AC Hotel & Moxy Downtown Los Angeles

AC Hotel Downtown Los Angeles and Moxy Downtown Los Angeles opened in April 2023 as a single 727-room dual-brand tower directly across from Crypto.com Arena and the LA Convention Center, marking Moxy's first arrival in Los Angeles. Developer Lightstone paired Gensler's 37-story L-shaped building with Yabu Pushelberg interiors that give each brand a distinct identity under one roof, anchored by a 15,000-square-foot LED-wrapped podium and a Level 8 food-and-entertainment complex shared by both hotels.

The place

The tower sits at the corner of South Figueroa and Pico, in the stretch of South Park that has become downtown LA's sports and convention corridor. Crypto.com Arena and the LA Convention Center are across the street, and Star Waggons Studio, L.A. Live and the Bloc are all within a short walk. It is a district built around event traffic — Lakers and Kings games, conventions, concerts — rather than a historic core, and the hotel leans into that: its podium is wrapped in one of the largest 3D LED screens on the West Coast, facing the arena crowds directly. For visitors, it puts a convention-and-arena stay within walking distance of downtown's Financial District and Arts District, both a short rideshare away.

The concept

The 727 rooms split into 380 for Moxy and 347 for AC Hotel, occupying opposite arms of Gensler's L-shaped, 37-story tower above an eight-story podium. Yabu Pushelberg handled interiors for both brands, deliberately pulling them apart rather than blending them: Moxy's public spaces reference desert biker culture, with a retro motorbike in the lobby, rammed-earth walls, snake-motif carpet and a mezzanine arcade, while AC Hotel's 34th-floor sky lobby leans into an artist's-loft take on Spanish heritage and Latin LA, with textured plaster, hacienda styling and a redwood reception table. It is Lightstone's first Moxy on the West Coast and the brand's debut in Los Angeles, following the developer's earlier Moxy projects in New York and Miami Beach. The two brands share little beyond the address and the podium. Moxy targets a younger, budget-conscious traveler with playful, compact rooms; AC Hotel positions itself as the quieter, more design-forward half, with its own upper-floor lobby, library and lounge separate from the street-level energy below. The shared ground is Level 8, an eight-venue food and entertainment floor built out by Houston Hospitality, and the LED-clad podium itself, which functions as both architecture and advertising, tying the building visually to the arena and convention traffic it was built to capture.

Dining & wellness

Level 8 gathers eight venues from Houston Hospitality around a Miami-meets-Copacabana pool deck: Mr. Wanderlust for globally inspired cocktails, Qué Barbaro for South American fire-grill cooking, Golden Hour's carousel bar with poolside dining, French-Japanese teppanyaki at Maison Kasai, hot pot and seiro mushi at Lucky Mizu, the cathedral-themed nightclub Sinners y Santos, an oyster and ceviche counter at Mother of Pearl, and Brown Sheep Taqueria. Each brand also runs its own outlets: Bar Moxy and a Bluestone Lane coffee shop downstairs, and AC Bar & Lounge plus the Spanish-tapas La Lo La Rooftop on AC Hotel's 34th floor.