Caution is never a bad strategy, especially for the risk-averse.

But the big reward more often attends the big risk, and in the gushy press about the West’s newest tallest building (another feather for L.A.’s cap!) the risk being taken by owner Korean Air Lines wasn’t mentioned.

Its $1 billion building, rising 73 stories and 1,100 feet, encompasses upward of 1 million square feet. And because caution is never a bad strategy, the developer has hedged its bet in a downtown market that swells with 4.9 million vacant square feet – more than 16 percent of the office market. Korean Air divvied up the project into 900 badly needed hotel rooms and 365,000 square feet of perhaps less badly needed office space. And while that’s not a huge amount of inventory to come onto the market, consider that just 60,000 square feet was absorbed in the second quarter.

Add to that the high rates the tower is asking for its state-of-the-art space, the competition for tenants from Arts District creative space and renovated buildings in the Historic Core, and troubles back home, and one could be forgiven for thinking there were a lot of nervous people at Korean Air HQ.

But set aside for a moment the height of the building. If the building were 100 feet shorter, no one outside of the downtown real estate community would have paid attention to its topping out.

That Korean Air chose to plant its very tall flag in Los Angeles – and downtown in particular – is a commitment and vote of confidence in the city. It’s also an affirmation that L.A. really is, as New York Times restaurant critic Pete Wells referred to it last week in his first review foray outside of New York, the “easternmost city in Asia.” It’s also the northernmost city in Latin America, of course, and neither of those descriptions should be chafed at.

The region has always drawn risk-takers, those for whom caution was never a good strategy. And there’s a reason they keep coming.