LA's new tallest, The Wilshire Grand

[Cord1936]

L.A.'s new tallest building is poised to become a lightsaber with massive LED displays





L.A.'s new tallest building is poised to become a lightsaber with massive LED displays
By Benjamin Oreskes, Los Angeles Times, June 24, 2017, 10:45AM

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-wilshire-grand-lights-20170624-htmlstory.html

[Tnexster]

That's really a nice looking tower.

[texasstar]

Are they counting that antenna in the building height?
If so, is it REALLY LA's tallest?

Yeah, the "spire" is 294 feet tall. So, this is a nice looking tower, but it's NOT the tallest building in Los Angeles.


source: SkyscraperPage.com

[I45Tex]

I got tired of the sneaky, "well technically it reaches a higher architectural height" and "no, antennas aren't allowed to count as spires" garbage ten or fifteen years ago and built my own database that's like a topographic map, but for highrise architecture. You can choose a tower and see its size above a certain height level, or its total cubic footage (square feet per height) on the skyline, so that you're comparing apples to apples.

If someone handy wants to help me by programming an interface where I can sum all the buildings on a skyline, so that a chart can overlap exactly one city's height on another's, let me know!

[I45Tex]

Since no one's responded to my substantive posts lately, I'll throw in some trivia. Wilshire Grand's spire has a purpose, yet it was not really to beat LA's existing tallest, but to ward off The Bay's new tallest. The new one in SF specifically has a 100-foot tiara to make it "officially" 1,070 feet, and because of this 1,100-foot pinnacle the SF press have been reduced to quibbling about highest occupiable floors. They claim 970' beats Los Angeles' US Bank Tower at 968' (which is even more silly -- even if Houston didn't still beat both of them by that measure).

[Tnexster]

The tower could easily stand on its own without that stupid needle on top to claim the tallest in LA or California or the west or whatever. That seems like a cheap way to make that claim.

[I45Tex]

This coming year is likely to see a veritable Top Ten of new tallests arriving at their final heights:

1121' - Philadelphia - Comcast Technology Center
1099' - Los Angeles - Wilshire Grand Center
1070' - San Francisco - Salesforce Tower
918' - Monterrey - Torre KOI
900' - Jersey City - 99 Hudson St.
877' - Mexico City - Torre Mitikah
868' - Miami - Panorama Tower
823' - Edmonton - Stantec Tower
810' - Calgary - Brookfield Place East
690' - Austin - the Independent

[tamtagon]

I cannot believe ATT is just going to sit back and watch Comcast break the 1100 threshold.

[Dbrock]

Beautiful building.

[cowboyeagle05]

I cannot believe ATT is just going to sit back and watch Comcast break the 1100 threshold.

Probably cause it won't really guarantee they win in the profit department. Like a douchy guy who stuffs his pants the guy who actually has the equipment will lock up the girl long term. I am quite proud AT&T has not decided to leave their existing campus for a flashy tower in Uptown. Now if they wanna keep the company in their old campus and put the top execs in a flashy new tower that Hillwood builds near Klyde Warren I'm satisfied as well. Just don't completely vacate their existing campus which I doubt would lease out well once emptied by a company like AT&T.

[I45Tex]

This coming year is likely to see a veritable Top Ten of new tallests arriving at their final heights:

1121' - Philadelphia - Comcast Technology Center
1099' - Los Angeles - Wilshire Grand Center
1070' - San Francisco - Salesforce Tower
918' - Monterrey - Torre KOI
900' - Jersey City - 99 Hudson St.
877' - Mexico City - Torre Mitikah
868' - Miami - Panorama Tower
823' - Edmonton - Stantec Tower
810' - Calgary - Brookfield Place East
690' - Austin - the Independent

If we use texasstar’s idea that spires don’t really count, Nashville’s new second-tallest would be on this list as their tallest, too. Meanwhile a new 800’ tallest for Michigan has now broken ground in Detroit, and plans are filed for this one in Oakland, CA: http://hoodline.com/2017/10/plans-unvei ... -structure

I don’t think a timeline is set for denial or approval of 600 Guadalupe, the larger new proposal in Austin.