Meeting Held to Discuss Little Tokyo’s Future
By GWEN MURANAKA
RAFU ENGLISH EDITOR IN CHIEF
Saturday, Oct. 13, 2007

Endowment fund, long-term planning and parking among issues brought up at meeting.

Photos by MARIO G. REYES/Rafu Shimpo
A group of Japanese speakers share ideas about preserving Little Tokyo during a meeting held Thursday at the Japanese American National Museum. The meeting was spurred by the sale of the Japanese Village Plaza in July and the sale of the New Otani Hotel and Weller Court in August.

Tom Kamei, Little Tokyo Community Council chair

Setting up an endowment fund, having more affordable parking and strengthening existing planning and design guidelines were among the suggestions to come out of a 2 1/2 hour public meeting held Thursday to discuss and develop strategies to ensure Little Tokyo’s future in the wake of recent sales of the New Otani Hotel and Garden, Weller Court and Japanese Village Plaza.

Approximately 100 people, includ­ing students, community leaders and seniors, attended the meeting at the Japanese American National Mu­seum moderated by Alan Kumamoto, chair of the Little Tokyo Community Council’s Planning and Preservation Committee.

Structured as a working meeting, the gathering was divided into tables and given markers and paper to write initial reactions and ideas. A table was set up for Japanese-speaking attendees, who listened via simultaneous translation. Before this, several speakers represent­ing different interests made comments to the group.

Chris Aihara, LTCC chair, said the sale of the New Otani Hotel and Garden and Weller Court by East West Devel­opment Corp. caused widespread shock in the JA community.

“Everyone was feeling very uncer­tain, suspicious and afraid of the impact on the community. Also, the fact that the seller was a longtime partner in the community, so there was some sense of betrayal,” said Aihara.

Looking forward, she pointed to developing a long-term vision for Little Tokyo and working with current prop­erty owners so that future buyers are committed to strengthening the area.

“I hope coming out of this meet­ing, we have a sense of community unity,” said Aihara. “I think it says on the agenda that one strategy is to do nothing, which I hope that no one agrees with.”

Faraz Daneshgar of 3D Invest­ments, purchasers of New Otani Hotel and Weller Court, who was not on the agenda, sought to allay concerns about their purchase of the properties.

“I didn’t know about this meeting until this Sunday. I was at Kinokuniya with my wife looking for something for my little girl and I read in The Rafu Shimpo that there was a meeting tonight,” Daneshgar said. “3D Invest­ments is a family business, we’re four brothers. We’ve been in business since 1976, we own real estate primarily in California and Hawaii. We purchased our properties in San Francisco’s Ja­pantown last May and we really have made good friends in that community. That community had a lot of the same concerns Little Tokyo has because those properties—two hotels and two shopping centers—had been owned by the same company, Kintetsu, since the 1960s.”

Daneshgar said his company is interested in working with the Little Tokyo community, including taking suggestions for a name for the New Otani Hotel.

“There really is a good feeling in the (San Francisco) community about the change, where 18 months ago they were very concerned. The main thing I would ask is keep an open mind.”

He was asked why 3D did not ne­gotiate with the community prior to the sale and why there were no covenants, dictating an agreement between 3D and Little Tokyo. In San Francisco’s Japantown, an agreement was signed that stipulates, among other items, that the Japantown malls be retained for at least 15 years and that the malls and hotels have Japanese themes. Kintetsu Enterprises of America, who sold the parcels to 3D, also donated $500,000 to Japantown to create an endowment for the Japanese American community.

Daneshgar explained that the differ­ence between the two transactions—San Francisco and Little Tokyo—was that San Francisco was done in a very public manner.

“In San Francisco, the process was a very public process. As any buyer, whether you’re thinking of buying a business or buying a house, you want as few restrictions on you as a buyer as possible. So the fact is it’s highly unusual, if you look at the history of real estate transactions, having a covenant,” Daneshgar said. “It was a public process and we agreed to the covenants. We don’t do that as a matter of business. In this situation we negoti­ated the transaction privately. I hope you understand. No one who makes a large capital commitment—puts up a significant amount of capital—wants to legally have their hands tied.”

But he assured the meeting attendees that his family wanted to be partners with Little Tokyo.

“You have the people who are the decisionmakers, who are willing in a genuine fashion, to interact with the community. I think that is more valuable—and I’m a lawyer by train­ing—than legal covenants that are just documents that frankly no one will look at once they’re written.”

Greg Fischer, from Councilmember Jan Perry’s office, assured the gathering that Perry was committed to preserving Little Tokyo.

“The sale of the Japanese Village Plaza, New Otani Hotel and Weller Court are pieces that the community views as almost proprietary because they are so important to the operation and function of Little Tokyo. I will tell you that the councilwoman is very committed to seeing that any changes that are made to either of these two iconic features of the Little Tokyo community are made with care—are made with some sense of appealing to a long-term future. They will be made with our office, any large-scale change has to go through our office.”

Tom Kamei, former LTCC chair and a participant in the area’s redevel­opment in the ’60s and ’70s, recalled coming to Little Tokyo by Red Car when he was a boy living on Terminal Island. He acknowledged that he re­ceived many calls from people asking him to save J-Town.

“Some people say, don’t change Little Tokyo, we like it the way it is. But as you can see, change is already taking place around us,” said Kamei. “There are many new apartments and condos going up and new businesses are coming in, and it’s obvious that we have to change with the times. So I think we have to open our arms to the newcomers, whether they’re Japanese or not Japanese and work with them, so we have a vibrant Little Tokyo like we used to have in the old days.”

Mickie Okamoto, president of UCLA-Nikkei Student Union, offering a youth perspective, said the sale of the J-Town properties has led to heated discussions among the students.

“Some of us are all fired up and ready to do something—to make noise, to be the crazy college students that don’t care about consequences. And others of us were kind of frustrated that nothing was happening and were starting to get worried that Little Tokyo would only be a memory and not an actual location,” Okamoto said.

Following the comments, the groups talked among themselves for 45 min­utes, coming up with suggestions. Other ideas brought up by the groups include more marketing to boost tour­ism to Little Tokyo, relocating the Japanese Consulate back to J-Town and encouraging more Japanese American and Japanese businesses by making rent more affordable. The suggestions will all be compiled and brought to the next Planning and Cultural Preservation Meeting, to be held on Wednesday, Oct. 10 at 2 p.m. at the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center.