nikkei center revealed (new renderings)
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This past Friday the City Council unanimously approved the selection of the Nikkei Center as development partner for the “Mangrove Parcel” at 1st and Alameda, the last large undeveloped plot of land left in Little Tokyo, reports Little Tokyo Unblogged.
The team is led by the Little Tokyo Service Center, Kaji & Associates, Urban Partners and the Jerde Partnership.
As we wrote back in March about the three proposals put forth for the parcel, Nikkei Center — which was selected in June by a Council committee — would include 390 units of rental housing (28% affordable), 80,000 square feet of retail, 166,500 square feet of office space and 1,286 parking spaces.
Following the Council’s action, details must still be worked out for the purchase of the city-owned land.
The Project Revealed
The development team relied on their past experience in developing large mixed-use projects in Japan and Southern California, including Tokyo’s Roppongi Hills, Riverwalk Kitakyushu and Canal City Hakata in Fukuoka, Japan.
New renderings made available to angelenic show a continuation of the bright, colorful and modern projects that have come to boost Japan’s major cities.
Still, questions remain about the project’s interaction with not only the new light rail station on Alameda, but its impact on the pedestrian experience along 1st Street. Retail and its effects on the perception of activity and safety must be taken into consideration. If a visitor’s first experience with the project is a blank, inactive wall, that affects the success of the project and neighborhood.
Case in point: While some residential projects in the area were built without ground-floor retail in order to lighten the competition with Little Tokyo’s existing mom-and-pop stores, that may be one contributing factor those same stores’ being pushed out in favor of national chains now.
Those involved with the Nikkei Center have expressed a strong desire to recruit Japanese-themed retail to the project.
What do you think? Let us know in the comments!
-mangrove parcel infill proposals would redefine little tokyo
-nikkei center plan selected for little tokyo’s mangrove parcel
Renderings made available courtesy the Little Tokyo Service Center.
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13 comments
I like little tokyo But they should do something like Ginza Tokyo not their ordinary little shopping centers
Agreed. Little Tokyo is more like “little-area-that-kind-of-has-some-Japanese-influences-but-is-severely-underwhelming-yo”
What is going to be in the round courtyard?
Thanks Rich. One minor correction — we’re hoping to make up to 28% of the units affordable. The affordability will be based on city/state/federal guidelines on household income as opposed to the “it’s-affordable-because-it’s-so-small” standard.
Seb: That’s a retail courtyard. Kind of like Wilshire/Vermont.
Ron: Thanks for the update! Great to hear that.
Does the world really need another updated 21st century overgrown mini-mall? The architects should be ashamed of themselves “designing” a center to maximize profit, and retail square footage while propping themselves up by being “28% affordable. After this project is complete everyone is applying to SOM in an effort to overbuild, and under whelm while maximizing profits.
cls: i really hope they make the most profit they possibly can out of this project. the more people it attracts the better for little tokyo and downtown. it has ground floor retail, an out door plaza and hopefully some bright shiny lights. what’s not to love?
cls what exactly is wrong with maximizing profit? Do we all not try to maximize our salaries at work and minimize our expenses?
If companies did not try to maximize their profit, they would go out of business. Then that plot would just remain an ampty field forever. What developer would want to do a project if they couldn’t maximize their profit? Duh.
Really? Hope none of you are architects. The architects job is to create livable spaces and communities in a large development like this. One does not have to look very far to find a failed community due to lack of concern for development. Perhaps you should look to downtown LA for a good example.
Cls
Developers always try and maximize profit, as they should. It’s the communities job to review the project and force the developer to go through several redesigns before green lighting it (often called NIMBYs in LA). It is the city’s task to create high standards and expectations.
Its up to lawyers to force the developer to adhere to rules and. Its up to the smart consumer to choose not to buy a subpar product from a subpar company. Those checks in balances constrain the developer to maximize profits while maintaining a high quality product. LA doesn’t have good checks and balances.
Don’t blame the developer. Some developers make complete crap projects in LA, then turn around and make a magnificent project in SF.
cls: what would you propose as an alternative then? underbuild, and overwhelm without investors. I do understand your critique about the development trend that is going on, but being that the city has to approve the project, the developers needed to approach this in a pragmatic way; And if there was no maximization of land and profits, I would suspect that the city would have rejected the proposal.
I agree with CLS. Why should the design be left up to the community? Architects are trained to produce quality design and many have ethical issues doing projects of this nature. Yes, everyone needs to profit from the project - but time, cost and quality cannot be maximized all at once. Not specific to this project - but architects and developers have an unwritten responsibility to the projects site and community. When profit is the main goal those issues are often times not a priority.
I hope the project is a success and adds to little tokyo and the artist district. The Savoy and Mira developments have done nothing to enhance this part of Downtown and I hope this development does not follow in their footsteps.
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