Plans for New Six-Story Playhouse District Hotel Go Before Design Commission Tuesday

A proposal to construct a new six-story, 195-room hotel with 5,000 square feet of ground-level commercial space and off-site parking will go through the Pasadena Design Commission on Tuesday, Sept. 27, for Final Design Review.

The project site, at 550 E. Colorado Blvd., is currently developed with a surface parking lot and a small non-historic parking attendant kiosk. It is directly south of Pasadena Presbyterian Church and west of Urth Caffe Pasadena.

Welcome Pasadena LLC, an El Segundo-based real estate firm, earlier announced it was seeking approvals to redevelop the property, located at the southwest corner of Colorado Blvd. and Madison Ave., with an AC Hotel – a business-focused brand which is a subsidiary of Marriott. The plans showed a six-story structure with the 195 guest rooms on the upper floors, street-facing retail along Colorado Blvd., and an upper-level bar.

Charles Company, the West Hollywood-based real estate firm which owns the site, first submitted plans to develop the property with a five-story, 110,000-square-foot medical office building. Final approvals were granted in 2015, but the developer submitted an updated proposal for a hotel development in September 2020.

The design, by WATG in Los Angeles, shows the building would be clad in materials including stone, faux wood, and glass. The building will be an L-shaped structure with a small parking lot accessible from an alley which runs along the southern property line.

The Design Commission reviewed the application for Final Design Review on July 12 and decided to continued with comments for the applicant to address further refinements. A revised submittal now contains revisions in response to the Commission’s comments from the previous meeting.

“The previously proposed Trespa panels and accent Spanish tile have been eliminated from the proposal and replaced with other high quality materials,” the Planning Department’s staff report for Tuesday’s meeting said. “The current drawings represent a more fully detailed project and include a revised and simplified material palette that is consistent with and complementary to the design of the building.”