.
To Gilmore, these are the brightest signs yet of the neighborhood’s arrival. “When a tastemaker brand like the NoMad comes in, you realize that whole block is going to change because of them, and you know that the bump from that is going to be significant,” he said.
Balancing out the big names is
Row DTLA, a 30-acre complex of historic buildings that has been overhauled into a creative district: It includes a smart collection of independent retailers, businesses, and restaurants, and draws up-and-coming talent by offering short -to medium-term pop-up leases. That’s what allowed French independent menswear label
Bonaparte 13 to open its first permanent store in the U.S. here, after testing the waters.
'They’re carefully curating the stores that come in here with a strong bias toward independent retailers,' said Andy Griffith of
A+R, a stalwart furniture company in L.A. that recently opened at Row DTLA. Joining him in the neighborhood are other cult brands that have found standalone spaces. Locally born clothing brand
3.1 Phillip Lim recently opened a concept store in the Arts District, and Korean eyewear brand
Gentle Monster opened its second U.S. store wedged between the historic Orpheum and Tower theaters.
For all its progress, DTLA is far from finished. Gilmore, for one, says the area is only halfway there. There are major projects still under way: the renovation of Pershing Square and the addition of the
Regional Connector Rail, part of a $1.7 billion high-speed rail project that will link a trio of lines (it’s expected to be completed in 2021). "
