Built: 1964-1966 Designed by: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill Type: Skyscraper Stories: 30 Maximum Height: 395 feet / 120 meters Location: 624 South Grand Avenue, Los Angeles, United States
B uildings are like people -- the uglier they are, often the more important they are. That is the case with a building like One Wilshire. Its importance is inversely proportionate to its beauty.
Visually, One Wilshire is another generic office building: white panels cut through with rows of foreboding black windows in a massive grid. And in the margin at the top, the ultimate in self-promotion -- The name of the building in massive block letters.
Of course, like most architecture, One Wilshire is a product of its time. In the 1960's when this was built, gleaming white blocks were new and interesting. They looked futuristic, and were seen as symbols of clean progress, not white elephants.
Time marched on and the style fell out of favor. But One Wilshire managed to stage a futuristic comeback. After most of the office workers left, it became home to machines. Thousands of machines and wires and fibers and electric lines pack the building, turning it into one of the central hubs of the internet. Today, hundreds of networks, phone companies, and other high-tech firms have their electronic tentacles reaching into this building. They pay a premium price to be close to each other and to tie their networks together into a mind-bogglingly complex nest of technology.
Floor space: 664,248 square feet
Stories above ground: 30
Stories below ground: 5
Parking: 524 spaces
Elevators: 13
2001: This building is sold to the Carlyle Group for $119,000,000.
2007: Hines REIT buys this building for $287,000,000.
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