Silver Lake Man Drives Proposed Little Tokyo Center

For now,  it’s a parking lot and two abandoned buildings on Los Angeles Street, on the eastern side of downtown.

With four, maybe five, years and $22 million, it can be the cultural and recreational landmark that Bill Watanabe, the executive director of the Little Tokyo Service Center, hopes it can be.

Silver Lake Resident Is the Driving Force

Watanabe, a long-term Silver Lake resident, describes the proposed Budokan of Los Angeles as many things: “the center of our ethnic community,” a national martial arts tournament destination and the activities facility for a fast-changing and growing micro-neighborhood.

That neighborhood is Little Tokyo, three blocks square, but with ambitions considerably beyond its size, a place that can do extra duty as a history lesson as well as a recreation center.

In explaining this, Watanabe, the driving force behind of the Little Tokyo Service Center for 27 years, recalls the story of what was once Little Italy, a locale north of Chinatown now largely forgotten.

“We don’t want that to happen to Little Tokyo,” Watanabe said, “but to remind people that the Japanese-American community are not new immigrants who just came here and didn’t do anything, that we came here and have been a vital part of the building of Southern California.”

40,000 Square Feet

The multi-level center will be about 40,000 square feet, with space for four basketball courts, a martial arts venue, rooftop garden and walking paths, along with a multi-purpose community room and a restaurant.

The proposed site for the Budokan was donated by the city council in 2008. It was a major step forward for a project that has been in various stages of gestation for 18 years.

The service center had made unsuccessful bids for previous sites, but it now appears that its luck may be turning.

As well as the land donation, the proposed “Regional Connector” subway line would put the Budokan almost directly above the connection of three of LA’s light rail lines.

If the $1245 billion, 1.9 mile new route connecting the Gold Line to the Blue Line and future Expo Line is sited as proposed, it would put the Budokan at roughly the midpoint between a new underground Little Tokyo station, and a new stop at Second and Broadway.

Fund-Raising Comes First

The next step is an ambitious fund-raising program. Including a 150-space car park, the project will cost $22 million, of which Watanabe believes 75 per cent can be publicly funded.

Watanable estimates a time frame of 2 ½ years to raise the money, and 1 ½ years for construction, with an estimated completion date of 2015-2016.

“Having waited 18 years,” he said, “I just hope to be alive when it’s built.”

A previous version of this article put the cost of the "Regional Connector" subway line at $7.5 billion. As noted above it is actually $1.245 (in 2009 dollars) according to Metro.