The Grand LA, a mixed-used development in the heart of Los Angeles’ Cultural District, represents the culmination of decades of investment and planning to revitalize the downtown area. Completed in July 2022, the project features two towers that share a structural base at parking Level 2 and up through the fourth floor.

Both towers are stepped back from Grand Avenue, while the form of each tower is created with a series of stacked blocks, breaking down the scale of the building while also creating opportunities for large, landscaped terraces.

The 45-story residential Tower 2 includes a total of 436 rooms, from apartments to condos, while the 28-story hotel Tower 1 offers 308 rooms, meeting spaces and amenities.

With a total of 130,000 cu yd of concrete used throughout the project, meticulous coordination was vital. The project’s design specified efficient, thin floor plates and 9-ft ceilings in the towers. Two separate placements were coordinated for the mat foundation: Tower 1 is 8 ft thick and Tower 2 is 12 ft thick, which required a continuous 15-hour pour that was the second-largest continuous concrete placement conducted in the city at the time. For just Tower 2’s foundation, 1,348 trucks delivered concrete to the site in one day.

Photo by Ryan Slaybaugh

Meanwhile, nine separate concrete placements created the slabs of the two lower floors between the two towers. Breaking up the pours into smaller areas allowed the team to complete the placements in a single day. Structural engineer DCI worked with the contractor to determine where to place closure pours to break up work across smaller production jobs. This also allowed the concrete to shrink as it cured, relieving internal stresses, reducing cracking and producing a quality slab finish.

Since the city of LA requires stiffness testing for concrete that is used in high-rise building projects, DCI specified concrete modulus testing to meet performance objectives for slab deflection and lateral stiffness.

The primary shear wall cores required concrete at 13,000 psi, which allowed for minimized core walls, while slabs are made of high strength concrete at 10,000 psi. High strength Grade 80 vertical reinforcing in the concrete shear wall cores is a DCI industry first.