LOS ANGELES | Downtown Project Rundown 3.0

[pesto]

I'm not real optimistic about commercial highrise except for Asian funded.

1. There is no reason to believe a large company will leave City X and move to DT LA. It just hasn't happened in the past and the cost, tax and regulation detriments of doing so are large.

2. Highrises tend toward law, accounting, consulting, finance and such. These tend to grow organically with the city, not in big spurts detached from the region in general.

3. My guess: the economics of highrises rarely penicls out. The bigger ones are built more to get your name on the top, which has sort of an intangible image benefit worldwide. Entertainment companies need this less since they are already really well known compared to insurance companies, business-to-business suppliers, etc.

4. I can only picture Asians wanting to enhance image in LA at the moment. It doesn't strike me that many East Coast or European companies would consider LA necessary in the same way that NY, London, etc., might be. Koreans, Japanese and maybe Indian I can see, given the demographic and commercial ties.

4. But who the hell knows, really.