The Los Angeles City Planning Commission has voted to approve Olympia, a proposed high-rise complex that would create condos and a new hotel just north of L.A. Live and the Convention Center, moving the project on to the City Council's Planning and Land Use Committee for consideration.

The three-tower development, slated for a more than three-acre site at 1001 W. Olympic Boulevard, would feature up to 1,000 hotel rooms and up to 879 residential units.  A four-story podium would span across the project site, which combined with five subterranean levels, would contain 2,131 parking spaces and approximately 40,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space.

SOM and P-A-T-T-E-R-N-S are designing Olympia, which would feature buildings of 65, 53, and 43 stories - the tallest of which would stand 853 feet in height.  Renderings show a series of outdoor amenity decks, including a large space atop the four-story podium, and terraces carved into the sides of the towers.

The project's developer, City Century, also hopes to wrap much of the podium with digital signage - similar to those now seen at the neighboring L.A. Live complex.  Commissioners pushed for digital signage to be disallowed along the western side of the property, which abuts the Harbor Freeway.

Additionally, Commissioners placed a condition on the project which disallows operable balconies facing to the west, citing concerns over air quality due to the freeway.  

According to the environmental studies conducted for the project, construction is anticipated to occur in a single phase over a period of 48 months.  Completion could occur as soon as 2023.

City Century, an American affiliate of the Chinese developer Shenglong Group, is following in the footsteps of other Chinese firms that have built mixed-use projects incorporating both a hotel and condos in the Downtown area, including Oceanwide Real Estate Group and Greenland USA.  Another developer - Shenzhen Hazens - has received approvals to construct a hotel and condo development at the current site of the Luxe Hotel at 1020 S. Figueroa Street.

City Century's other Los Angeles area projects include a pair of residential towers on Grand Avenue and a proposed mixed-use complex in Koreatown.

The Commission also voted earlier to approve a proposed mixed-use project across the street from Exposition Park known as "The Fig." The project would replace 32 existing apartments and a surface parking lot with a seven-story complex featuring a hotel, mixed-income housing, and street-level retail space.