The crowning achievement on the Wilshire Grand project will be the Crown Sail and Spire that set atop the roof of the building. By any measure the crown sail and spire are a building unto themselves.

Typically, engineers place structures over rigid bases that are 10x stiffer than the structure above. This allows the structure to be designed as if on a rigid base. With the Wilshire Grand project, engineers set a stiff structure on top of a flexible one. This resulted in a sail and spire with very high seismic design requirements from upper mode effects produced by the supporting 73-story building. …

Project Description

The Wilshire Grand in downtown Los Angeles is a 73-story mixed-use office and hotel facility with a surrounding podium. The main tower will offer 900 guest rooms, 400,000 square feet of office space, and various restaurant and retail space. The top of the structure will feature restaurants, bars and a sky lobby overlooking the skyline. The surrounding podium structure will include additional retail and restaurant spaces for a bourgeoning resurgence of the surrounding area. The project achieves LEED Silver certification in the current eco-conscious setting. The new structure is located adjacent to the 7^th Street Metro Station, which is a connection point to much of the Los Angeles County rail system. …

The skies above downtown Los Angeles will see a new high rise office/hotel building by March of 2017. Rising out of a 90-foot deep excavation in the earth, the building will dominate the skyline of Los Angeles.

The Wilshire Grand project takes up an entire city block. The site is bounded by Wilshire Boulevard and Francisco to the north, and 7^th Street and Figueroa to the south. …