Korean Slate

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.