A hotel is reopening where The Standard shuttered in downtown Los Angeles in a sign of recovery for the hospitality industry from the devastating impact of the pandemic.
The Delphi is expected to open starting April 1 at 550 S. Flower St. in the former location of The Standard hotel, a trendy hospitality and nightlife destination in downtown Los Angeles, according to Tom McHugh, senior vice president of Atlanta-based boutique real estate advisor Hodges Ward Elliott, which is working with Fairfax, Virginia-based operator Crestline Hotels & Resorts.
The new hotel is expected to have 207 rooms and three food and beverage concepts located on the rooftop, second floor and lobby.
The Standard in downtown L.A. was long a draw for "Hollywood scene seekers" due to its popular DJs, pool and waterbed pods, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The hotel's pool was featured in the TV show "Entourage" and hosted such stars as Owen Wilson, Mark Wahlberg and Leonardo DiCaprio.
The hotel's reopening has been an open secret of sorts in downtown Los Angeles. Nick Griffin, executive director of the Downtown Center Business Improvement District, told CoStar News he's aware of the hotel's reopening but hasn't heard more details. The hotel indefinitely shuttered in January 2022 "due to the restrictions imposed by the California state and city authorities and the safety of our guests and staff," according to a hotel memo.
The Standard also closed its other location in West Hollywood at 8300 W. Sunset Blvd. in January 2021, citing rising rent payments.
Reopening Is 'Symbolically Significant'
"It's symbolically significant," Griffin said of a hotel's reopening in The Standard. "In some ways, The Standard was the poster child of the early downtown renaissance."
The 12-story office building that housed The Standard was built in 1956 and was home to the Southern California headquarters of Superior Oil before sitting empty by the early 2000s.
The building was then converted into a boutique hotel and the downtown outpost quickly became a "hot hangout" by July 2002, according to the Los Angeles Times. Later, the hotel was seen as part of a wave of investment in downtown L.A. over the past two decades that has attracted new eateries, apartment towers, offices and more.
The reopening of the hotel brand inside the former Standard space arrives as other hospitality properties relaunch or open in downtown Los Angeles.
The Hotel Per La, which was the former NoMad Hotel before it closed in the pandemic, reopened in September 2022 at 649 S. Olive St. The Conrad hotel at 100 S. Grand Ave. opened in July 2022. Finally, the Moxy Downtown Los Angeles and AC Hotel Downtown Los Angeles adjacent to L.A. Live are both expected to open this year.
Representatives for The Standard and 550 S. Flower St.'s owner, Spain-based Ferrado Group, did not respond to a request to comment from CoStar News.
Downtown Los Angeles hotels have a 12-month occupancy of 66.9%, which remains below 2019 levels, according to CoStar data. However, that figure has grown from 57.4% one year ago.
In addition, the downtown hotel market's 12-month revenue per available room, or RevPAR — an industry-standard metric of hotel performance, was $127.47, up from $86.14 one year ago.