In the summer of 2013, Brookfield Office Properties acquired the two-tower, 2.5-million-sf Wells Fargo Center, in downtown Los Angeles, as part of a four-building portfolio deal with a $450 million price tag.
At the time, Wells Fargo Center was one of L.A.’s primo office addresses. But while its Bunker Hill neighborhood has emerged as a hub for creative business professionals, the two-tower complex has been showing its age of late, and has had a tougher time attracting new companies with younger tenants. “The environment was dated,” Bert Dezzutti, a Senior VP for Brookfield Office Properties, the building’s landlord, admitted to the Los Angeles Times.
To help change that perception, Brookfield last April kicked off a $60 million makeover of the Wells Fargo Center’s atrium, between the 54- and 45-story towers, to include full-service restaurants, plaza seating, fast/casual dining options, a rooftop deck, tenant lounge, concierge services, health and wellness amenities, and an indoor-outdoor bar. All of these features are being added to lure the 5,000 employees who work in that building and the 40,000 who work within Bunker Hill.
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, Wells Fargo Center’s original designer, designed the new atrium, dubbed “Halo,” which is scheduled to open next year.
To further accentuate the building’s hipper vibe, Brookfield on November 15 introduced Launchpad, a contest for innovative startups, whose winner will receive free office space within Wells Fargo Center for 24 months, a prize with an estimated maximum retail value of $360,000.
Companies have until December 31 to submit their entries online at http://Launchpad.BunkerHillDTLA.com. Entrants must be U.S.-based, and new businesses with no more than $5 million in annual revenue in either 2017 or 2018. An entrant must provide information about the company—including its address, history, principals, contact information, and at least one social media profile. It must also submit an essay of no more than 2,000 characters describing its background, purpose, and culture, and how it believes it would benefit the Bunker Hill community.
Entrants can supplement their essays by uploading a video of no longer than two minutes in length.
The refurbished atrium, dubbed Halo, will offer a welcoming street-level connection where previously there had been none. Image: Brookfield Office Properties.
A panel of judges, selected by Brookfield, will evaluate the contestants on the basis of the their respective business objectives and prospective benefits to the community, how the entrants complement the downtown L.A. and Bunker Hill culture, and the creativity and originality of their submissions.
The Grand Prize entitles the winner to a Convene WorkSuite Membership Agreement for a maximum of 24 consecutive months. (Convene manages communal work and meeting spaces for rent in Brookfield’s office buildings.) The agreement can commence as early as Feb. 1, 2019, and would include up to 22 WorkSuite memberships. (The office space would be located on the building’s 3rd and 4th floors.)
Occupants would be entitled to exclusive, badge-protected access to the WorkSuite, a fully-furnished office space, state of the art technology and high-speed WiFi, an open kitchen with a nourish café, a monthly community lunch prepared by the building’s onsite executive chef, facilities maintenance, and mail delivery.
To encourage entries, Brookfield has been offering brokers a $10,000 commission if one of their clients is selected for the Grand Prize.
Related Stories
| Jul 28, 2014
Reconstruction Sector Construction Firms [2014 Giants 300 Report]
Structure Tone, Turner, and Gilbane top Building Design+Construction's 2014 ranking of the largest reconstruction contractor and construction management firms in the U.S.
| Jul 28, 2014
Reconstruction Sector Engineering Firms [2014 Giants 300 Report]
Jacobs, URS, and Wiss, Janney, Elstner top Building Design+Construction's 2014 ranking of the largest reconstruction engineering and engineering/architecture firms in the U.S.
| Jul 28, 2014
Reconstruction Sector Architecture Firms [2014 Giants 300 Report]
Stantec, HDR, and HOK top Building Design+Construction's 2014 ranking of the largest reconstruction architecture and architecture/engineering firms in the U.S.
| Jul 23, 2014
Tallest skyscraper in South Korea now open
The Northeast Asia Trade Tower stands at 308 meters and is the focal point of the Songdo International Business District, a new 310-hectare city built on reclaimed land.
| Jul 23, 2014
Architecture Billings Index up nearly a point in June
AIA reported the June ABI score was 53.5, up from a mark of 52.6 in May.
| Jul 22, 2014
L.A.'s tallest tower to get observation deck
U.S. Bank Tower, as part of a series of improvements, will be getting an observation deck and restaurant at its top.
| Jul 21, 2014
Economists ponder uneven recovery, weigh benefits of big infrastructure [2014 Giants 300 Report]
According to expert forecasters, multifamily projects, the Panama Canal expansion, and the petroleum industry’s “shale gale” could be saving graces for commercial AEC firms seeking growth opportunities in an economy that’s provided its share of recent disappointments.
| Jul 21, 2014
Workplace trends survey reveals generational patterns in office use
Data analysis from Mancini•Duffy indicates significant variations among age cohorts in the workplace.
| Jul 20, 2014
Why every major U.S. city should be nurturing ‘Innovation Hubs’
Today, more than ever, tech districts are the key to economic growth for metro markets. A new report from the Brookings Institution calls tech hubs the superchargers of innovation economies and creators of highly coveted tech jobs.
| Jul 18, 2014
Contractors warm up to new technologies, invent new management schemes [2014 Giants 300 Report]
“UAV.” “LATISTA.” “CMST.” If BD+C Giants 300 contractors have anything to say about it, these new terms may someday be as well known as “BIM” or “LEED.” Here’s a sampling of what Giant GCs and CMs are doing by way of technological and managerial innovation.
