Legacy of New Otani Hotel in Little Tokyo (Part One)

Japan’s Kajima Corporation spearheaded redevelopment

Cultural News, October 2007

The New Otani Hotel and Garden opened its door on October 1977 in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles. (Photo courtesy of Hayahiko Takase)

By Takeshi Nakayama and Shige Higashi

     An era has come to a close. The New Otani Hotel and Garden in Little Tokyo, a promoter of Japanese culture and heritage in Southern California since it opened in October 1977, has been sold.

    According to the East West Development Corporation, the owner of the hotel complex, escrow has closed for sale of the New Otani Hotel and adjacent Weller Court shopping center to 3D Investments of Beverly Hills. The contract between the New Otani Hotel and owner of the building will expire at the end of November. The New Otani Hotel will be renamed and the management will be replaced.

   Since news of the hotel sale in late August became public, Japanese and Japanese Americans have voiced their concerns about losing their cultural icon. “The whole community is shocked,” architect Hayahiko Takase who designed the hotel building and has been involved with the development of Little Tokyo for nearly a half century, told Cultural News.

    Takase, with his background of involvement in Little Tokyo, could provide vital information regarding the debate on the preservation of Japanese culture in Little Tokyo and clues to ease community concerns.

    Tokyo-born Takase, 77, a graduate of Tokyo University with a master’s degree from the Harvard University School of Design, worked in Detroit for Minoru Yamasaki, designer of the New York Twin Towers, and in New York for Skidmore Owings & Merrill. Returning to Tokyo, he joined Kajima Corporation before coming to Los Angeles.

    Takase came to Los Angeles in 1964 as the Director of the Kajima International Inc.(KII), and to design and build the Kajima Building. It was completed in 1967.

    The birth of the hotel came out of a need to redevelop Little Tokyo, which after World War II had become “almost a slum,” according to Takase. City government was also expanding rapidly and taking over parts of Little Tokyo.

    Many Japanese Americans feared that if the community didn’t do something, they would eventually lose all of Little Tokyo to Civic Center expansion, Takase recalls. Thus, Rev. Howard Toriumi of the Union Church formed the Little Tokyo Redevelopment Association with businessmen, merchants and professional people in Little Tokyo.

    Morinosuke Kajima, then chairman of Kajima Corporation, spearheaded redevelopment efforts in Little Tokyo by erecting the Kajima Building, which would house the Sumitomo Bank of California, as well as the Japanese Consulate General.

    A major player in this saga was the Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA), an independent entity formed to direct the redevelopment of blighted areas in American cities.

    CRA first designated a seven-blocks, 67-acre area of Little Tokyo in 1970 as a redevelopment area, with a master plan featuring a 400-room first-class hotel and shopping center at First and Los Angeles streets. “The corner had the Kawafuku Restaurant and the Sun Building, which housed cultural classes and community organizations like the Chamber of Commerce,” Takase remembers. These tenants came together with young activists to fight evictions. CRA prepared temporary spaces for them then developed the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center and Japanese Village Plaza to move the Sun Building tenants there. Finally, they assembled the necessary land for a hotel and shopping center.

    Kajima induced 31 major Japanese firms to form East West Development Corporation to tackle the project. CRA chose EWDC to develop the hotel. Kajima Associates in Los Angeles and New York, the design arm of KII, and William B. Tabler Architects of New York, hotel design expert, designed the hotel. “The architect of record” who received the city permit was Hayahiko Takase by himself.

   New Otani Hotel’s 21 stories building with 434 guest rooms including 3 tatami-mat suites was completed in 1977. The feature of the hotel complex was the Japanese garden and the Thousand Crane Japanese restaurant on the third floor. The garden was a miniature half-acre version of its historical 400 year-old ten-acre garden in its flagship property, the Hotel New Otani in Tokyo. The Thousand Crane was one of a few restaurants which provided authentic Japanese cuisine in Los Angeles.

    At the initial stage, the Prince Hotel was the designated hotel operator, but that deal fell through.  Kajima Associates designed Weller Court next to the hotel afterward.

    It was Kajima’s idea to build a Japanese garden on the rooftop instead of Southern California’s ubiquitous hotel fixture of an outdoor pool.

    The New Otani Hotel and Weller Court has been used for many cultural and community events held there: the Nisei Week Awards Dinner, Nisei Week Pioneer Awards Banquet, and New Year’s Japanese culture program of “Oshogatsu in Little Tokyo.” At the entrance lounge, the display of Boys Day armaments on May and Girls Day dolls on March bring a taste of Japan not only hotel guests but also attendees of the Japanese American community events.

    “Everyone thought New Otani Hotel would be here forever,” Takase laments.

   Takeshi Nakayama is a free-lance journalist who lives in Walnut, California.