Quote:
Originally Posted by colemonkee
Condo Tower Proposed for Jewelry District A 283-Unit Development Begins the City Approvals Process
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It would be great to fill in the gap where that bldg would go. But I have mixed feelings about such new proposals, not only cuz of the current state of the economy, but cuz of all the other existing projs that have been publicized over the past several yrs & that have yet to breakground today. So it's almost mean for devlprs to get everyone's interests & hopes up today, only to never follow through on their projs. It's like they're teasing everyone by mentioning to the public about their proposed devlpt and then delaying any actual work on it for several yrs. Or worse, eventually bailing out on it.
Then there are other projs like the one involving the Wilshire grand hotel, which I also have mixed feelings about. That's cuz it will replace an existing bldg that, while not great, isn't so bad it needs to be replaced ASAP. Compare that with a site just one block to the south & east of the hotel, where a big gap of a former demolished bldg & some deadzone parking lots have been sitting for yrs & yrs.
Dressing It Up Before Tearing It Down
James A. Thomas is overseeing the redevelopment of the Wilshire Grand in downtown Los Angeles.
J. Emilio Flores for The New York Times
By FRED A. BERNSTEIN
Published: June 6, 2009
ACROSS the country, hotel projects have stalled because of a lack of funding. But the owner of one Los Angeles hotel is not only spending millions on improvements — it is also getting ready to replace the hotel with a new one.
The Wilshire Grand is in the midst of a $20 million makeover that involves upgrades to all 900 guest rooms. But while the renovation will help keep the building fresh, it still won’t provide the spaciousness and sheen that some travelers expect.
“There is just so much you can do with a 50-year-old structure,” said Penny Pfaelzer, a spokeswoman for Korean Air, the hotel’s owner.
Even with upgrades, she said, the rooms are “dated.” So Korean Air hopes to tear down the hotel a year or two after the renovation is finished. Then, a pair of high-rise buildings — one containing offices, the other a new hotel with 700 rooms — will be constructed in its place.
James A. Thomas, whose company, the Thomas Properties Group, was hired by Korean Air to oversee the redevelopment, said “the decision has been made to scrape the site.” His client, he said, “decided that it
doesn’t make sense to keep putting money into the property if they’re not able to come up with the kind of quality hotel they want.”
The rebuilding project is expected to cost around $1 billion, according to Mr. Thomas, and it will proceed despite the tight credit market. Korean Air “has the wherewithal to build the hotel off its balance sheet,” he said. The airline, a part of the Hanjin Group, a conglomerate based in South Korea, had more than $8 billion in revenue in 2008, according to Ms. Pfaelzer.
Korean Air has strong ties to Los Angeles, which has the largest Korean population of any city outside Korea, according to Eui-Young Yu, the founder and director of the Center for Korean American and Korean Studies at California State University, Los Angeles. That generates a lot of trans-Pacific traffic. The company’s chairman, Y. H. Cho, is a graduate of the University of Southern California, as are his three children, Ms. Pfaelzer said. One of them, Heather Cho, runs the company’s hotel division.
Korean Air bought the Wilshire Grand about 20 years ago — when it was known as the Hilton Hotel and Towers — and has watched as downtown Los Angeles burgeoned around it. The Walt Disney Concert Hall, which opened in 2003, and the Staples Center arena, which opened in ’99, are both in easy walking distance of the hotel. L.A. Live, a vast entertainment complex, is under construction next to the Staples Center.
The Wilshire Grand advertises itself as having the best location of any hotel in the city. But if that’s true, the hotel hasn’t lived up to its potential.
On a recent night, rooms were available as little as $79. Even so, occupancy has been around 50 or 60 percent, according to Marc Loge, the hotel’s director of public relations.
And the Wilshire Grand is about to face new competition. L.A. Live, which is expected to open next year, will contain two separate hotels — a Ritz-Carlton, with 123 rooms, and a J. W. Marriott, with more than 800 rooms — in a single, 54-story tower designed by Gensler, the international architecture firm. The hotels will operate as distinct entities despite sharing a building. The new neighbors “are raising the bar” for the Wilshire Grand, Ms. Pfaelzer said. But they may also bring it new business.
According to Carol Martinez, an executive of LA Inc., the city’s convention and visitors bureau, some of the largest conventions “didn’t want to come to Los Angeles because we didn’t have enough hotel rooms to accommodate them.” The addition of nearly 1,000 rooms at L.A. Live will change that, she said. A result could be more convention business for the Wilshire Grand.
But the existing Wilshire Grand would have a hard time satisfying some conventiongoers, Ms. Pfaelzer said. Among other things, she said, its cramped public spaces are incompatible with “the pedestrian and cafe lifestyle Southern Californians enjoy.”
It may take up to two years to win approval for the project from government agencies, according to Mr. Thomas, and for that reason, the company decided not to halt the renovations that were under way. But it did decide to speed things up. Instead of renovating floor by floor, as originally planned, it is tackling three floors at a time, Mr. Loge said. That will allow the hotel to complete the renovation this fall, about a year ahead of schedule.
Low occupancy during the economic downturn has made it easier to renovate large swaths of the building at once, Mr. Loge added.
The executive boardroom has been part of the renovation project, even as plans are under way to tear down the hotel.
Once it was decided that the hotel would be demolished, some items were dropped from the original renovation plan. The rooms will receive new carpet, window treatments, wallpaper, flat-panel televisions, mattresses and upholstery, Mr. Loge said. But, he said, “the bathrooms will no longer be completely refurbished and expanded.” He said that decision, along with other changes, reduced the cost of the renovation to about $20 million from about $60 million.
Meanwhile, Mr. Thomas, the real estate developer, is focused on maximizing the use of the Wilshire Grand site — nearly three acres at the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Figueroa Street, on the southwestern corner of downtown Los Angeles. The site is particularly valuable to Korean Air, he said, because “the name Wilshire Boulevard is recognized around the world.” As a result, he said, the airline “is very anxious to have the hotel front on Wilshire, because they anticipate an international business.”
The new hotel is as yet unnamed; the company is talking to all the major brands — known as “flags” — before deciding which of them will operate it, Mr. Thomas said.
In the meantime, executives of the Wilshire Grand are focused on running their hotel. “When employees know that a hotel is going to eventually close, that can be an issue,” Ms. Pfaelzer said, noting that some employees may seek other employment, while morale among those who remain could suffer. She said the company has offered Wilshire Grand employees “preferential hiring when the new hotel becomes operational.”
“And we’re hopeful that many will return,” she added. But that will take time.
“Before we could have the hotel up and running, we’re talking about four to five years,” said Mr. Thomas, who was figuring on at least two years for various approvals from the city and at least two years for construction. “Hopefully by then,” he said, “the economy will have turned around.”
Two high-rise buildings will eventually replace the
Wilshire Grand. Rendering from A.C. Martin
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