Grand Wilshire excitement

Lots and lots of coverage of the $1 billion office and hotel complex to be built downtown on the site of the Wilshire Grand. Korean Air Lines and Thomas Properties are behind the development, which, it should be noted, does not have financing. Demolition of the Wilshire Grand, which Korean Air has owned for many years, is set for 2011. At which point the credit markets will almost certainly have loosened up. Actually, this is a pretty good time to get all your development ducks in a row, though getting loans for a $1 billion project is never a sure thing, even in a decent economy. Curbed L.A. has a good roundup. From the LAT story:

Korean Air is the flagship company for Hanjin Group, which has $20 billion in annual revenue from its interests in land, sea and air transportation as well as construction, heavy industry, finance and information services.Hanjin's involvement raises the project to a new level, marking the first time that a South Korean developer has engaged in an endeavor of this magnitude. The move is particularly significant because the company is what South Koreans call a chaebol, one of the family-owned conglomerates that dominate the nation's economy.

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Plans for the project, announced Thursday, call for replacing the 1950s-era Wilshire Grand -- located at Figueroa Street and Wilshire Boulevard -- with a luxurious 40-story hotel with as many as 700 rooms and topped by several floors of condominiums. Next door would be an even taller building, a sleek 60-story tower with 1.1 million square feet of rentable office space. At ground level would be shops, a landscaped park and a public plaza. It would be the first major high-rise office building constructed in L.A. since 1992.