Korean Air Would Like To See its Downtown Project Get Going

News to report about that Wilshire Grand hotel project planned in downtown. Today, at a town hall meeting, Korean Air Chairman Yang-Ho Cho talked about the project (it's his company that is developing). He didn't say a lot of new information about the planned 560-room luxury hotel and a 65-story office tower, but he did tout the economic benefits. Also, it sounds like he wants this thing to go up a tad faster. Apparently, he's not aware that city planners are taking Friday furloughs. From his speech: "International companies like Hanjin and Korean Air, choose to invest in LA because of its outstanding potential. And we appreciate how the City has worked with us in making this project come to life. However, we would like to see the development process go a little quicker. We understand that balancing the city budget is a priority at this time. But your city leaders must not let today’s challenges slow down tomorrow’s gains.

Projects like the Wilshire Grand can help balance a city’s budget, and speeding
up the entitlement process for committed projects like this should be City Hall’s
priority as well.

Let me be clear. This project will bring an average of almost 10 million new tax
dollars to the city each year. This is an amount worth paying attention to!

And we invite all of you to pay attention to what will be happening on this corner
in the near future. We, along with Thomas Properties and architect AC Martin,
are building Los Angeles a landmark that we all will be proud of."
· Korean Air Chairman: $1 Billion Development, Thousands of Jobs Coming to Downtown L.A. [PR Wire]