Photo from May 2008
“From departure to arrival, the world is my destination.”
This billboard was near the corner of Gramercy Place and Wilshire Boulevard, near Koreatown. That’s a dove in the woman’s hand.
Korean Air (KAL) celebrated its 40th anniversary on March 1, 2009. It was in 1969 that the Hanjin Group bought the airline from the Korean government.
대한항공 = Daehan Hanggong = Korean Airlines
Korean Air office on Wilshire Boulevard, part of the Wilshire Grand Hotel complex in downtown Los Angeles. I saw a professionally dressed woman working inside, but I didn’t check to see if they were actually open Saturday morning.
The Wilshire Grand Hotel was bought by Korean Air in 1989. The airlines as a subsidiary of the logistics giant Hanjin Group is planning on razing the 1950s-designed hotel and replacing it with a housing tower and an office tower.
Korean Air was founded by the South Korean government in 1962 as Korean Air Lines (KAL). It was bought by the Hanjin Transport Group in 1969. Korean Air started its passenger service to Los Angeles in 1972.
I recently read Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers in which he analyzes Korean Air’s accidents in the past. I remember the train station I was in in 1997 when the televisions screens were suddenly flooded with news that KAL Flight 801 had crashed in Guam.
Asiana Airlines became very popular around this time, but Korean Air seems to have recovered its reputation in the years since.
For the second week in a row, the lead story on the front page of the Los Angeles Downtown News is Korean Air’s plans to raze down Wilshire Grand and replace it with a housing and office complex.
Los Angeles Downtown News (April 13, 2009, issue). Volume 38, Number 15. Story written by staff writer Anna Scott.
Photo caption: Developer Jim Thomas and Korean Air have proposed a 60-story office tower that would change the downtown skyline. The project, slated for the site of the the Wilshire Grand hotel… would be Downtown’s first new office high-rise since 1992.
Headline:
Office Tower is Wild Card in $1 Billion Plan.
Proposed High Rise Seen as Risky Move
The gist of the story is that there’s already a surplus of office space downtown. But believers say that it’s great to start building when the economy is weak because construction costs are lower, and future tenants would be drawn from a global pool, not just locally, because of the international presence of the Hanjin Group, of which Korean Air is a subsidiary.
If the project goes through, the housing tower and office tower are expected to be completed by 2014.
Trivia: The Wilshire Grand was the host hotel of the 56th Miss USA pageant held in Hollywood in 2007.
Front page of Los Angeles Downtown News (April 6, 2009, issue). Volume 38, Number 14. Story written by staff writer Anna Scott.
Headline:
Korean Air Plans $1 Billion Downtown Project
Plan Calls for Razing Wilshire Grand Hotel,
Building 40- and 60-Story Towers
I see the Wilshire Grand Hotel every time I exit from from the Seventh Street Metro Station, which serves the Red and Blue subway lines. The shopping plaza 7th & Fig is right across the street. It’s just a mile north of the Convention Center and LA Live.
For 57 years, the Wilshire Grand has been at the corner of 7th and Figueroa Streets, and it was bought by current owner Korean Air in 1989. Its CEO Yang Ho Cho admits that no financing is in place yet, though large Korean banks have expressed interest.
The company to be in charge of the project’s development and leasing is Thomas Properties Group, while the design will be by architect David Martin of AC Martin partners. Plans are for a 40-story housing tower with hotel rooms and residences, as well as a 60-story office tower. They’re going to occupying the block bounded by Figueroa Street, Francisco Street, 7th Street and Wilshire Boulevard.
* The parent company of Korean Air is the logistics giant Hanjin Group
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