hospitalitystyle.com

(May 2008) posted on Wed Jul 09, 2008 EDT

A humdrum lobby/registration area gets made over (in a hurry) into the X Bar, a see-and-be-seen watering hole.

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By Tom Zeit

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The 44-year-old Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel sits in the heart of L.A.'s Century City, a formerly sedate area that's now the booming home of several top talent agencies and other entertainment-industry businesses. Its sweeping crescent shape and doormen in red Beefeater jackets had become touchstones for a long roster of high-status guests, from celebrities to presidents - in the Reagan era it was known as the "Western White House." But even a presidential vote of approval wasn't enough to overcome a big problem: the lack of a signature gathering space that would keep guests on-property in the evening.

Last September, property owner Sunstone Hotel Investors charged architect and design firm Gensler with the task of turning the lobby and registration area into an indoor/outdoor bar and lounge, complete with a kitchen. The concept had to appeal to staffs at neighboring offices and nearby studios as well as to guests. And, it had to be done on a limited budget and a limited schedule, just five months from schematic design to a January grand opening.

Gensler knew the hotel well, having already relocated the registration and guest-services area and reconfigured some public corridors and the fitness area. The challenges of the X Bar project were immediately apparent, one of which was the potential difficulty of completely repurposing the space. But here was a bit of good luck. "Fortunately, the space was in a really good location for a bar because there was glass around three sides of the perimeter, and there was an existing outdoor area that lent itself to reuse as a patio," says project designer Mark Whitenack of Gensler's Los Angeles office. "They probably had more difficulty making it a registration area than we did making it a bar and lounge," adds project manager Lisa Kong. And although the kitchen is in a front corner of the space, it's hidden by opaque glass. That enabled the mechanical engineer to use most of the existing ductwork, so that no new ventilation system was required.