METROPOLIS - DTLA

DTLA IS HUMMING WITH BIG PROJECTS, BUT NONE LIKE METROPOLIS, A FOUR-BUILDING NEIGHBORHOOD FROM THE CHINESE DEVELOPER GREENLAND USA

With four towers, 1,555 condos, and 350 hotel rooms, Metropolis is big from any angle—or, as downtown real estate consultant Hal Bastian says, “it’s a sea change.” A short walk from Staples Center and the Wilshire Grand, the $1 billion project sits on more than six freeway-adjacent acres that had been in play since the 1980s. Then the land sold in 2014 to the Chinese developer Greenland USA, and a small forest of cranes sprang up to create Metropolis’s cluster of green glass rectangles, designed by the architecture firm Gensler. December is supposed to mark the completion of the 18-story Hotel Indigo and a 38-story condo high-rise in which about 70 percent of the units have already sold, according to Tami Scully, vice president of sales and marketing. “We’ve got a good mix of folks from nine different countries,” she says. Studios start at $680,000, while a two-bedroom might cost $2 million (if you have to ask, a penthouse probably isn’t for you), plus association fees for the requisite luxuries, which range from fitness centers and screening rooms to concierge service and a 1.5-acre park. Says Scully, “There are all sorts of amenities that will sort of create a city within a city for this whole metropolis we’re putting together.” The wordplay is free of charge.