SBE Snatches Up 13 Story Building Downtown For Hip Hotel and Dining Destination to Come

Downtown’s amazing (but somewhat disjointed) growth could be getting one step closer to total cohesion thanks to the incoming arrival of an SBE-backed boutique hotel, right in the heart of the Jewelry District. As Brigham Yen notes, the new construction is slated for the currently dormant Foreman & Clark building on 7th Street.

Previously, ownership had tried to strike a deal with the Gansevoort Hotel folks out of New York, but ultimately settled on local brand SBE to facilitate the new boutique hotel. Remember, Sam Nazarian’s SBE is the group behind the SLS Las Vegas, that new deep-Strip buildout which has been struggling to hold onto its on-site restaurant labels.

Still, SBE is very, very interested in continuing to grow in the hotel and hospitality sectors, and this new location — plotted to be a Hyde Hotel, based on the ultra-popular Hyde club on Sunset — seems a great fit for them and for Downtown. As Yen notes, the Jewelry District has been a hinderance to unstoppable growth in the area, by segmenting some of the neighborhood’s most hopping areas and providing little in the way of restaurants, nightlife, or casual walkability. As it stands now, much of that stretch shutters by nightfall.

There’s no particular timetable for the SBE property to be reformatted into a luxe sleepaway for paying out-of-towners, but the 13-story building is already empty and ready to be reworked. Of course, SBE is also sure to bring some of their restaurant properties — just not Cleo or Katsuya — into the ground floor, much like the Ace Hotel has done with their coffee and juice walk-ups and on-site L.A. Chapter.

Yen closes by labeling the Jewelry District as the future of Downtown, calling it LA’s upcoming shopping and dining district. Whether or not that all comes true remains to be seen, but another hip hotel and some ground-floor restaurant space will certainly go a long way towards that goal.