Kyoto Grand Sells, Biography of the Thomas Guide

Image via Stephen Friday

LITTLE TOKYO: In April, the Kyoto Grand Hotel came out of a bankruptcywith plans to become a Doubletree. That change-up is still in the cards, but it'll happen under a new owner. A tipster sends in this from the subscription-only Real Estate Alert newsletter: "UBS Realty is paying $45 million for the Kyoto Grand Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. The price for the 434-room prop­erty translates into $104,000/unit. Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels is representing the seller, 3D Investments of Los Angeles. The transaction is scheduled to close this week. UBS plans to add a DoubleTree flag and bring in Rim Hospitality of Newport Beach, Calif., as the manager. Rim already manages several hotels in the area, including the Sheraton Downtown Los Angeles and the Sheraton Universal." [Curbed Inbox]

LOS ANGELES: Pre-iPhone, you pretty much never got into a Los Angeles car that didn't have a Thomas Guide in it. Now that the Guide is an artifact of a lost way of driving, The Daily traces the map book's rise and fall. It was perfectly situated to catch the wave of newcomers and car-drivers in mid-century LA, but didn't make a smooth transition into the GPS age. [The Daily, via LAObserved]