Sometime in October, deconstruction of the historic Wilshire Grand Hotel in downtown Los Angeles took off. On Thursday, Feb 7, 2013, architects revealed plans of a brand new building that will replace the Wilshire Grand Hotel. The building will be called Wilshire Grand Tower and will be the tallest commercial skyscraper in town.
The building is jointly being developed by AC Martin, a prominent architecture firm in Los Angeles and Hanjin Group, the owner of Korean Air. The $1 billion project is coming up at 930 Wilshire Boulevard, at the crossing of Figueroa Street in the Financial District of Los Angeles, reports DTLA Rising.
The Wilshire Grand Tower will be100 feet taller than the U.S. Bank towers, which is currently the tallest building in the area.
The tower will stand at a height of 1,100 feet with 73 floors. The building will feature a unique sail-shaped structure that will feature LED advertisements on the upper levels and the lower podium. It will also have state-of-the-art security and fire-safety systems. The building will sport hardened elevators that will function for four hours even when there is a fire, reports LA Times.
A 900 room luxury hotel will occupy the upper level of the building. Below the hotel space, around 400,000 square feet area will be claimed by corporate offices while another 45,000 square feet area at the base will home commercial stores. A sky-lobby will also exist on the seventieth floor of the building, reports LA Downtown News
Take a look at the demolition pictures of Wilshire Grand Hotel. Construction on the building will start soon. The structure is slated to be completed by the end of 2016.
"The new Wilshire Grand is an investment that makes sense and we are excited to continue our relationship with this great city," Y.H. Cho, Chairman of Korean Air told LA Times.
