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Wilshire Grand Center is a
skyscraper A skyscraper is a tall continuously habitable building having multiple floors. Modern sources currently define skyscrapers as being at least or in height, though there is no universally accepted definition. Skyscrapers are very tall high-ri ...
in the financial district of
downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business district ...
Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world ...
,
California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
, occupying the entire city block between
Wilshire Boulevard Wilshire Boulevard is a prominent boulevard in the Los Angeles area of Southern California, extending from Ocean Avenue in the city of Santa Monica east to Grand Avenue in the Financial District of downtown Los Angeles. One of the principal ...
and 7th,
Figueroa Figueroa ( gl, Figueiroa) is a Spanish surname of Galicians, Galician origin. Notable people with the surname include: *Álvaro de Figueroa, 1st Count of Romanones (1863–1950), Spanish politician, Prime Minister (1912-1918) *Amon Tobin (1972– ...
, and Francisco streets. Completed in 2017, it is the tallest building west of
Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...
. Its height surpasses L.A.'s
U.S. Bank Tower U.S. Bank Tower, known locally as the Library Tower and formerly as the First Interstate Bank World Center, is a skyscraper in downtown Los Angeles, California. It is, by structural height, the third-tallest building in California, the second ...
by . The Skyscraper Center lists the Wilshire Grand Center as the 15th-tallest building in the U.S. and the 95th-tallest in the world. It won the Structural Engineering Award 2019 Award of Excellence from the
Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) is an international body in the field of tall buildings and sustainable urban design. A non-profit organization based at the Monroe Building in the city of Chicago, Illinois, United States ...
. The building is part of a mixed-use hotel, retail, observation decks, shopping mall, and office complex. The development of the complex is estimated to cost $1.2 billion. The Wilshire Grand Center includes of retail, of Class A office space, and the 889-room InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown. The hotel features a 70th floor Sky Lobby, state-of-the-art fitness center, expansive pool deck and several restaurants including a high-end steakhouse and Spire 73 – the tallest open-air bar in the Western Hemisphere.


History

The original Wilshire Grand Hotel opened in 1952 as the Hotel Statler, on the site of the new Wilshire Grand. In 1950, the city of Los Angeles issued the largest single building permit at the time for the construction of the hotel, which cost over $15 million. The hotel quickly became a landmark of downtown Los Angeles, and over its 59-year lifespan attracted famous guests including President John F. Kennedy and
Pope John Paul II Pope John Paul II ( la, Ioannes Paulus II; it, Giovanni Paolo II; pl, Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła ; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his ...
. In 1954, two years after its opening,
Hilton Hotels & Resorts Hilton Hotels & Resorts (formerly known as Hilton Hotels) is a global brand of full-service hotels and resorts and the flagship brand of American multinational hospitality company Hilton. The original company was founded by Conrad Hilton. As ...
purchased the Statler Hotels chain, renaming the hotel the Statler Hilton in 1958. In 1968 Hilton completed a $2.5 million renovation of the hotel and renamed it the Los Angeles Hilton, and later the Los Angeles Hilton and Towers. Reliance Group later purchased the hotel in 1983 and invested $30 million in renovations.
Korean Air Korean Air Co., Ltd. (), operating as Korean Air (Korean Air Lines before 1984), is the flag carrier of South Korea and its largest airline based on fleet size, international destinations and international flights. The present-day Korean Air ...
purchased the Los Angeles Hilton from Reliance in 1989. They changed the hotel's management and it became the Omni Los Angeles Hotel in 1995 and then later the Wilshire Grand Hotel in 1999. Among the major events hosted, this included the 1952 Emmy Awards, the HQ for the 2000 Democratic National Convention and the 2006 Miss Universe Pageant. Seeking to revive the Wilshire Grand as a landmark and icon of Los Angeles, chairman and CEO Cho Yang-ho of
Hanjin Group The Hanjin Group () is a South Korean chaebol. The group has various industries covered from transportation and airlines to hotels, tourism, and airport businesses, and one of the largest chaebols in Korea. The group includes Korean Air (KAL) ...
conceived the idea of developing a new complex which would include the tallest building in Los Angeles, at . It is also part of an urban development effort to revitalize the Figueroa Street corridor of downtown Los Angeles as a vibrant light-and-sign district, similar to New York's
Times Square Times Square is a major commercial intersection, tourist destination, entertainment hub, and neighborhood in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It is formed by the junction of Broadway, Seventh Avenue, and 42nd Street. Together with adjacent ...
. The original hotel closed on December 31, 2011. Demolition of the original building began on October 23, 2012, and continued for over a year until November 21, 2013, when a bottoming-out ceremony was held in the excavated for the towers. File:315 Wilshire Grand.jpg, Wilshire Grand Hotel, 2006 File:Wilshire Grand demolition.jpg, Wilshire Grand Hotel demolition, 2013


Design

Originally envisioned as two towers, the taller of which would have been tall, the complex is now a single , 73-story tower consisting of the 889-room InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown hotel, retail, observation deck and office space. The Los Angeles–based architectural firm, A.C. Martin Partners, oversaw the project and prepared the current design. They took over from Thomas Properties, which managed the early proposals, but which was replaced when the owners became dissatisfied with their approach. A distinctive feature of the building is its sail-shaped crown which is illuminated with LED lighting at night. The tower will spearhead part of a new planned light and sign district that will extend along the Figueroa Corridor down to L.A. Live. According to recent renderings, it is unclear however to what extent LED lighting and advertising will be applied. Lead designer David C. Martin said that the spire and the entire exterior skin of the tower will be filled with programmable LED lighting. The spire weighs and adds in height to the building. The skyscraper is a distinctive part of the Los Angeles skyline, as it is the first building over 75 feet tall built since 1974 to not feature a "flat roof" design, an integral part of buildings in Los Angeles today. The pattern of buildings in Los Angeles to feature these "flat roofs" was the result of a 1974 fire ordinance which required all tall buildings in the city to include rooftop
helipad A helipad is a landing area or platform for helicopters and powered lift aircraft. While helicopters and powered lift aircraft are able to operate on a variety of relatively flat surfaces, a fabricated helipad provides a clearly marked hard ...
s in response to the devastating 1974
Joelma Fire ''Edifício Praça da Bandeira'', formerly known as the Joelma Building, is a 25-story building in downtown São Paulo, Brazil, completed in 1971, located at Avenida 9 de Julho, 225. On 1 February 1974, an air conditioning unit on the twelfth flo ...
in
São Paulo São Paulo (, ; Portuguese for ' Saint Paul') is the most populous city in Brazil, and is the capital of the state of São Paulo, the most populous and wealthiest Brazilian state, located in the country's Southeast Region. Listed by the GaW ...
,
Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
, in which helicopters could not be used to effect rescues from the rooftop of the building because of the lack of a landing spot, and could otherwise have prevented many deaths. The Wilshire Grand was granted an exception by the Los Angeles City Fire Department however, as the building includes advances in fire safety and building technology (such as a reinforced concrete central core) which exceeds the city's current fire code. The building nevertheless has a helipad, but it is smaller than the uniform standard used in the city, and, like all helipads, can only be used in emergencies. The helipad is still big enough for a smaller rescue or fire helicopter to land onto. The elevators in Wilshire Grand Center are supplied by
Otis Elevator Company Otis Worldwide Corporation ( branded as the Otis Elevator Company, its former legal name) is an American company that develops, manufactures and markets elevators, escalators, moving walkways, and related equipment. Based in Farmington, Connec ...
. The four double-deck express cars servicing the hotel's main lobby on the 70th floor travel at 1600 feet per minute.


Construction

Turner Construction received the contracts for both the demolition of the former hotel and the construction of the new tower. The latter began on February 15, 2014, with a record pour of concrete in just 20 hours, creating an base for what would become the tallest building west of the Mississippi. The foundation is set on
bedrock In geology, bedrock is solid rock that lies under loose material ( regolith) within the crust of Earth or another terrestrial planet. Definition Bedrock is the solid rock that underlies looser surface material. An exposed portion of be ...
known as the
Fernando Formation The Fernando Formation is a Plio-Pleistocene marine mudstone, siltstone and sandstone formation in the greater Los Angeles Basin, Ventura Basin, and Santa Monica Mountains, in Los Angeles County of Southern California. Geology Outcrops of the ...
; this
siltstone Siltstone, also known as aleurolite, is a clastic sedimentary rock that is composed mostly of silt. It is a form of mudrock with a low clay mineral content, which can be distinguished from shale by its lack of fissility.Blatt ''et al.'' 1980, ...
has been compressed by an ocean that formerly covered the area and is a good base for a building. More than 12,500 m2 of interior dimension stone and 8,500 m2 exterior stone cladding and paving were used on the project. The sourcing, production, QA/QC and expediting of the stone was carried out by Ramsey Stone Consultants on behalf of Turner Construction. On March 8, 2016, the
topping out In building construction, topping out (sometimes referred to as topping off) is a builders' rite traditionally held when the last beam (or its equivalent) is placed atop a structure during its construction. Nowadays, the ceremony is often parlaye ...
ceremony was held. On March 17, 2016, a construction worker died by suicide after jumping from the 53rd floor, landing on a vehicle below. On September 3, 2016, the Wilshire Grand became the tallest building in Los Angeles at 1,100 feet. The
supertall A supertall building is an occupied "supertall" structure higher than and beneath . A form of skyscraper, it falls midway between a common minimum definition of "skyscraper" (a building taller ) and a " megatall" building (taller than ). Diff ...
building opened on June 23, 2017. The building, while recognized as "tallest" in the city by the
Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) is an international body in the field of tall buildings and sustainable urban design. A non-profit organization based at the Monroe Building in the city of Chicago, Illinois, United States ...
, achieves this recognition through the height of its decorative sail and spire rather than highest occupiable floor space. From the ground, due to local topography, the Wilshire Grand sits visibly lower than other surrounding buildings. From the vantage of the building's 73rd floor observation deck, the
US Bank Tower U.S. Bank Tower, known locally as the Library Tower and formerly as the First Interstate Bank World Center, is a skyscraper in downtown Los Angeles, California. It is, by structural height, the third-tallest building in California, the second ...
is markedly higher in elevation, and remains downtown Los Angeles' most prominent visual landmark.


Ownership

The building is owned by the
Hanjin The Hanjin Group () is a South Korean chaebol. The group has various industries covered from transportation and airlines to hotels, tourism, and airport businesses, and one of the largest chaebols in Korea. The group includes Korean Air (KAL) ...
Group (through its subsidiary Hanjin International), a South Korean conglomerate that also owns
Korean Air Korean Air Co., Ltd. (), operating as Korean Air (Korean Air Lines before 1984), is the flag carrier of South Korea and its largest airline based on fleet size, international destinations and international flights. The present-day Korean Air ...
. In 2020, Hanjin negotiated a refinancing of the building's debt ($900 million), which came with the condition of paving the way to sell the building further down the road. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the value of the building dropped from $1.1 billion to $573 million. From 2011 to 2017, Hanjin got a 60-million tax break from the city of Los Angeles.Elijah Chiland
City gives developer of Wilshire Grand—LA’s tallest skyscraper—$60M in tax breaks
''La.curbed.com'', 1 March 2017


Floor plans

*Floors basement to 7: Podium building with retail and InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown meeting rooms, gym, and pool. *Floors 11 to 29: Offices *Floors 31 to 68: InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown - hotel rooms *Floor 69: InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown - restaurants - Sora & Dekkadance *Floor 70: InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown - main lobby and Sky Bar *Floor 71: InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown - restaurant - La Boucherie *Floor 73: InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown - Spire 73, the tallest open-air bar in the Western Hemisphere


Notes


References


External links

* * {{Supertall skyscrapers , under-construction Buildings and structures in Downtown Los Angeles Skyscrapers in Los Angeles Hotels in Los Angeles Office buildings in Los Angeles Wilshire Boulevard Metamodernism Neomodern architecture InterContinental hotels 2017 establishments in California Hotel buildings completed in 2017 Office buildings completed in 2017