Take a first look at Eighty Cool Rooms, the so-called "European Style Luxury Boutique Hotel," that intends to set up shop down the street from the Hollywood/Western subway station.  The aptly-named development would consist of 80 guest rooms and 867 square feet of restaurant space, rising in a six-story structure designed by Westwood-based Atelier V Architecture.  Guest amenities would include an outdoor deck on the low-rise building's second level, offering both a fire pit and a swimming pool.  The hotel would occupy the address of 5600 Hollywood Boulevard, currently a vacant lot.

The project exemplifies one of the many contradictions in Los Angeles' zoning code, a 600+ page document which has developed ad hoc over nearly seven decades.  Eighty Cool Rooms would sit within walking distance of the Metro Red Line, where the city has endeavored to promote higher density development.  However, the project site would also lie within the Vermont/Western specific plan, which explicitly restricts all new hotels to lower densities.  These mixed-messages give the hotel project a somewhat unclear path forward, since a building with a less-than-ideal room count would not make financial sense for the developer.  Expect a "long drawn out process," ahead of us, with construction not expected to begin until at least mid-2016.








The proposed hotel--located at the southwest corner of Hollywood Boulevard and St. Andrews Place--also exemplifies the recent uptick in investment near Hollywood/Western Station.  Meta Housing Corporation finished a mixed-use senior housing complex across the street in 2012.  One block east of Eighty Cool Rooms, Beverly Hills-based Astani Enterprises plans to construct a seven-story residential-retail development adjacent to the historic Mayer Building.