The West Coast is rapidly becoming the place for developers to “tower up” and shatter records with new skyscrapers. Today, with 73 floors (or 1,018 feet), US Bank Tower holds the crown as the tallest building in the West. But it won’t for long. Here are three buildings poised to dominate Western skylines—and the record books—over the next decade and beyond.
Wilshire Grand Center
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Location: 900 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles
The Players: Hanjin Group, Thomas Properties Group, AC Martin Partners
Height: 1,100 feet
The new $1B Wilshire Grand Center is a mixed-use space in the heart of LA’s Financial District. Started in 2012 to revitalize the downtown area, the space is designed to hold offices, retail and a 900-room hotel.
When completed in 2017, it will be the tallest building west of the Mississippi at 1,100 feet and the only skyscraper in LA with a unique sail-and-spire rooftop design, which will drastically change the look of the city's skyline. The center is shaping up to be the crown jewel in Hanjin Group’s real estate portfolio. (The company also owns Korean Air.)
While you're in the neighborhood, check out LA's tallest buildings.
Salesforce Tower
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Location: 415 Mission St, San Francisco
The Players: Boston Properties, Hines Interests, Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects
Height: 1,070 feet
Demand for office space in San Francisco remains strong. That, along with an acute space crunch, has developers looking (and building) up. Work started on the Boston Properties-owned Salesforce Tower in 2013. The design is energy efficient and was pre-certified for a LEED Platinum rating.
When the $1.1B building comes online in 2018, it will tower over the Financial District at a commanding 1,070 feet and largely host tech companies. In 2014, it was announced that the anchor tenant will be the Silicon Valley darling Salesforce.com. The building will be a quick walk from the future Transbay Transit Center.
Here are San Francisco's tallest buildings to date.
4th and Columbia
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Location: 701 4th Ave, Seattle
The Players: Crescent Heights, LMN Architects
Height: 1,029 feet in the latest plans
This could be the case of the incredible shrinking skyscraper, but even after several plans have reduced this project in size, it is still expected to be the tallest tower in Seattle.
Crescent Heights started with a proposal to build a 1,117-foot-tall mixed-use tower. At that height, it would have edged out the Wilshire Grand to take the crown as the West's tallest building, standing twice as tall as the Space Needle. The project recently was pared down slightly to 100 stories from the initial 102 and then reduced again. The latest proposals could mean a building with between 90 and 100 stories, standing 1,029 feet tall.
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