Downtown Los Angeles hotel Kyoto Grand sold

The Kyoto Grand Hotel and Gardens in downtown Los Angeles has been acquired by UBS Realty Investors and is expected to be reflagged as a DoubleTree hotel.

The 21-story tower with 434 rooms at Los Angeles and First streets was sold by 3D Investments of Los Angeles, said real estate broker John Strauss of Jones Lang LaSalle. He declined to disclose details including the price, but industry newsletter Real Estate Alert said UBS paid $45 million.

Hotel business in the area has improved since the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels opened last year at LA Live, Strauss said. “Downtown has become one of the most dynamic submarkets in the greater L.A. basin.”

The Kyoto Grand, completed in 1977 and formerly known as the New Otani Hotel & Garden, has been a cultural anchor of Little Tokyo for decades and a destination for Japanese tourists.

Expected to take over management of the hotel is Newport Beach-based Rim Hospitalities, manager of the Marriott Los Angeles and the Sheraton Los Angeles, both also in downtown.

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-- Roger Vincent

Photo: Upstairs garden at the Kyoto Grand. Credit: Kyoto Grand Hotel and Gardens

Podcast: Steve Jobs, Unemployment and Patriotic Spending

The death of Steve Jobs has set off a global outpouring of tributes rarely seen for a business figure. What made him so special?

John Markoff and Steve Lohr, two veteran reporters, covered him for many years, and both knew him well. In the new Weekend Business podcast, they describe him as singularly passionate and focused, a leader who demanded dedication from those around him and would not tolerate mediocrity. He thought of himself as a “technology leader,” says Mr. Markoff, who wrote Mr. Jobs’s obituary for The Times. While Mr. Jobs was not a computer programmer or a designer in the formal sense, he was superb in guiding others and in imagining and shaping projects, Mr. Lohr says, elaborating on arguments he makes in a column in Sunday Business.

The unemployment rate remained at 9.1 percent in September, according to the Labor Department report on Friday, with too few jobs produced to budge that rate, as Motoko Rich says in a separate conversation in the podcast. The Economic Cycle Research Institute is forecasting a new recession, the focus of my Strategies column in Sunday Business, but Ms. Rich says that the latest jobs report suggests that while the economy is weak, it’s not contracting at the moment.

Richard Thaler, the University of Chicago economist, says fear and anxiety have caused many corporations and individuals to hold back on spending. He advocates “self-interested patriotism,” that is, carefully planned spending on labor-intensive projects by businesses and people who can afford to do so. Mr. Thaler elaborates on this approach in the Economic View column in Sunday Business.

And David Gillen and David Segal discuss the filming of food commercials, the subject of Mr. Segal’s cover article in Sunday Business.

You can find specific segments of the podcast at these junctures: Steve Lohr and John Markoff on Steve Jobs (31:12); news headlines and Motoko Rich on unemployment (20:57); David Segal on food commercials (14:57); Richard Thaler (6:54); the week ahead (1:20).

You can download the program by subscribing from The New York Times’s podcast page or directly from iTunes.

Universal Studios Hollywood gets made up for Halloween

 

John Murdy, the creative director for Universal Studios Hollywood, says he will continue to push the boundaries of gore and horror for this year's annual Halloween Horror Nights.

Click here to read about how Latino myths and legends such as La Llorona have come to life at theme parks in Southern California and Florida, ghost tours in San Antonio and in mask retail outlets across the country.

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Universal Studios Hollywood unveils mazes for Halloween Horror Nights 2011

Knott's Berry Farm already preparing for Halloween Haunt 2011

Save the candy for dessert: Kid-friendly Halloween recipes

Video by Times video journalist Jeff Amlotte

 

Consumer credit dives $9.5 billion in August

Americans trying to shake off their debt caused the worst drop in consumer credit in more than a year.

The unpredictable economy had people shunning credit cards and paying off cars and student loans, according to a report Friday from the Federal Reserve. Consumer credit swung down $9.5 billion in August, the first decline since September 2010 and the worst since April 2010.

The month before, credit levels saw an $11.9-billion increase.

Revolving credit, associated mostly with credit cards, tumbled for the second month in a row, down $2.2 billion. Non-revolving credit, linked to borrowing for school and auto purchases, slipped $7.3 billion.

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Credit-card delinquencies tumble

Survey ranks Capital One and BofA tops in credit-card disclosures

-- Tiffany Hsu

Photo: MasterCard credit cards. Credit: Jonathan Bainbridge / Reuters.

Consumer Confidential: Shoplifting on rise, Google scam, rotary engines

Here's your full-frontal Friday roundup of consumer news from around the Web:

-- Consumer spending may be on the ropes, but not shoplifting. The retail Industry Leaders Assn. says there's been an increase this year in thefts from retail stores and pharmacies. It blames a growing black market for stolen goods in these troubled economic times. More than half of retailers surveyed by the organization said shoplifting by individuals and organized bands of thieves is on the rise. Nearly two-thirds said they see their stuff being resold on the Internet. An association official says the group is disappointed but not surprised by the increase in five-finger discounts.

-- Speaking of theft, there's a new scam online targeting cyber-merchants. The email appears to have been sent by Google asking AdWords users to update their payment information. It provides a link to an official-looking page where you can resubmit your name, address and credit card number. Needless to say, the email isn't really from Google. It's from scammers that want to go on a shopping spree with your plastic. AdWords is one of Google's online advertising services. According to Google's actual AdWords support page: "Please remember that Google's AdWords team will never send an unsolicited message asking for you to provide your password or other sensitive information by email or through a link."

-- It used to be that the big selling point for Mazda vehicles was the rotary engine, which commercials told us was better than those clunky piston engines. But the days of the rotary engine are ending. Mazda will stop making cars with its signature rotary engines after a 45-year production run. Poor sales and the high costs of meeting modern emissions standards have made rotary engines uneconomical to produce. The Japanese automaker introduced its first rotary engine car in 1967 and is the only automaker in the world that makes rotary engine vehicles. Such engines have fewer moving parts and are quieter than comparable piston engines but are more expensive to manufacture and consume more fuel.

-- David Lazarus

Photo: Retailers say they're being overrun by shoplifters. Credit: Joe Raedle / Getty Images

 

Urth Caffe to open premium coffee tasting bar

The newest project from local chain Urth Caffe may involve delicate flavors, stringent growing pedigrees and flights of tastings, but don’t confuse it with an upscale wine bar.

It’ll be a premium coffee tasting spot opening in less than two months next to the Urth location in downtown Los Angeles. The brick-walled space still has about two weeks of construction and then a few weeks of fine-tuning, said co-owner Shallom Berkman.

Customers will be able to try heirloom, organic coffees unavailable among the blends served in the cafes. Berkman said he spends much of his time in Uganda, finding coffees grown on old, wild tree varieties.

State-of-the-art equipment -- specialty espresso machines, a giant 60-year-old German Probat roaster with a cast-iron drum, a single-serving roaster and six grinders –- will help create fluffy, foamy espressos and other limited drinks.

The majority of the space will be used by six staff members roasting coffee to send to the three other Urth cafes -– the chain goes through 100,000 pounds a year. Customers can watch the process from a long bar along the front and a small space set aside for tables.

Drink options will include, for example, a flight of espressos featuring different preparation methods such as siphons, pour-overs and French presses.

Urth launched in 1989 in Manhattan Beach and served only coffee for eight years, before customer pressure led Berkman and his wife to begin offering food.

“This is getting back to our roots,” he said. “It’s a dream come true -– I’ll be able to hang out with the customers and talk about coffee.”

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-- Tiffany Hsu

Photo: Exterior of the Urth Caffe on Melrose Avenue in West Hollywood. Credit: Ken Hively / Los Angeles Times

Wall Street: Jobs report helps stocks rise

Gold: Trading now at $1,651 an ounce, down 0.1% from Thursday. Dow Jones industrial average: Trading now at 11,213.39, up 0.8% from Thursday.

Jobs and stocks. The jobs report this morning did not paint a pretty picture, but it had some good headline numbers that appeared to be enough to help send stocks up again.

Big leak. A leaked version of the so-called Volcker rule -- designed to stop proprietary trading on Wall Street -- has sent law firms and regulators and bankers into a tizzy.

Romney rising. With New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie ruling out a presidential run, Mitt Romney is picking up new Wall Street names to add to his already big lead on the street.

OccuPie Wall Street. A pizza shop near that Wall Street protests has been raking it in with a $15 pepperoni-heavy OccuPie pizza -- though the owner of the shop is warning that he is not taking sides. 

-- Nathaniel Popper in New York
Twitter.com/nathanielpopper

Photo credit: Stan Honda / Getty Images

Back to School, With Fewer Teachers

On Thursday I called attention to the question of how many teachers returned to work this fall. The answer seems to be: Not that many.

FLOYD NORRIS

Notions on high and low finance.

According to the monthly labor report issued today, the number of education employees in state and local governments rose by 1.12 million in September, compared to 1.16 million last September. That is the smallest increase since 2003. It is 12 percent below the peak gain, registered in 2006. (These figures are, of course, before seasonal adjustment.)

Notions on high and low finance.

The number may be revised next month, of course, and since the figures are for the week after Labor Day, there are a few schools that were not back in session yet. There are typically small gains in October as well.

But make no mistake: School budgets are hurting. This ought to sound alarm bells in Washington.

City Hall Woes on the Jobs Front

Time was that government jobs were supposed to be safe.

Never mind.

FLOYD NORRIS

Notions on high and low finance.

Today’s jobs report shows that the number of jobs in state and local government is down 3.3 percent from the peak reached in August 2008, the month before Lehman Brothers failed. (These numbers are after seasonal adjustment.)

Notions on high and low finance.

That is the largest decline in such jobs registered since the Korean War, exceeding the fall during the early 1980s. The following chart shows the two downturns.

What is remarkable about the current decline has been its relentlessness. There is an occasional one-month bounce — there was one in August — but that is probably more a reflection of poor seasonal adjustments than of actual hiring.

The early 1980s fall was more rapid, but the number of state and local government jobs hit bottom in July 1982, four months before the official end of the recession, and began to recover. The 2007-9 recession ended two years ago, but you can’t see any evidence of that in this chart.

Economy adds 103,000 jobs but jobless rate remains at 9.1%

Hiring picked up a bit in September as employers added 103,000 jobs over the month, the government said Friday in a report that’s likely to ease fears that the economy is hurtling toward another recession.

But the job growth wasn’t strong enough to lower the unemployment rate, which remained stuck at 9.1% for the third straight month. What’s more, manufacturing payrolls shrank, and government continued its sharp cutbacks.

Still, the latest statistics provided some encouraging signs. The Labor Department said the average workweek for all private-sector workers edged up in September. And statisticians said employers in August added 57,000 jobs, not zero as previously reported, and July’s job count was also revised up to 127,000 from 85,000 initially reported.

In all, that puts the third quarter’s average monthly job growth at 96,000 jobs -– still not enough to keep up with the population growth and bring down the unemployment rate. Job growth averaged 166,000 a month in the first quarter of this year.

The September jobs were partially inflated by the return to work of striking Verizon workers, just as their temporary absence from their jobs lowered the August job numbers. Apart from that, professional and business services led the industries in job growth by adding 48,000 to their payrolls last month. Healthcare employment rose by 44,000, and the long-declining construction sector added an unexpectedly large 26,000 jobs over the month.

The ranks of the unemployed, however, remained at about 14 million. And about 45% of these workers last month said they had been without jobs for six months or more.

Also, the number of part-time workers who want full-time hours rose sharply over the month, to 9.3 million, from 8.8 million in August. Including these workers and those who have quit looking because they don’t see hope of getting hired, the percent of unemployed and underemployed in the U.S. rose to 16.5% in September, up from 16.2% in the prior month.

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September retail sales rise a solid 5.1%, beating expectations

-- Don Lee

Photo: A sign greets job seekers during a job fair at a Goodwiill store in Atlanta. Credit: Associated Press

From Kindergarten to College Completion

Judith Scott-Clayton is an assistant professor at Teachers College, Columbia University.

A report released last week has drawn new attention to low degree-completion rates among college entrants, particularly among those who never attend full time. The organization that published the report, Complete College America, seeks to rally policy makers around the goal of substantially increasing completion rates by 2020.

Today’s Economist

Perspectives from expert contributors.

But here’s a question: if we want to increase college completions over the longer term, is it more cost-effective to direct resources to college students or to preschoolers and kindergarteners?

Perspectives from expert contributors.

The influential economist and Nobel laureate James Heckman, among others, has asserted that early educational investments have the highest return, because of the cumulative nature of skill development (“skill begets skill”). By the time a high school student is on the verge of college (or an older worker is considering returning to school), this argument goes, it may be too expensive to try to fix skill deficiencies that trace back decades.

Yet the federal government continues to invest far more in higher education than in early childhood programs (see chart). For example, the Pell Grant program received more than $28 billion in 2009, compared with less than $10 billion for Head Start.

A new study presented last week at a Federal Reserve Bank conference on education and employment adds to the growing body of evidence that early educational experiences can affect outcomes in college and beyond. (Note: Susan Dynarski, one of the study’s co-authors, was my doctoral adviser.) The study found that kindergarteners randomly assigned to smaller classes through the Project Star experiment were 2.7 percentage points more likely to enroll in college and 1.6 percentage points more likely to complete a degree by age 30.

While the magnitude of these effects may sound modest, they are statistically and substantively significant compared with the control group’s attendance rate (38 percent) and degree completion rate (15 percent). And the effects were much larger among minorities and at-risk students.

Previous experimental and quasi-experimental studies have found large effects of both the Abecedarian and Perry Preschool programs and the Head Start program on college enrollments. A consistent and fascinating pattern in all of these studies is that early effects on test scores tend to fade over time, only to re-emerge as effects on college-going and other adult outcomes.

When it comes to cost-effectiveness, however, the new study challenges the theory that early investments are always better. The 33 percent reduction in class size evaluated by the Project Star experiment was not cheap, and the authors estimate that it cost more than $400,000 per additional student induced to attend college as a result of program participation (calculated by dividing the $12,000 per-student cost of the program by the estimated college impact of 0.027).

Using impact estimates from other studies, the researchers calculate that programs aimed at individuals on the brink of college have the biggest bang for the buck — if the goal is college attainment.

For example, a recent experiment that randomly selected people to receive assistance with completing and submitting a federal financial aid application found that this assistance, which cost only $88 per participant, increased college enrollments by seven percentage points.

An enormous caveat to this analysis is that good early childhood programs have been shown to improve a host of outcomes even for those who never attend college, including childhood health and mortality. Moreover, scholarship programs and financial aid application assistance may work only to the extent that there is a pool of people who can benefit from college but aren’t already enrolled — so their current cost-benefit ratios may not be infinitely scalable.

Finally, some interventions at the college level may increase attainment simply by handing out more degrees rather than by fundamentally increasing skills (an extreme example of this is a new effort to locate and award degrees to former students who earned enough credits but never asked for their diplomas).

Based on both theory and evidence, it is hard to argue that we’re not underinvesting in early childhood education. Even policy makers who care only about college completion rates should be looking for promising interventions in the earliest years of life.

But that’s no reason to write off later interventions. There appear to be opportunities for cost-effective investment all along the educational continuum.