Longest Los Angeles Concrete Pour for New Wilshire Grand project

Posted by admin  at February 17th, 2014

The New Wilshire Grand project in downtown Los Angeles experienced the longest concrete pour in city development history. The pour has been nicknamed the “grand pour”, which started at 4 pm on Saturday February 15^th with the help of over two hundred trucks storage large amounts of concrete.

It took a total of 2,000 truckloads of concrete and 20 hours of non-stop pouring to finish the concrete foundation. This resulted in over 21,200 cubic yards filled, with the total concrete amount weighing 84 million pounds. The New Wilshire Grand hotel development that will sit atop this record concrete pour base will reach a height of 1,100 feet, eclipsing the 1,018 feet former record height held by the US Bank building in the downtown Los Angeles Financial District. Korean Air, the developer, is believed to have invested more than $1 billion for the project. The New Wilshire Grand hotel will have many desirable amenities: five levels of underground parking, ample convention space, office spaces for lease, and a total of 900 hotel rooms. The New Wilshire Grand hotel replaces its predecessor, the 16-story Wilshire Grand Hotel, at this site.

Projects like this are typically built in sections and then assembled at a later time. The New Wilshire Grand is being developed as one single block to provide more support for this high-rise tower. The concrete filling process proved to be a unique challenge with the space constraints that downtown Los Angeles’ streets provide. The concrete plants were no more than 20 miles away from the fill site to ensure that the supply would be mixed and used in 90 minutes or less. This is the only acceptable timeframe for the concrete to remain usable for this vast build. The concrete will take a total of two weeks to dry, but will also heat up as it sets. Since 84 million pounds of concrete were used, workers anticipated that this would cause an influx of heat that could harm the structure’s stability. To avoid excess heat while the concrete sets, a network of hoses has been installed to pump cold water to the concrete mass.

Source: http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-concrete-pour-wilshire-grand-20140216,0,451867.story