Opening of W Hollywood

As with the L.A. Live hotels, the timing is pretty awful - occupancy at area hotels is running an anemic 64.3 percent and there's little sign of much improvement for at least the next several months. Still, attention should be paid to a most ambitious project, which includes not only the hotel itself - operated by Starwood - but the requisite luxury condos and retail. Today was the day for dignitaries; over the weekend, it'll host a Grammy post-event party. LAT architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne calls the $600-million complex
"equal parts Chateau Marmont, L.A. Live and Pershing Square." Sounds pretty dreadful, but Hawthorne also writes that "few recent projects have had more to say about the state of contemporary urbanism in Southern California than this one."

As urban real-estate developments begin to combine high-end hotel rooms with residential and retail space, they are presenting fresh challenges for architects, primarily having to do with producing separate lobbies and dedicated elevators for each section of a building. The W, rising on land owned by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and a full decade in the making, adds another layer of complexity to that equation. Along with channeling flows of tourists, hotel guests, commuters, tenants and diners, it has to account for the peculiar whims of Hollywood vanity -- accommodating bold-faced names who on some visits will be ready to meet the cameras and on others anxious to slip inside unnoticed.