A 66-key boutique hotel is set to rise in the Arts District on the edge of Skid Row

A new 66-key boutique hotel was approved for construction on South Alameda Street in the Arts District, just outside Skid Row. Development in the Arts District has picked up in recent years, with its borders stretching farther out.

Mexico City-based Grupo Habita will convert a 44,600-square-foot industrial structure at 400 South Alameda Street into the hotel. On Tuesday, the City Council approved the plan, which will include a 3,800-square-foot restaurant, 840 square feet of retail space, an 890-square-foot screening room and a rooftop deck. The 109-year-old building sits on a triangle-shaped lot on the corner of East 4th Street.

Grupo Habita will add a “partial single-story rooftop addition” to the three-story structure. It originally had a fourth story that was lost during the 1971 Sylmar earthquake, according to The Hub. The plan required the Council to change the property’s land use designation. The Council also allowed for the sale of alcohol on-site.

Grupo Habita has developed projects around Mexico and first ventured north of the border with the Hotel Americano in New York City in 2011. It opened the Robey in Chicago last year.

The Arts District has been a hot neighborhood with developers in recent years. Fairfield Residential and Legendary Development are building a $215 million mixed-use complex on East 3rd Street. Its first phase will open in the spring. Hudson Pacific is similarly repurposing the Maxwell Coffee Building on Mateo Street into a creative office space. News broke last summer that Spotify was planning to open a 100,000-square-foot office in the neighborhood.

The Council has been generous with developers who want to build higher too; last June it allowed Italian developer Est4te Four to add five stories to an existing two-story building it is redeveloping.  [The Hub] — Dennis Lynch