Canadian Developer Eyes 857-Key Hotel in Glendale

Vancouver-based Onni Group has proposed an 857-room hotel for downtown Glendale, to rise adjacent to an office building at 611 Brand Blvd., according to Urbanize.LA. The Canadian developer, which recently built apartment towers in downtown Los Angeles, announced that its latest project would be constructed as a pair of buildings around a mid-rise, 1970s-built office tower. The two buildings with a shared podium will house the rooms plus 7,500 square feet of retail and restaurant space. Onni purchased the nearly 400,000-square-foot office tower and its associated parking areas for $83 million in 2017. It was more than 90 percent occupied at the time, according to a contemporaneous Business Journal report. Co-working operator WeWork signed a 70,000-plus-square-foot lease at the office building earlier this year. The hotel plan is currently going through the design review stage. If the project proceeds, the Onni towers would likely become the largest hotel in Glendale, far outpacing such recent hotel projects as the 173-room Hyatt Place at 225 Wilson Ave., the 145-suite Residence Inn at 145 N. Louise St. and the 85-key Aloft at 1100 N. Brand Blvd. Before proposing a hotel at the site, the developer considered building a 600-unit apartment complex there.