Prepare to be blinded by the light—the light of 700 feet of glowing LEDs, that is. The super-sized Times Square-like screen will dominate the façade of a new development in the works for DTLA, also set to feature 504 condos, a Park Hyatt hotel and 166,000 square feet of shopping mall space, the Wall Street Journal reports.
The giant structure will be known as Oceanwide Plaza and marks the first U.S. project for Chinese conglomerate Oceanwide. Estimates have them dropping at least a billion dollars to complete the building. While that might seem like a lot, it’s just a fraction of the billions the company has invested in real estate across the U.S. this year alone. Our Oceanwide Plaza will be the first, but similar developments may follow in New York, San Francisco and Hawaii.
Los Angeles can seemingly never have enough hotels, with new ones springing up all the time—but until now, the luxurious Park Hyatt chain has never had a local lodging. Even if you’ve never stayed in one of the brand’s swanky suites, you might remember the Tokyo Park Hyatt from its prominent feature in Lost in Translation. With the flash of L.A. Live immediately across the street and rebirth of Downtown in general, they finally decided it was time to enter the market.
"A decade ago, Downtown L.A. probably wouldn’t have fit the bill," a senior V.P. at Park Hyatt told the Journal. "Today it absolutely does."
Obviously, a development this large won’t be built in a day. The plan now is for a grand opening in early 2019.
The real estate agents leasing the commercial space in the plaza have already created this crazy "fly through" video. Watch it to get a sense of the giant scale and elaborate design of the plaza.
What do you think of Oceanwide's ambitious fist project? Let us know in the comments section below.
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