By Grace Toohey
Now searching for a new owner: Downtown Los Angeles high-rise rich in colorful anecdotes from its history, albeit most quite haunting. Offers units overlooking Skid Row, many stubbornly vacant. Best known for the Netflix series about the dead body found in a water tank on its roof.
The building is the infamous Cecil Hotel, which was transformed in recent years into a privately funded supportive-housing complex for the formerly homeless. A new owner wouldn’t technically acquire the property at 640 S. Main Street but would instead take over the 99-year ground lease, which allows its long-term use and development. The new listing did not include a selling price, but the property’s land and improvements were assessed at a total value of $31 million in 2023.
The storied building opened in the 1920s as a luxury hotel but later became the site of a string of deadly incidents, including several murders, suicides and overdoses, as well as the home of notorious serial killers. Perhaps its best-documented tragedy was the 2013 death of a Canadian guest whose body was found in a water tank on the hotel’s roof after she’d been missing for weeks; her story later became the subject of a 2021 true-crime series on Netflix.
Recent renovations were made to revamp the 15-floor building, which reopened in 2021. Since then, the owners have reserved most rooms for tenants in the bottom 30% of the area’s median income, accepting unhoused Angelenos with government-funded housing vouchers.
But the housing project has struggled to take off, unable to fill its 600 units — most of which share bathrooms, kitchens and laundry facilities — despite the city’s worsening homelessness crisis. Among those who did move in as well as property staff, there were complaints and increasing concerns about safety issues, unsanitary conditions and constant maintenance backups.
Despite the challenges, the building’s real estate listing said it was currently 60% occupied, with an expectation that it would be 80% to 90% filled by midyear. About half of the units were occupied last summer.
Read more at: LA Times