L.A. Goes Vertical

If this article in Curbed Los Angeles is any indication, there is a lot of height coming to L.A.’s skyline. Of course, some projects will never get off the drawing board or will morph drastically before they do, but if even a fraction of the 26 towers built, we have a lot of construction cranes and driving detours in our future.

Interestingly, the projects, which range in height from 30 to 70 stories, are largely clustered in the city , with five towers slated for South Figueroa alone. There are just a few outliers: on the west, the 34-story, 376-unit Landmark Apartments, at Wilshire and Barrington in Brentwood, is advancing through development agreements and slated to open in 2020; to the north, on Vine Street at the 101,

the Millennium Hollywood is designed as a pair of mixed-use towers, 35 and 39 stories, but its future is still uncertain; below Downtown, there’s just one project south of the 10 Freeway – The Reef, which has been approved by the L.A. City Council and is expected to have two towers, 32 and 35 stories, and include condos, apartments, retail, restaurants, and a 20-story hotel.

Hot in pursuit of the “tallest” title, following the recently opened 73-story Wilshire Grand, is a 70-story apartment tower at South Olive and 11th Street, downtown.

As they are currently envisioned, L.A.’s 26 tallest new towers will add more than thirteen thousand residential units, thousands of hotel rooms, and hundreds of thousands of square feet of retail, office, and commercial space to the city’s cultural and real estate profile.