AEG Plans Hotel in Downtown L.A. Ahead of Convention Center Expansion
The sports and entertainment giant’s plans — its third attempt to build a hotel on the site — include a 334-key hotel, plus 365 residential units and entertainment spaces
By Nick Trombola November 6, 2025 1:30 pm
reprints
The third time might be the charm for global sports and entertainment firm AEG’s vacant lot in Downtown Los Angeles.
AEG filed plans with L.A. City Planning to create a 49-story, mixed-use tower at 917 West Olympic Boulevard, currently a parking lot. The project plans call for 365 residential units on the top floors of the building, along with a 334-key hotel, nearly 113,000 square feet of experiential entertainment spaces, a restaurant and a ballroom.
The project is AEG’s third attempt to build something on the lot, across the street from AEG’s 5.6 million-square-foot L.A. Live entertainment district, according to Urbanize, which first reported the news. The company initially planned a 21-story tower on the property in the early 2010s, partnering with Williams & Dame Development to build a 450-key, Renaissance-branded hotel. AEG scrapped that plan just a few years later, proposing instead a $500 million, 38-story expansion to the Marriott hotel complex at L.A. Live.
That plan called for an additional 775 rooms to the Marriott, which would have created the second-largest hotel in California in the process, yet it also never saw the light of day.
To move forward with its current plans, AEG will need to secure hotel and alcohol sales permits for the site, along with some changes to the Los Angeles Sports and Entertainment District Specific Plan, which oversees L.A. Live and the nearby Crypto.com Arena and L.A. Convention Center. Representatives for AEG did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Regarding the latter, AEG’s new plans are auspiciously timed. The L.A. City Council in September voted to finally approve its convention center expansion project, a $3 billion development that calls for an additional 400,000 square feet of convention space by the end of the decade. The city is aiming to complete the first phase of the project by March 2028, just ahead of the 2028 Summer Olympics.
Nick Trombola can be reached at ntrombola@commercialobserver.com.
