A new feature on the Los Angeles skyline is the InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown on Wilshire Boulevard. The 1,100-foot tower was built on the site of the Wilshire Grand Hotel with 889 guest rooms and 33 meeting rooms. New meetings space includes the Wilshire Grand Ballroom with 21,000 square feet and an 8,000-square-foot pre-function foyer. It can host up to 2,400 attendees theater-style or up to 3,050 for a reception. There is also an adjacent garden and terrace for indoor/outdoor events. The Hollywood Ballroom has 4,500 square feet of event space plus another 1,100 in the foyer and the combined venues can host up to 1,000 guests for a reception.
This property is not for guests who have a fear of heights. The hotel’s reception and lobby bar are located on the 70th floor, with stunning views across Los Angeles, and visitors to the lobby men’s room will find unobstructed views through a glass-wall urinal designed with a waterfall flush. Three floors above reception is Spire73, billed as the highest open-air bar in the western hemisphere.
The hotel design is L.A.-chic, with modernist guest rooms that focus on views and local art. There is a light fixture above the reception desk designed to echo the Los Angeles freeway system, and outdoor terraces are surrounded by high glass walls to protect guests from the wind.
There are five restaurants including a sushi bar, Sora, with a moving conveyor belt of food; Dekkadance, a farm-to-fork marketplace with cooking stations where diners can watch their food being prepared; and La Boucherie, a steakhouse with a charcuterie “cave.”
