LOS ANGELES | Wilshire Grand Development | 1,100 FT | 73 FLOORS | U/C
 

http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_12062157

Developer offers hope to rebirth of downtown LA

By JACOB ADELMAN
04/03/2009

LOS ANGELES—A major developer planned to announce a $1 billion high-rise office and hotel complex Friday, the first new downtown construction project since the real estate spiral largely scuttled dreams of a resurgent city center.

Thomas Property Group's plans call for an 80-story glass-walled building with a slanted profile resembling a ship's sail that would be built on property owned by development partner Korean Air Co.

The design includes a 40-story hotel and condo tower and an 18,000-square-foot public park that would replace the 50-year-old Wilshire Grand hotel.

Company Chairman and Chief Executive James A. Thomas said the city's first major office high-rise in some 20 years will satisfy what he sees as a rising demand for business real estate as downtown grows after the recession.

"There is no place that has the amenities, the attractions that downtown Los Angeles has," he told The Associated Press on Thursday, a day ahead of the official announcement.

The news offers a glimmer of optimism for a downtown rebirth that has suffered in the slumping economy. A Frank Gehry-designed tower complex is stalled, developers have declared bankruptcy and condo prices have plunged.

Some bright spots have emerged in the core of the nation's second-largest city, however, including small businesses cropping up in the area's forgotten storefronts and renewed condo sales in downtown lofts.

The area's long-term hopes are pinned to an emerging nationwide demand for smaller homes in compact, walkable neighborhoods as families shrink and fears of increasing gas prices drive people from their cars.

"I think downtown Los Angeles is going to do quite well when this economy recovers," said Christopher B. Leinberger, a land use strategist and visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington.

Some observers think early boosters' vision of a Manhattan-like metropolis on the Southern California coast was destined to fail in a city where development sprawls and there are several major financial centers in the region.

Downtown "will never be for Los Angeles what midtown Manhattan is for New York or the Loop is for Chicago, because it hasn't been that since the 1920s," said urban scholar Joel Kotkin, author of "The City: A Global History." "There's something called history and it has an odd impact."

The city Building and Safety Department's list of high-rise buildings approved for the permitting process show dozens of downtown projects that have never broken ground.

The stalled projects include Gehry's $3-billion Grand Avenue housing and retail project and the 76-story Park 5th condo complex, which was billed as the tallest residential structure in the West.

The median price for new homes downtown has plummeted from $535,000 in the first quarter of 2008 to about $422,000 in the first quarter of this year, a 21 percent drop, according to tracking firm MDA DataQuick. The median price for all new condos in Southern California dropped about 14 percent during that time.

The slump has forced a growing number of landowners and developers into bankruptcy, including downtown's largest landlord, Meruelo Maddux Properties Inc.

While most construction has halted downtown, smaller businesses are staking a future on streets once largely empty after office workers went home and bordered by Skid Row's massive homeless population.

Japanese convenience-store chain Family Mart—an Itochu Corp. subsidiary known here as Famima!!—now has six stores downtown and plans a seventh one to tap into the growing around-the-clock foot traffic, marketing coordinator Naomi Hotta said.

Downtown newcomers include the headquarters for Herbalife International of America Inc. and the Urth Caffe Inc. chain of coffee shops.

The Nickel Diner, which opened in September and was named one of the best new restaurants last year by Los Angeles magazine, added dinner hours last week.

"We've become kind of the poster child of the new downtown," said co-owner Monica May, who credited the restaurant's signature maple-bacon doughnut for much of its success.

Lower condo prices have lured some bargain-hunting buyers, although overall sales remain sharply down.

"Downtown is fairly small as urban downtowns go but with my income it was as close as I could get to something like London or New York and still stay in Los Angeles," said Hutton Cobb, 52, who rented a home in a nearby suburb for about 25 years before buying a condo in the 24-story Evo building.

Homes have been selling on the far upper end of the scale too, such as the two-story penthouse bought for $9 million on the top floors of the 54-story Ritz-Carlton Residences, where prices start at $1.4 million. The building is part of the LA Live entertainment and retail complex a few blocks from where Thomas plans its new project.

Thomas said the company, working with the A.C. Martin Partners architecture firm, has completed preliminary designs and was preparing to file plans with the city.

Thomas Properties and Korean Air planned to seek financing from lenders and investors on both sides of the Pacific and begin construction in 2011.

Thomas said he expected credit markets to thaw by the time the partners seek construction loans and that the current downtown slump only encourages him to begin the ambitious project there.

"Construction costs are down, material costs are down," Thomas said. "It's ideal to be placing yourself to be ready to ride the wave when the recession turns and the economy moves up."

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...9Ig&refer=home

Korean Air, Thomas Plan $1 Billion L.A. Office, Hotel Complex

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/data?p...d=i99dGk1gIWQs

By Daniel Taub
April 3 (Bloomberg)


Korean Air Lines Co. and Thomas Properties Group Inc. plan to build a $1 billion office-and- hotel complex, downtown Los Angeles’s first office high-rise since 1992, to capture rising demand after the U.S. recession.

A 60-story office tower with 1.15 million square feet (107,000 square meters) of space and a 40-story hotel with as many as 700 rooms will be built on a full city block where the Wilshire Grand Hotel now stands, Seoul-based Korean Air and Los Angeles-based Thomas Properties said today in a statement. Korean Air has owned the hotel and the land since 1989.

Development of high-rise towers in the U.S. has been slowed by the global credit crisis and a drop in demand for space amid the recession. In downtown Los Angeles, the Grand Avenue residential, hotel and retail project planned by Related Cos. has been stalled by a lack of funding. Korean Air and Thomas Properties said they expect financing will be available for their project by the time construction begins, likely in 2011.

“It’s reasonable to assume that the credit market will get fixed and start flowing again,” Thomas Properties Chief Executive Officer James A. Thomas said in an interview. “The ideal timing is to get everything lined up, and as you come out of the recession, you have the product to deliver. So I think our timing is really superb.”

Early Stage

Plans for the project, which Thomas said will cost "$1 billion, plus or minus,” are in their early stages, he said. Korean Air and Thomas haven’t yet decided whether Thomas Properties will have an equity stake in the project, planned for completion in 2014, or how large such a stake would be.

Thomas Properties and Korean Air also will decide later whether the complex’s hotel will include condominiums or rental apartments on its top floors. As many as 100 residential units may be included, James Thomas said.

The project doesn’t have financing and may be seeking it at a time when banks have curtailed lending for real estate as commercial loan delinquencies and office vacancies rise.

The Los Angeles metropolitan area had about $7.5 billion in distressed properties as of the end of March, a 168 percent jump from December, according to data from Real Capital Analytics.

“Korean banks are interested, but it’s too early to say anything yet,” Korean Air Chief Executive Officer Yang Ho Cho said in an interview. Korean Air also will need to select an operator for the complex’s hotel, he said.

Wilshire Grand

In addition to the 896-room Wilshire Grand, which sits on the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Figueroa Street, Korean Air also owns three hotels in Korea and one in Hawaii, as well as office buildings in Los Angeles, Japan, Hong Kong and Korea. The company is South Korea’s biggest air carrier, and employs more than 1,000 people in Los Angeles.

Thomas Properties, founded in 1996, owns office, retail and apartment buildings in California, Texas, Pennsylvania and Virginia. Its properties in Southern California include City National Plaza, an office complex with two 51-story office towers that occupies an entire city block in downtown Los Angeles.

The shares are down 85 percent in the year through yesterday, reducing the company’s market value to $52.5 million.

Downtown Los Angeles, which was dominated for decades by banks, law offices, accounting firms and government offices and had few residents and little nightlife, has undergone a revival over the past decade, with the opening of the Staples Center sports arena, Walt Disney Concert Hall and the L.A. Live entertainment complex.

No Office Towers

While high-rise hotels and residential buildings have been added to downtown Los Angeles’s skyline, no major office buildings have been added in the city’s core in almost two decades. The last built was Maguire Properties Inc.’s 54-story Two California Plaza, completed in 1992, James Thomas said.

Downtown Los Angeles has about 14 million square feet of space in so-called trophy office buildings, and about 88 percent of that space is leased, James Thomas said. Once the economy improves, it will take three to five years for those buildings to reach 93 percent occupancy, the point at which landlords are considered to have pricing advantage over office space, he said.

“We are overdue for an office building,” Thomas said. “We need it.”

______________________

Posted on la.curbed.com

http://la.curbed.com/uploads/2009.03.demoedgoodbye.jpg

http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2009-04/45954931.jpg
An artist's sketch shows a street-level view of the 40- and 60-story towers proposed for the property
now occupied by the Wilshire Grand hotel in downtown Los Angeles. Owner and developer Korean Air
unveiled plans to build a $1-billion complex that will include a hotel, offices and retail space.


http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2009-04/45954935.jpg
The two high-rise towers, rendered in blue in this image,
would stand shoulder to shoulder with other skyscrapers
alongside the 110 freeway.

courtesy los angeles times.

Here's another from the LA Times...

http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2009-04/45954953.jpg


http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2009-04/45954946.jpg

I like how the design accentuates the corner of 7th and Figueroa, which is a busy intersection with a subway stop.

So, anybody know the exact number of floors or height? I've read the tallest to be 80, 65, and 60 floors.

yup. i noticed that too. the current hotel driveway/lobby is poor urban design as a dark recess stretching along its length of 7th. this opens up the entire intersection to a great degree and, along with a badly need fix to 7th and fig can better bridge downtown to central city west. that stretch of figueroa stretching from 8th on northwards has always suffered from brutal highway architecture. it can use this. the wall of parking facing 8th needs to be redone also. what were the architects thinking? i wish this had happened to the marriot. there is so much crap along that stretch of fig. 7th and metro's effect on streetlife is pretty much nonexistent of anywwhere west of the 110. that needs to change if we want a relevant downtown.

..

They already built this tower. It's called the Bank of America building and it's located in New York City!

I need to go change my pants.

Another rendering from Curbed LA...

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3592/...30b94f35_o.jpg

Some seriously good news for downtown Los Angeles.

What's really great about this proposal is that the property is a view terminating property when standing on 7th Street and looking west. Currently that view is terminated by the Wilshire Grand, but if this thing gets built, that view could be terminated by two very modern glass towers, one of which would be the second or third tallest in the city. :cheers:

God I hope the spire survives any possible design changes.

This resembles Bryant Park so much! Thanks for providing the renders, NYguy!

:rolleyes:

As with any tower, the design will get cleaned up a lot before it actually gets built.

The renders appear to fall in the 60-65 floor range.

That's nice. The first real spire for LA? They should combine the towers to make it the most prominent in the city, a new tallest.

If it's similarly proportioned to the tower that everyone seems to think it looks like, BOA, this very well may end up being LA's new tallest anyway, albeit merely by virtue of the spire.

I wish the spire was taller so the building looked sleeker. I really don't mind the design but it does remind me of BofA. Still, looks prettty good!

The glass reminds me a little of the Ritz.

The smaller tower even has what appears to be a park on top of it:

http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2009-04/45954953.jpg

I actually saw on channel 9 last night...a render of the structure in the skyline...a profile shot from what would be about 5 or 6 miles to the east of the skyline. From how it looks...and if its accurate...it seems to have a roof or parapet height about even with the Aon tower, and the spire actually goes higher, maybe even 50 feet. Now take into account ground elevation and things of that nature, and it may well be, if its built, the tallest in the city. US Bank will have more floors and a higher occupied level. Im going to try and find these renders for you...somewhere...LOL

Hey, here is a news clip from Channel 2 that talks about it...gives more prespective on the structure.
Enjoy! It says it will be shorter than the US Bank and Aon, but it looks like thats only from a floor number measure.
Thoughts?

http://www.truveo.com/Developer-Has-...r/id/594495794

I don't know about you Just-In-Cali, but my thoughts are with some of the other forumers, in that it should've been on the nearby parking lot. According to what i've read in the Times the last few days, the previous structure on the plot of land has outlived it's usefullness as a hotel. Still, they could've turned it into condos.

The Metro Station at 7th & Flower is a block away from this proposed building. I believe waht is on the corner is a ground level retail opportunity... yet to be determined. Could be a flower shop, or a coffee shop, or something else simple.

Except... Korean Air already owns the property and has for awhile. They are leveraging their existing investment to turn it into something else to generate a greater return. And, I think we can assume they've already conducted an analysis examing the investment... and it obviously panned out otherwise they would not have pursued to this point in time.

No kidding. I always love the 'it should have been built over on that other lot' rambling we commonly get here. Real estate transactions of this magnitude don't work that way. If this project penciled out on the other parking lot property in a better way, that's what would have been done.

But since we are grounded in reality here...nice to see that there are a few players still looking at the long term...this has the potential to dramtically improve that intersection.

Project canceled in 5..4..3..2..

And I always thought the Wilshire Grand was some sort of landmark?

Looks like the architect creatively added the spire on the SIDE of the building, but left enough room on the other end for a helipad. Kind of like the Park Hyatt in Century City...

http://www.hotel-online.com/News/PR2...AExterior.jpeg
hotel online

I'm sure many in the Downtown thread would disagree with some of you guys about where it should've been built.....

yeah, i'm aware that its a block away. i was just suggesting the potential draw for more development to serve that station in this part of downtown.

All this talk about "it should have been over there" is really quite beside the point. They put it where it was most feasable. bmfarley and plinko hit it on the head. Why would they drop another several million on a new lot and all the costs that it would incur.
I would have loved to have seen the whole skyline moved to where Santa Monica is and have a ocean front downtown...but if wishes were horses...
First lets see if the thing even gets outa the gate before we start bitching...yet again...on trivial topics.

The towers that everyone agrees have resemblances...

http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2009-04/45954953.jpg_http://newsroom.bankofamerica.com/fi..._rendering.jpg


http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3592/...30b94f35_o.jpg_http://newsroom.bankofamerica.com/fi..._nightview.jpg

http://newsroom.bankofamerica.com/fi..._multiview.jpg

Who are the architects of this tower?

AC Martin Partners, Los Angeles.

Yeah, but the OP was referring to the 7th/metro entrance at 7th/Fig, not 7th/Flower. The 7th/Fig entrance is directly across the street from this project. I think that the fact that the Metro station is right there is a factor in their decision to build it there. I know that in large part it's because they already own the hotel/land, but they could easily sell the hotel and buy a parking lot somewhere a few blocks away that would initially seem to make more sense financially, but I bet that they see that spot as the future center of downtown LA. In 10 years that location will be LA's version of Times Square from a transit perspective. The Red, Purple, Blue, Expo, and Gold lines will all use that station.

Don't forget about the Downtown Connector.

I actually like this project. A lot. Imagine looking west down 7th street from Broadway in 2015. I like its proximity to the 7th/metro hub and I hope the design seamlessly incorporates itself into the station (A direct tie to an underground pedestrian tunnel and shopping/restaurants? Yes, please). It would be a beautiful urban composition, and the change is much welcomed by me. :tup:

i hope i dont get tricked again like i did with parkfifth.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment...,7766716.story

High-rises dwarf options for downtown L.A.
Mega-projects have their place, but two new Figueroa Corridor proposals spotlight the city's all-or-nothing planning mind-set.

http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2009-04/46153291.jpg
IN THE PIPELINE: Daniel Libeskind’s tower design.

By CHRISTOPHER HAWTHORNE, Architecture Critic
April 11, 2009


A pair of high-rise projects planned for the Figueroa Corridor downtown jumped into the headlines this week, as if out of nowhere. The first, set to replace the Wilshire Grand hotel and office complex at Figueroa Street and Wilshire Boulevard, will be designed by AC Martin Partners, the big local firm. It has an estimated budget of more than $1 billion. The other, proposed for a site near the southern edge of South Park, across from the Los Angeles Convention Center, is by Daniel Libeskind, best known for his Jewish Museum in Berlin and his much-altered master plan for the World Trade Center site in Lower Manhattan.

Both projects are backed by Korean groups. Korean Air, and the larger Hanjin Group of which it is a part, owns the Wilshire Grand property, where it wants to build a mixed-use complex crowned by two towers, the taller one 60 stories high. CA Human Technologies, a joint venture of two Korean firms, is behind the 43-story Libeskind tower, which would include 273 residential units stacked atop an eight-level podium containing parking, restaurants and a spa. If completed, it would be Libeskind's first Los Angeles building.

The sudden appearance of these designs, even in provisional form, in the middle of a deep recession prompts a couple of questions. Why now? And why -- when the last thing downtown needs, from an urban-planning point of view, is another stand-alone super-block high-rise, standing aloof from the street and its neighbors -- might we be getting two more?

The first question is relatively easy to answer. The entitlement process in Los Angeles is lengthy, bordering on Byzantine. Developers who want to be first out of the gate when the economy improves would be wise to begin that process now, particularly if it gives them the chance to take advantage of low construction and materials costs that will likely prevail for another couple of years.

A more cynical version of the same answer might go this way: Developers who feel prepared to move forward on the approval front, even if their financing remains iffy, can take advantage of a climate in which the city is desperate to support any signs of new real-estate activity downtown.

The second question is trickier. But it is also crucial, since it goes to the heart of how planning happens in downtown Los Angeles -- and why, despite so much new energy and investment in recent years, the area retains at ground level an extreme split personality, with massive towers mixed in with huge, empty parcels.

The Figueroa Corridor, which city planners have long envisioned as a key connector downtown -- linking the USC campus, on its southern end, with Dodger Stadium to the north -- is a key case study in how that split personality is developed and exacerbated. It is a natural place for high-rise development, given its existing skyscrapers and links to mass transit. It will soon be getting at least two new residential towers: the first phase of the Concerto, a 30-story high-rise designed by DeStefano + Partners, and a 54-story hotel and condo building at L.A. Live, by Gensler.

But certain pockets of it remain filled by the same surface parking lots that dot much of downtown. Particularly south of L.A. Live, the area suffers from an extreme version of the all-or-nothing development approach that city leaders and most developers have long favored. There is almost no middle ground to be found between high-rise towers that take up full blocks at street level and empty swaths of land reserved for cars.

This approach prevents the emergence of the smaller-scale projects that can bring fresh vitality to a block -- and that may move forward even in a downturn, since they require drastically less financing. Such modest projects are also more likely to go to younger and more innovative architects.

The Libeskind tower is the latest example of how downtown moves from one extreme to another. In land-use terms, it is a process that takes us immediately from zero to 60, from emptiness to high-rise density. The site where the tower is set to rise, covering 57,000 square feet, is actually two separate pieces of land that are, in turn, made up of a total of seven parcels. Most of downtown, of course, was originally sliced up the same way, which is why its older sections retain a vital diversity of building forms, architectural styles and uses.

But the presence of a surface parking lot changes that dynamic -- not only for the obvious reason that it trades vitality for emptiness. A parking lot also smooths the way for high-rise developments like the Libeskind tower. It tends to pave over the visual -- and sometimes the legal -- divisions between one small parcel and the next, making it almost a foregone conclusion that the property will remain empty until a mega-project comes along to fill it on a massive scale.

Indeed, the city's planning department has rubber-stamped CA Human Technologies' effort to consolidate the various properties into a single massive development, even though that effort flies in the face of recommendations in new guidelines developed by the same department's Urban Design Studio. Following the department's recommendation, the Planning Commission voted 6-0 Thursday to approve zoning and other variances for the property.

Architecturally, of course, there are lots of ways to make mega-projects successful along the street, including opening them up fully to the sidewalk and designing them to contain a diversity of retail outlets at ground level. Libeskind's scheme, which is not among his finest, tries hard to do this, although the effort is undermined by the slashing forms that cross its podium section. These gashes are his formal trademark, but in this case they bring the massive scale of the tower down to the sidewalk level instead of helping to break it up.

The AC Martin design for Korean Air is even less developed architecturally. It is a sleek marker for a development whose viability is far from certain.

The enemy in this is certainly not the high-rise form itself, which can add immeasurably to the vitality of any city and has long been a vehicle for architectural innovation. It is a process that all but rules out other kinds of development in certain pockets of downtown.

This tower isn't quite as structured as the BofA.

BofA is a better design, but these are early renderings, so hopefully this gets refined & improved.

Some larger renderings.

http://static.worldarchitecturenews...._for%20web.jpg
http://static.worldarchitecturenews...._for%20web.jpg
http://static.worldarchitecturenews...._for%20web.jpg
http://static.worldarchitecturenews...._for%20web.jpg
http://static.worldarchitecturenews...._for%20web.jpg

It doesn't really look like the BofA.

BofA is bulky. This thing is broad. If that makes any sense. And regarding the second to last rendering: Since when does everyone in the world drive an Audi? Oh wait..I do see a VV Golf there.

^ Yeah, that's what I meant when I said that it's not quite as structured as the BofA.

The best part about this proposal is the tearing down of a nasty 80's pomo building to be replaced by beautiful Modernist revival (jk about that term)!

Its about time we start trashing all of the pomo buildings instead of trashing Modernist buildings...

^Except that the proposal calls for tearing down a 1960's bulky hotel. Nothing to do with postmodernism.

A spire in LA? Who would have thought?

no way. they are so different. i mean you would have to cut BOA in half down the middle to get Korean Air because it's wider. it's at most, half as similar. no resemblance whatsoever - the only similarities are in their overall silhouettes, their sloping roofs, the way their spires are positioned at the peak of their sloping roofs, their cladding, their height, and their renderings. aside from that, they're totally unrelated.