Ocean West buys Korea Times building in Park Mile for $22.7M

Korea Times building Los Angeles
From left: Korea Times CEO Jae Min Chang, Ocean West Capital Partners partner Russ Allegrette and the property at 4525 Wilshire

Santa Monica-based Ocean West Capital Partners nabbed a 75,948-square-foot office building in Park Mile earlier this week for $22.7 million, The Real Deal has exclusively learned.

It paid $300 a square foot to the seller, an LLC connected to Korea Times CEO Jae Min Chang, according to CoStar. 

The Korea Times, a daily Korean-language newspaper, has occupied the property for almost 20 years. It takes 47,653 feet of space in the building at 4525 Wilshire Boulevard, according to CoStar.

It is unknown what is planned for the low-rise building and how long the paper will stay. But if the past is any precursor, a creative office conversion could be in the works.

Ocean West has been actively investing in creative office projects in Los Angeles County, including its recent $35.2 million purchase of the building at 100 West Broadway Avenue in Long Beach with partner Singerman Real Estate. If the Wilshire property does, in fact, undergo a creative office conversion, it would be the first of its kind in the history of Park Mile, the area between the Miracle Mile and West Hollywood.

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The property is 90 percent leased, according to CoStar. Another major tenant is Radio Seoul.

Chris Houge and Owen Fileti of L.A. Realty Partners brokered the deal.

The brokers, Ocean West and the Korean Times could not be reached for comment.

Chang, a powerful figure in the South Korean media scene, runs the newspaper as well as Pako Realty Corp. He recently acquired a shopping center in New York from Emmut Properties for $26.5 million.