{"id":19182,"date":"2018-11-12T18:04:42","date_gmt":"2018-11-12T15:04:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.commercialcafe.com\/blog\/?p=19182"},"modified":"2025-03-25T14:41:08","modified_gmt":"2025-03-25T11:41:08","slug":"office-building-week-wilshire-grand-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.commercialcafe.com\/blog\/office-building-week-wilshire-grand-center\/","title":{"rendered":"Office Building of the Week – Wilshire Grand Center"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"WilshireWilshire Grand Center, Los Angeles (courtesy of Yardi Matrix)<\/span><\/a><\/div>
\"WilshireWilshire Grand Center, Los Angeles (courtesy of Yardi Matrix)<\/span><\/a><\/div><\/div>
<\/span><\/span><\/div>
<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n

\"Quick<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/h2>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Wilshire Grand Center<\/a> has become a prominent feature of the Downtown LA skyline, but many people aren\u2019t aware of its record-breaking height and noteworthy construction. Upon its completion in 2017, it became the 11th<\/sup> tallest building in all the United States and the tallest west of the Mississippi River (including of course being the tallest in California).<\/p>\n

Although it enjoys the title of tallest building in Los Angeles, the Wilshire Grand Center has received this recognition not through its highest rentable floor space but because of a unique feature. The decorative sail and spire located at the top of the edifice is what makes it the tallest construction in LA\u2014and this is quite a rare sight in the city\u2019s otherwise homogeneous skyline, governed by flat roofs throughout.<\/p>\n

This architectural trend which dictates the exact style of buildings in Downtown Los Angeles<\/a> exists largely due to practical reasons. After a devastating 1974 fire in Sao Paolo, Brazil, which claimed many lives because helicopters could not land on the buildings\u2019 rooftops due to lack of landing strips, the LA City Fire Department ordered for all developments to have flat roofs to avoid such a tragedy. The Wilshire Grand Center is only exempt from this rule because of the advanced technology it uses regarding fire safety, thus making it stand out from the crowd of flat-roofed skyscrapers with its decorative sail and spire.<\/p>\n

The ancestor of the Wilshire Grand Center was the Hotel Statler, built in 1952. At the time the building permit was issued it was the largest in all of Los Angeles<\/a> and upon its completion became a landmark of the downtown core. During its long lifespan it was sold thrice to some of the biggest corporations in the industry, firstly to Hilton Hotels & Resorts in 1954 and then to Reliance Group in 1983. In 1989 the building, then known as the Los Angeles Hilton, was purchased by Korean Air, changing the hotel\u2019s management and ultimately renaming it as the Wilshire Grand Center in 1999.<\/p>\n

After the CEO and chairman of Korean Air decided to do a complete redesign of the iconic building, it was totally deconstructed between October 2012 and November 2013. This idea was in line with the city\u2019s efforts to revive Downtown LA\u2019s Figueroa Street corridor and develop it similarly to New York\u2019s iconic Times Square<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The official deconstruction ceremony was held on the 21st<\/sup> of November 2003 and the construction of the brand new Wilshire Grand Center can be said to have begun from that date. Early proposals made by Thomas Properties envisioned the building as having two towers instead of one, but since the firm\u2019s approach didn\u2019t exactly impress the owners, the entire project was overtaken by AC Martin Partners.<\/p>\n

The 1,100-foot, 73-story landmark was completed on the 23rd June 2017. It boasts 1,500,005 square feet of total floor area, made up of 67,000 square feet of retail, 677,000 square feet of Class A office space and 756,005 square feet used as a hotel. The entire project cost $1.2 billion dollars. The building\u2019s sail-shaped crown is illuminated at night by vibrant LED lights, in line with the city\u2019s plan to transform Figueroa Street into a vivid light-and-sign district, to further emphasize the emblematic style of Downtown Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

The Wilshire Grand Center currently houses a handful of diverse institutions, including retail outlets, a shopping mall, observation decks, a large office complex and the InterContinental Hotel with 900 rooms and suites.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  The Wilshire Grand Center has become a prominent feature of the Downtown LA skyline, but many people aren\u2019t aware of its record-breaking height and noteworthy construction. Upon its completion in 2017, it became the 11th tallest building in all the United States and the tallest west of the Mississippi River (including of course being…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":276,"featured_media":19391,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[37,39,2547],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commercial-real-estate-news","category-office","category-resources","wpautop"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nOffice Building of the Week - Wilshire Grand Center - CommercialCafe<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Wilshire Grand Center has become a prominent feature of the Downtown LA skyline, but many people aren\u2019t aware of its record-breaking height.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.commercialcafe.com\/blog\/office-building-week-wilshire-grand-center\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Office Building of the Week - Wilshire Grand Center\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Wilshire Grand Center has become a prominent feature of the Downtown LA skyline, but many people aren\u2019t aware of its record-breaking height.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.commercialcafe.com\/blog\/office-building-week-wilshire-grand-center\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"CommercialCafe\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-11-12T15:04:42+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-03-25T11:41:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.commercialcafe.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/LA-Wilshire-Grand.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1280\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"500\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Adrienn Takacs\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Adrienn Takacs\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.commercialcafe.com\/blog\/office-building-week-wilshire-grand-center\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.commercialcafe.com\/blog\/office-building-week-wilshire-grand-center\/\",\"name\":\"Office Building of the Week - Wilshire Grand Center - CommercialCafe\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.commercialcafe.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.commercialcafe.com\/blog\/office-building-week-wilshire-grand-center\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.commercialcafe.com\/blog\/office-building-week-wilshire-grand-center\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.commercialcafe.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/LA-Wilshire-Grand.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-11-12T15:04:42+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-03-25T11:41:08+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.commercialcafe.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/c6c0419cc8cfffae1a7979fa9532e0e9\"},\"description\":\"The Wilshire Grand Center has become a prominent feature of the Downtown LA skyline, but many people aren\u2019t aware of its record-breaking height.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.commercialcafe.com\/blog\/office-building-week-wilshire-grand-center\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.commercialcafe.com\/blog\/office-building-week-wilshire-grand-center\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.commercialcafe.com\/blog\/office-building-week-wilshire-grand-center\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.commercialcafe.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/LA-Wilshire-Grand.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.commercialcafe.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/LA-Wilshire-Grand.jpg\",\"width\":1280,\"height\":500},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.commercialcafe.com\/blog\/office-building-week-wilshire-grand-center\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.commercialcafe.com\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Office Building of the Week – Wilshire Grand Center\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.commercialcafe.com\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.commercialcafe.com\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"CommercialCafe\",\"description\":\"Your Commercial Real Estate Blog\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.commercialcafe.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.commercialcafe.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/c6c0419cc8cfffae1a7979fa9532e0e9\",\"name\":\"Adrienn Takacs\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.commercialcafe.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/51cf1c4deab437280ada2d37c92d21a40aaf3be37a029fa8809af8d9520ffec1?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/51cf1c4deab437280ada2d37c92d21a40aaf3be37a029fa8809af8d9520ffec1?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Adrienn Takacs\"},\"description\":\"Adrienn is a writer with a background in tourism that includes maintaining her own travel blog, writing for online publications and carrying out social media management for local businesses. She has over 4 years\u2019 experience in writing about residential and commercial real estate trends in the USA and Canada for Point2 and CommercialCafe, and has a particularly strong interest in environmentally friendly home design. Adrienn can be reached at prinfo@commercialcafe.com\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.commercialcafe.com\/blog\/author\/adrienne\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Office Building of the Week - Wilshire Grand Center - CommercialCafe","description":"The Wilshire Grand Center has become a prominent feature of the Downtown LA skyline, but many people aren\u2019t aware of its record-breaking height.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.commercialcafe.com\/blog\/office-building-week-wilshire-grand-center\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Office Building of the Week - Wilshire Grand Center","og_description":"The Wilshire Grand Center has become a prominent feature of the Downtown LA skyline, but many people aren\u2019t aware of its record-breaking height.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.commercialcafe.com\/blog\/office-building-week-wilshire-grand-center\/","og_site_name":"CommercialCafe","article_published_time":"2018-11-12T15:04:42+00:00","article_modified_time":"2025-03-25T11:41:08+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1280,"height":500,"url":"https:\/\/www.commercialcafe.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/LA-Wilshire-Grand.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Adrienn Takacs","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Adrienn Takacs","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.commercialcafe.com\/blog\/office-building-week-wilshire-grand-center\/","url":"https:\/\/www.commercialcafe.com\/blog\/office-building-week-wilshire-grand-center\/","name":"Office Building of the Week - Wilshire Grand Center - CommercialCafe","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.commercialcafe.com\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.commercialcafe.com\/blog\/office-building-week-wilshire-grand-center\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.commercialcafe.com\/blog\/office-building-week-wilshire-grand-center\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.commercialcafe.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/LA-Wilshire-Grand.jpg","datePublished":"2018-11-12T15:04:42+00:00","dateModified":"2025-03-25T11:41:08+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.commercialcafe.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/c6c0419cc8cfffae1a7979fa9532e0e9"},"description":"The Wilshire Grand Center has become a prominent feature of the Downtown LA skyline, but many people aren\u2019t aware of its record-breaking height.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.commercialcafe.com\/blog\/office-building-week-wilshire-grand-center\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.commercialcafe.com\/blog\/office-building-week-wilshire-grand-center\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.commercialcafe.com\/blog\/office-building-week-wilshire-grand-center\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.commercialcafe.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/LA-Wilshire-Grand.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.commercialcafe.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/LA-Wilshire-Grand.jpg","width":1280,"height":500},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.commercialcafe.com\/blog\/office-building-week-wilshire-grand-center\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.commercialcafe.com\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Office Building of the Week – Wilshire Grand Center"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.commercialcafe.com\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.commercialcafe.com\/blog\/","name":"CommercialCafe","description":"Your Commercial Real Estate Blog","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.commercialcafe.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.commercialcafe.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/c6c0419cc8cfffae1a7979fa9532e0e9","name":"Adrienn Takacs","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.commercialcafe.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/51cf1c4deab437280ada2d37c92d21a40aaf3be37a029fa8809af8d9520ffec1?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/51cf1c4deab437280ada2d37c92d21a40aaf3be37a029fa8809af8d9520ffec1?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Adrienn Takacs"},"description":"Adrienn is a writer with a background in tourism that includes maintaining her own travel blog, writing for online publications and carrying out social media management for local businesses. She has over 4 years\u2019 experience in writing about residential and commercial real estate trends in the USA and Canada for Point2 and CommercialCafe, and has a particularly strong interest in environmentally friendly home design. Adrienn can be reached at prinfo@commercialcafe.com","url":"https:\/\/www.commercialcafe.com\/blog\/author\/adrienne\/"}]}},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.commercialcafe.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/LA-Wilshire-Grand.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.commercialcafe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.commercialcafe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.commercialcafe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.commercialcafe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/276"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.commercialcafe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19182"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.commercialcafe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19182\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24249,"href":"https:\/\/www.commercialcafe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19182\/revisions\/24249"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.commercialcafe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.commercialcafe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.commercialcafe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.commercialcafe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}