LOS ANGELES | Downtown Project Rundown 6.0

[bzcat]

Originally Posted by bobcat

Wow, what a beast! Wonder how accurate the rendering is considering the TCW building is 517ft. That would make it ~900ft?

I sure hope the rending is accurate scale

I remember years ago when JW Marriott went up and I thought to myself - boy that building is tall... Now it is one of the shortest new-ish building in South Park.

[Blesha13]

Reminds me of a futuristic Aon building

[sopas ej]

Originally Posted by Quixote

I like it a lot. The podium is unfortunate, but not an abomination like it is with Circa. The number of parking spaces is somewhat reasonable given the specs.

I like it a lot too, but I'm kinda wishing they'd rethink the color. Blue-gray glass boxes seem to be all the rage for South Park; it'd be nice to have more architectural variety in that part of downtown.

[King Kill 'em]

Originally Posted by sopas ej

I like it a lot too, but I'm kinda wishing they'd rethink the color. Blue-gray glass boxes seem to be all the rage for South Park; it'd be nice to have more architectural variety in that part of downtown.

Too bad no postmodern office towers were built further south than TCW in the 80s and 90s.

[Illithid Dude]

What I don't like about this tower is how it relates to the Hotel Figueroa. The tower simply exists next to it, not making any effort to relate to the large blank wall. As such, the streetwall seems uneven, and to be honest, the huge blank wall is kind of unseemly. The tower could easily acknowledge the Hotel Figueroa somehow, especially by raising that part of the podium, or extending the main mass of the tower, to connect and ackowledge the historic 150 foot hight limit that the Hotel Figueroa conformed to.

In New York, where I live for most of the year, new buildings make an effort to fit in with their neighbords, creating a cohesive and pleasent neighborhood. Buildings are built to the height of their existing neighbors, or have setbacks so that they appear so. They also often use the same, or complimentary, materials as their neighbords, which creates a beatiful street. I'm not a hater, I think Los Angeles and this tower is great and exciting, but I do think more effort needs to be made in this regard. Los Angeles, after all, is a young city in terms of urbanity and densification, and still has areas in which it must mature.

[ChargerCarl]

Our lot sizes are simply too large. In most other cities the tower portion would stand on its own and take up most, if not all, of the lot.

I'm not sure what drives this difference. Perhaps regulatory.

[hughfb3]

Originally Posted by ChargerCarl

Our lot sizes are simply too large. In most other cities the tower portion would stand on its own and take up most, if not all, of the lot.

I'm not sure what drives this difference. Perhaps regulatory.

It's not the size of our lots that dictate this, rather our current building code and zoning which has developers need to assemble lots to construct what they want.

Building codes... 3 major rules I see
1. parking minimums create need for either an adjacent structure, podium beneath tower, or most expensive... a cost prohibitive completely underground garage based on minimums set
2. Design guidelines for air rights and setbacks which are meant to maximize sunlight to the ground but creates each developer buying up excess lot space around a project to create the needed air rights to go taller according to code.
3. The mass and shape of our tower cores in LA dictated by our Fire code that has us build very wide boxy buildings in LA in comparison to other cities.

The USBank building when constructed is an example of all of this being exercised.
This building only exists as the tallest in LA at its location with two large building next to it because it was able to buy the air rights from the Central library which enabled it to be remodeled. It also satisfied its parking minimum by building a parking garage beneath the library's expansion, negating the need for an adjected parking garage or a podium underneath. It also has setbacks along the tower as it rises fulfilling that demand. The USBank is my favorite building in LA based on its exterior design, but this is its major flaw. We see that it has a unique non-square box shape in the midst of our current large core requirement, and the lease able space is awkward; making it one of the most difficult buildings to lease in LA

It's very difficult to build a very tall tower in LA that is surrounded by other tall buildings as our current code allows, hence massive podiums like Onni's 50 story and Level reaching to adjacent lots to fulfill air rights and parking minimums in one swoop. I think this new proposal does the absolute best it can based on our guidelines and I love the design and look of it... especially that roof

[ChargerCarl]

I knew the effects of #1 and #3 but wasn't sure how much #2 played a role. Makes sense though.

[Bwin517]

Originally Posted by hughfb3

It's not the size of our lots that dictate this, rather our current building code and zoning which has developers need to assemble lots to construct what they want.

Building codes... 3 major rules I see
1. parking minimums create need for either an adjacent structure, podium beneath tower, or most expensive... a cost prohibitive completely underground garage based on minimums set
2. Design guidelines for air rights and setbacks which are meant to maximize sunlight to the ground but creates each developer buying up excess lot space around a project to create the needed air rights to go taller according to code.
3. The mass and shape of our tower cores in LA dictated by our Fire code that has us build very wide boxy buildings in LA in comparison to other cities.

The USBank building when constructed is an example of all of this being exercised.
This building only exists as the tallest in LA at its location with two large building next to it because it was able to buy the air rights from the Central library which enabled it to be remodeled. It also satisfied its parking minimum by building a parking garage beneath the library's expansion, negating the need for an adjected parking garage or a podium underneath. It also has setbacks along the tower as it rises fulfilling that demand. The USBank is my favorite building in LA based on its exterior design, but this is its major flaw. We see that it has a unique non-square box shape in the midst of our current large core requirement, and the lease able space is awkward; making it one of the most difficult buildings to lease in LA

It's very difficult to build a very tall tower in LA that is surrounded by other tall buildings as our current code allows, hence massive podiums like Onni's 50 story and Level reaching to adjacent lots to fulfill air rights and parking minimums in one swoop. I think this new proposal does the absolute best it can based on our guidelines and I love the design and look of it... especially that roof

Thanks for the thorough and insightful explanation. Do you know if the city of LA is trying to change any of the above rules? Seems like LA's city planning is so antiquated. SMH

[circuitfiend]

Nice, shiny new rendering for the first page. Kinda like ICC in Hong Kong, but shorter, of course.

[black_crow]

Originally Posted by blackcat23

First look at Hotel Fig's 66-story neighbor

I think that's a classic and gorgeous tower.

Height should be correct.. we are talking about 66 stories.
Incredible times for the city of angels.

[ChargerCarl]

Originally Posted by Bwin517

Thanks for the thorough and insightful explanation. Do you know if the city of LA is trying to change any of the above rules? Seems like LA's city planning is so antiquated. SMH

I know the city is currently working on it but it seems like its taking forever.

I remember reading about recode:LA (or whatever its called) like 3 years ago.

[Mojeda101]

Gorgeous looking tower. TCW is completely dwarf'd by it. Considering the number of floors I'd say it's in the 900's.

Seeing Figueroa with all those completed projects is incredible. Can Hanzens hurry up and start? Anyways, adding to the front page.

[gurbie]

Originally Posted by Mojeda101

Gorgeous looking tower. TCW is completely dwarf'd by it. Considering the number of floors I'd say it's in the 900's.

Seeing Figueroa with all those completed projects is incredible. Can Hanzens hurry up and start? Anyways, adding to the front page.

From the rendering, it looks like those panels rise 75-100ft above the roof, so we'll get a height bump there.

[hughfb3]

Originally Posted by Bwin517

Thanks for the thorough and insightful explanation. Do you know if the city of LA is trying to change any of the above rules? Seems like LA's city planning is so antiquated. SMH

I'd love to know, but I havent gone to any of the Re:CodeLA meetings nor have I done research on it. What I will say is that they have slowly; on a case by case basis, began addressing the parking minimums for downtown on smaller scale projects. I don't know about how they are handling the air rights in Re:CodeLA, which is a huge contributor to podiums. I imagine that Mayor Garcetti is aware of it since he is a planning buff, but I think it's going to take more community involvement to change the air rights. This is deep seated "anti-manhattanization/tall buildings in clumps with no sunlight" issue that; on one hand I appreciate, and on the other hand, makes living in the city more expensive. What I love about the air rights code is that a lot of our towers are visible from a far and we have a beautiful crescendoing skyline to the peak of the USBank tower. What I also love is that there is sunlight available on the ground. What I don't love is that we have less opportunity for dense development and that the girthiness of our towers blocks tons of sunlight anyway.

I think if we address the parking requirements and tower core sizes, we can get away with not having to address the air rights and still keep the city alive and accessible to sunlight by having more slender (less bulky) towers

Also, another project reveal over at UrbanizeLA.
http://http://urbanize.la/post/first-look-40-story-8th-hope-tower

[ozone]

Originally Posted by ChargerCarl

Our lot sizes are simply too large. In most other cities the tower portion would stand on its own and take up most, if not all, of the lot.

I'm not sure what drives this difference. Perhaps regulatory.

I'm not sure why people want to make LA look like every other city in NA? Not super happy about parking regs but since the city is still automobile-orientated and will be in the foreseeable future I understand it. I like the setbacks as long as there is streetfront activity/businesses. I don't see it as problem rather as an advantage that other cities don't enjoy.

This will be an awesome addition, even if the design seems a bit of conservative and possibly passé. Hard to tell with one rendering and angle. Can't wait to see how it would appear from various locations, especially ground. It shows how confident investors still are in the LA market.

[circuitfiend]

Wow, talk about boring and homogenous. The new 40-flr Mitsui Fudosan rendering for 8th is about as generic as you can get.

[ChargerCarl]

Originally Posted by ozone

I'm not sure why people want to make LA look like every other city in NA? Not super happy about parking regs but since the city is still automobile-orientated and will be in the foreseeable future I understand it. I like the setbacks as long as there is streetfront activity/businesses. I don't see it as problem rather as an advantage that other cities don't enjoy.

This will be an awesome addition, even if the design seems a bit of conservative and possibly passé. Hard to tell with one rendering and angle. Can't wait to see how it would appear from various locations, especially ground. It shows how confident investors still are in the LA market.

I have no idea what advantages mandatory parking requirements and setbacks offer. In my experience people almost universally prefer their urban spaces without them.

[scania]

Originally Posted by circuitfiend

Wow, talk about boring and homogenous. The new 40-flr Mitsui Fudosan rendering for 8th is about as generic as you can get.

Really, I think its very clean and modern. No its not flashy, or has this extreme wow factor. But this will be great infill for DTLA.

[Illithid Dude]

Honestly, I like it. Clean and elegant. Best case scenario for a 40 story infill project on a podium. Lemme post a picture.



courtesy of our homies at urbanized