As a result, the buyers of the shopping center are simply catering to the demands of Little Tokyo’s increasingly residential character, Oh said. The new residential developments near the shopping center, including Savoy and Hikari, are home to a high concentration of young Korean-American professionals.
The buyers are six Korean-Americans who made their money as manufacturers in the Fashion District and who organized Three Alameda Plaza LLC to purchase the shopping center for $35 million. They declined to be named.
Their plans call for a renovation of the shopping center to accommodate new tenants in three anchor spaces: a Korean market that’s about 30 percent larger than its counterparts in Koreatown; a full-service Korean spa with various herbal steam rooms; and an electronics retailer.
There are 42 smaller shops in the center, including health stores and gift shops. About half of them are already owned by Korean-Americans. Nine shops are vacant and the rest have month-to-month leases.
These types of multistory shopping centers, anchored by grocery stores, are experiencing somewhat of a boom in Koreatown a few miles away. There are two such malls near Western Avenue and Olympic Boulevard, and two more are on the way: City Marketplace is near completion on Sixth Avenue and Alexandria Avenue, and there are plans for one more on Western.
But unlike its competitors in Koreatown, the Little Tokyo Shopping Center will not cater only to the Korean community. It will be marketed to the new downtown residential neighborhood with English-language ads. The grocery store, in addition to kimchi, would also carry items typically found in any neighborhood grocery chain.
Changing times
The Little Tokyo Shopping Center has changed hands several times since it was built by Japanese developer Taira Services Corp. in the mid-1970s.
At the peak of the market, it sold to Mitsuwa Corp. for a reported $40 million. When Japan’s speculation-driven bubble economy burst in the early 1990s, Japanese companies scaled down or shuttered operations in Little Tokyo. Mitsuwa sold the building to downtown property owner Richard Meruelo for $13 million.
Also in the ’90s, Sumitomo Bank left Little Tokyo, along with department stores Matsuzakaya and Yokohama Okadaya. The business district never quite recovered from this exodus. Big Japanese businesses took root in Torrance.
But the Little Tokyo district falls under the protection of the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency, which offers assistance to help maintain its cultural roots. Those date to 1884, when an American sailor set up a Japanese restaurant on First Street upon returning from a tour in Japan.
Design guidelines require buildings to reflect Japanese themes, and signs can only be posted in Japanese and English.
