Fly-Through for Oceanwide Plaza Retail
One of the most exciting mega projects under construction right now in Downtown LA is the massive Oceanwide Plaza being built on Figueroa directly across the street from the Staples Center. The $1 billion project is really the missing bookend to LA Live, a project by AEG completed in 2010 that focused almost exclusively on restaurants and nightlife venues leaving out the all-important retail component that attracts shoppers. An exciting new fly-through video has been released by Chinese developer Oceanwide showcasing the project’s flashy two-story ground-floor commercial space — now aptly named The Collection at Oceanwide Plaza — that will likely be filled in with a slew of new upscale retailers and restaurants, especially if the uber-upscale Park Hyatt signs on as the project’s hotel operator.
Oceanwide Plaza will hopefully be a bit more retail-oriented in a downtown still struggling to achieve a cohesive shopping experience. We have a lot of smaller pockets of retail forming (i.e., 9th/Broadway, FIGat7th/The Bloc, Little Tokyo/Arts District, etc.), but we need a lot more retail infill to bridge neighborhoods together as well as to become a regional shopping hub that competes favorably with other strong retail destinations like Santa Monica or Pasadena. The new updated fly-through video gives us a glimpse into what direction the complex will take, which fortunately does seem to focus more on attracting retail stores.
When completed in late 2018, Oceanwide Plaza will add about 153,000 square feet of retail space to the burgeoning Figueroa corridor, which includes other large-scale projects like Circaand Shenzhen Hazens’ W Hotel project (hopefully Marriott won’t get rid of W if it acquires Starwood!). The Kennedy Wilson team, including DTLA broker Justin Weiss, will be handling the leasing of the project.
Given the project’s tourist-friendly location across from the LA Convention Center/Staples Center, I would expect to see businesses that cater to out-of-town visitors as the primary target demographic. Nevertheless, I would love to see a mix of high quality chains/indies that would also attract local SoCal residents, including downtown residents, to come shop and hang out.
Check out the video below (including what the Flower Street will look like).