The historic Giannini Building in Downtown Los Angeles has a new owner: tech-founder-turned-real-estate-investor Daniel Negari, who paid $34 million for the 241-room Hotel Per La at 649 South Olive Street, working out to around $140,000 per key. The deal hands Negari a 12-story former bank headquarters at the corner of 7th and Olive streets that has cycled through several hospitality operators over the past decade.
Negari confirmed the purchase to The Real Deal, which first reported the sale. The seller was Waterfall Asset Management, which took over Hotel Per La as lender after the prior owner defaulted on more than $100 million in debt, according to the outlet. At the time of the sale, the property carried roughly $134 million in unpaid debt, per the same report.
The building itself carries deep local history. Designed by architectural firm Morgan, Walls & Clements, the 12-story tower was dedicated in 1923 as the Los Angeles headquarters for Amadeo Giannini's Bank of Italy, according to Water and Power Associates. The building featured Neoclassical architecture, Doric columns, marble floors, bronze doors with coin motifs, and a gold-and-blue Italianate coffered ceiling — Bank of Italy would later grow into Bank of America, one of the largest financial institutions in the world.
From Vacant Bank Tower to Boutique Hotel
The Giannini Building sat vacant for nearly two decades after Bank of America relocated its offices, before undergoing adaptive reuse into a hotel, according to Wallpaper Magazine's October 2022 coverage of the property. Sydell Group purchased the building for $39 million in 2016 and converted it into a hotel, per The Real Deal's reporting. The property first opened as the NoMad Los Angeles, and its lobby lounge, Giannini Bar — named for the bank's founder and preserving original 1920s marble and ceiling details — debuted in early 2018 with a cocktail program designed by Eleven Madison Park bar director Leo Robitschek, as Hoodline reported at the time.
The hotel shuttered during the pandemic, and HN Capital Partners later reopened it as Hotel Per La in 2022, per The Real Deal. Under Negari's ownership, the property will operate as a Marriott Autograph Collection hotel under a 20-year agreement he signed with Marriott, the outlet reports. Negari acquired everything inside the hotel as part of the deal, including a wine collection, and financed the purchase in part with $25 million from Bank of America — spending around $40 million in total once furnishings and other costs are factored in, according to the report.
A $2 Million Tax Bite From Measure ULA
Negari's purchase also came with a steep tax bill: more than $2 million, driven in part by the city's Measure ULA transfer tax. Effective July 1, 2026, Los Angeles's Measure ULA thresholds reset to 4.0% for real estate sales between $5.4 million and $10.9 million, and 5.5% for sales of $10.9 million or more — calculated on the total gross transaction value rather than net gain, according to the Los Angeles Office of Finance.
The tax adds a permanent layer of friction to commercial deals in the city. In May 2026, the Los Angeles City Council's ad hoc committee on Measure ULA announced it would not recommend any ballot measure to modify or lower the transfer tax rates, according to Hanson Bridgett, leaving structural tax reform to potential future voter initiatives. Real estate groups have argued the tax depresses commercial deal volumes across the city.
Part of a Wider DTLA Distress Wave
Negari's discounted buy fits into a broader pattern of distress sweeping Downtown Los Angeles hotels. The Freehand Los Angeles defaulted on a $71 million loan in late 2025, and the 178-room Dream Hollywood hotel was foreclosed upon over $33 million in unpaid debt in early 2026, according to Commercial Observer. Office towers have taken similar hits — Brookfield's Bank of America Plaza at 333 South Hope Street sold for $210 million in March 2026 after a $400 million debt default, a 65 percent drop from its $605 million appraised value in 2016, per The Real Deal.
Negari, who is also known as a domain mogul and CEO of XYZ, built his fortune founding the domain registry after paying a $185,000 ICANN application fee for the .xyz extension in 2011. The registry gained massive global adoption in August 2015 when Alphabet Inc., Google's parent company, launched its corporate home at abc.xyz, according to Entrepreneur.
A Growing Portfolio of Discounted Southern California Bets
Hotel Per La is the latest in a string of opportunistic Southern California purchases for Negari. He previously bought the Chamberlain Hotel in West Hollywood for $43.5 million, or $378,000 per key, and the Montrose Hotel in West Hollywood for around $44 million in 2025, or $333,000 per key, according to The Real Deal's reporting. He has also made office tower purchases in San Diego and retail acquisitions throughout Santa Monica.
In late 2025, Negari's firm XYZ acquired two downtown San Diego office towers from the Irvine Company — 225 Broadway for $48 million and the 21-story 501 West Broadway for $69 million — less than half of Irvine's 2006 purchase price of $150 million, according to Commercial Property Executive. And in March 2026, Negari purchased the vacant historic Junipher Building at 1355 Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica for $17 million, adding to a growing portfolio of downtown retail properties, per CoStar News.
Negari said the Hotel Per La purchase continues his love letter to Los Angeles, according to The Real Deal's report. Whether he can turn a profit where Sydell Group and HN Capital Partners could not remains to be seen, but for now, one of downtown's most storied buildings has a new chapter ahead as part of the Marriott Autograph Collection.
