Celebration Held for Nikkei Center
By GWEN MURANAKA
RAFUENGLISH EDITOR IN CHIEF
Saturday, Nov. 22, 2008

Nikkei Center development team optimistic despite gloomy economy.

GWEN MURANAKA/Rafu Shimpo
The development team behind Nikkei Center, from left, Jonathan Kaji, Kaji and Associates, Bill Watanabe, Little Tokyo Service Center, Paul Keller and Dan Rosenfeld of Urban Partners LLC, and Ron Fong, LTSC.

A community celebration was held Tuesday for Nik­kei Center, the multimillion dollar development planned for First and Alameda streets in Little Tokyo, as the team looked ahead to the daunting task of building the center in the midst of the worst economic crisis in a half century.

“There is fear in the global economy and yet looking at Little Tokyo, we’ve seen it weather so many calamities,” said Jonathan Kaji of Kaji and Associates. “This is a community made up of savers who are interested in making a good deal, especially in real estate.”­

Kaji estimated the cost of Nikkei Center at $300 mil­lion. Nikkei Center is to be built on a 4.5-acre site known as Mangrove Estates, currently a city parking lot and one of the last open parcels in Little Tokyo. It consists of 390 units of mixed-income rental housing (40 for seniors, 70 for low income households), 180,000 square feet of office space, 80,000 square feet of retail space and 1,286 parking spaces. The parcel is the future site of a Gold Line light rail station. Metro is also looking at that intersection as the site of a proposed regional connector, which would link the Gold, Blue and Expo lines.

Bill Watanabe, executive director of Little Tokyo Ser vice Center, said that he and his team would remain open and involved, seeking input from the Japanese American community.

“We know this area, we know this city,” said Watanabe. “This project will combine the historic Little Tokyo with the new Little we want to create.”

More than 100 attended, including Councilmember Jan Perry, Consul General Junichi Ihara and Assemblymember John Perez (46th district), as well as community members from Little Tokyo and the Arts District.

Ihara offered his encouragement to the Nikkei Center team. He noted that he had just given a briefing on Little Tokyo to Foreign Minister Hirofumi Nakasone, who stopped in Los Angeles on his way to the Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Peru.

“He was not at all updated, so tried to explain what is happening in Little Tokyo, the gymnasium, Nikkei Center, as well as the Go For Broke center and the Gold Line Station,” said Ihara. “There are so many important and interesting things.”

“I sincerely hope the Nikkei Center will be successful and will show a new way of urban life in Los Angeles which is less dependent on automobiles so the city is greener ... My dream is to see the Japanese Consul Gen­eral offices coming back to Little Tokyo as well as all the Japanese government related offices,” Ihara said, to the applause of the gathering.