Downtown hotel morphs from Holiday Inn to Luxe City

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The humble downtown Los Angeles Holiday Inn has capitalized on its location across the street from Staples Center and the L.A. Live entertainment complex, and now will undergo a $10-million renovation and a name change.

When the work is completed this spring, the 195-room hotel will be renamed the Luxe City Center Hotel, part of an upscale, Los Angeles-based hotel chain, Luxe Hotel officials said today. The hotel will remain open during the renovation work.

With a new name and face lift, the four-star Luxe City Center Hotel is expected to fit better among the glitzy new restaurants, clubs, museums and movie theaters that now border Staples Center and the Los Angeles Convention Center, said Jane Coloccia, a spokeswoman for Luxe Hotels.

“It is going to be very design-driven and very stylish,” she added.

Luxe Hotels operates the upscale, boutique-style Luxe Sunset Boulevard Hotel in Bel Air and the Luxe Rodeo Drive Hotel in Beverly Hills, among nearly 200 other hotels worldwide.

The renovation project that will begin in a week or so comes at a time when the nation’s hotel industry is suffering the worst economic downturn in nearly two decades. More than 300 hotels throughout California have been foreclosed on or are in default on their loans because of a steep decline in demand.

But at the same time, downtown Los Angeles is undergoing a renovation, with the recent opening of the 14-screen Regal Cinema theater next to L.A. Live and the opening in February of a 1,001-room Ritz-Carlton and JW Marriott hotel complex, within walking distance of Staples Center.

“The addition of the Luxe in close proximity adds another layer of vibrancy to the L.A. Live Center,” said Carol Martinez, a spokeswoman for L.A. Inc., the Los Angeles Convention and Visitors Bureau. She said the project will also add dozens of much-needed construction jobs.

The Holiday Inn is a three-star hotel, with 195 rooms, an outdoor swimming pool, a fitness center, a conference room and a cramped lobby, facing Figueroa Street. After the renovation, the Luxe City Center Hotel will offer about the same number of rooms but several will be converted to luxury suites, Coloccia said.

The hotel will remain under the ownership of Emerik Hotel, a Los Angeles-based developer of commercial and industrial real estate.

-- Hugo Martin