EPICANTHUS

‘This is A New Era: It’s Not Little Tokyo Equals Japanese Any Longer,’ Declares Former New Otani Hotel-Weller Court Exec Takashi Ito

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Japanese Americans are mobilizing to help save their century-old Little Tokyo district in the face of a series of secretive real estate deals they fear may change the downtown enclave’s historical and cultural significance forever.

For some J-Town business owners displaced by wartime internment in the ’40s, eminent domain property seizures in the ’50s and city-imposed redevelopment in the ’70s, it’s like déjà vu all over again. A summary of Little Tokyo’s history.

Now, a group calling itself J-Town Voice is urging members of the community to attend, make their views known and demand answers at a public meeting of the Little Tokyo Community Council Thursday, Oct. 4, 6:30 p.m., at the Japanese American National Museum, 369 E. First St., Little Tokyo. The same organization also has mounted a nationwide petition drive aimed at demonstrating Japanese America’s resolve. Read/sign the petition here.

At the heart of the community’s worries are the recent sales of two major commercial developments in the 67-acre Little Tokyo district to a pair of real estate development firms.

Community leaders only first learned of the sale of the New Otani Hotel and Weller Court shopping complex to Beverly Hills-based 3D Investments six weeks ago, following close of escrow on Aug. 17. Neither the buyers nor sellers (East West Development Corp.) have disclosed terms of the sale. The surprise Otani-Weller deal came on the heels of the sale of the landmark Japanese Village Plaza shopping-office center to Malibu-based American Commercial Equities.

Little Tokyo-based Rafu Shimpo and the Downtown News are on top of the story here, here and here.

Initially tight lipped about the deal, 3D Investment officials, apparently sensing growing resentment in the community, met informally with a task force of Little Tokyo leaders Sept. 4. 3D Investment principals Faraz and Nader Daneshgar were in attendance.

According to Chris Aihara, Little Tokyo Community Council chair, 3D Investments said they would respond to community questions about their New Otani-Weller Court plans in 60 days.

“They know they are outsiders and they wanted to express to us that their intentions are good and that they are ethical people who want to work with the community,” said Aihara.

On a more sobering note, Takashi Ito, East West Development Corp. president, said, “I can understand how important it is to preserve the Japanese American identity here in Little Tokyo, but this is a new era. It’s not `Little Tokyo equals Japanese’ any longer.”

Both the New Otani-Weller property and the Japanese Village Plaza were funded in part by government subsidies as part of Community Redevelopment Agency’s Little Tokyo redevelopment project in the 1970s and ’80s.

The privately-held 3D Investments acquired two major hotels and commercial properties in the heart of San Francisco’s Japantown this March causing an uproar within the Japanese American community there. The new owners of Little Tokyo’s Japanese Village Plaza, American Commercial Equities is headed by B. Wayne Hughes, Jr., son of Public Storage empire founder and chairman, B. Wayne Hughes, Sr.

A.C.E. president Marvin Lotz met with concerned community and business tenants of the JVP in late June. Here’s the Los Angeles Garment & Citizen blog story on that meeting.

Former Otani-Weller owner EWDC is a subsidiary of the giant Japan-based construction giant Kajima Corp. Before being swallowed up by A.C.E., the Japanese Village Plaza was owned by Cathy Chang.

Traumas of the recent past fresh on their minds—such as the opening of a nude bar just a stone’s throw from one of the community’s Buddhist temples—some Little Tokyo community members are adopting an understandable wait-and-see stance, despite all the assurances from the new developers.

From the Downtown News: “This is kind of a pattern,” noted Bill Watanabe, executive director of the Little Tokyo Service Center, recalling the sale of a plot near First and Alameda streets to a Beverly Hills investment company. The land now holds an Office Depot.

“These companies, they’re in it for the business; what is good for the community is not high on their priorities,” he said.