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Wednesday, November 15, 2006

New Owner, New Fate for the Park Plaza?



Earlier this year we noted that the Park Plaza Hotel -- a one-time Elks Lodge now used mostly as an events venue -- was for sale.

Over at blogging.la, Will Campbell writes about a weekend visit to the historic building, which he confirms has a new owner. A security guard, who gave Will and wife Susan a tour, told them that "the hotel's just recently been purchased for $29 million by a 35-year-old woman who 'owns a bunch of buildings on Sixth Street through Koreatown.'"



What that means for the structure is still uncertain. As I noted earlier this year:

I'd love to see the new owner take advantage of the Park Plaza's upper floors, which right now are completely stripped. Despite ambitious plans to turn the building into a boutique hotel by 2003, nothing has been done. The first two floors are regularly rented out for large-scale weddings and other events. Two tremendous upstairs ballrooms have been painstakingly restored, while downstairs reception rooms are also beautifully kept up. But beyond that, the Park Plaza is empty.



Meanwhile, Will and Susan also got some great color from their security guard pal, who has evidence that the building is indeed haunted:

One incident took place in the Grand Ballroom, wherein during his rounds he checked on the huge space and found it completely dark, yet when he returned the next time every light was blazing. Then there is the much more hands-on ghost up on the fourth floor. During one of his first graveyard shifts he was walking those corridors when he got this strange sensation of fingers scratching him on the back. Yet when he'd turn around nothing was there. He said it's happened a couple times since. Lastly is the black shadow in the lobby that he and other guards have witnessed lurking around the table there before it speeds directly toward the elevators and disappears.

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