Venice Place

A 78-room boutique hotel planned for the northern end of Abbot Kinney Boulevard, Venice Place would give Venice its first purpose-built hotel after a permitting saga running back to 2012. Approved by the California Coastal Commission in 2023 and anchored by the acclaimed Felix Trattoria, the project still hadn't broken ground by early 2026, when its construction permit was extended for a second time.

The place

Venice Place occupies a run of contiguous parcels at the northern end of Abbot Kinney Boulevard, Los Angeles's most-photographed shopping street and the commercial spine of the Venice neighborhood, a few blocks inland from the Venice boardwalk and beach. The site sits across from Westminster Elementary School amid a low-rise strip of independent boutiques, galleries and restaurants that had, until this current wave of projects, never had a purpose-built hotel of its own.

The concept

Wynkoop Properties, working with Venice-based David Hertz Architects, first proposed a hotel for the site around 2012. The plan spent more than a decade moving through the Venice Neighborhood Council and the Los Angeles City Planning Commission, drawing four separate appeals starting in 2020. City entitlements followed in 2021, and the California Coastal Commission granted final approval in mid-2023. Construction still had not begun as of early 2026: the developer sought, and in January 2026 received, a second extension of the coastal development permit, pushing its expiration to December 15, 2026.

The design pairs new low-rise construction with retained existing storefronts, arranging the boutique hotel, four apartments, ground-floor retail and creative office space around a landscaped central courtyard the architects call the "Outdoor Living Room." No hotel operator has been announced. The project sits near a second, unrelated hotel proposal at 881 Abbot Kinney: a smaller, 43-room scheme by a different developer at the boulevard's southern corner.

Dining & wellness

The plan is built around two restaurants it retains rather than displaces: Felix Trattoria, the Italian restaurant Esquire named the best new restaurant in America the year it opened, and its adjacent sister restaurant, Atla. Renderings also show a third, unnamed restaurant space opening onto the central courtyard. Beyond dining, plans call for a spa, pool deck, rooftop garden and a rental facility for bikes, skateboards and surfboards.