Finally: the owners of the 72-story US Bank Tower, the tallest building on the West Coast (for now), will open up a public viewing deck like a real Empire-State-building-style tourist trap. Maybe next they'll light the Hollywood Sign! The 1989 building, formerly known as the Library Tower, will stay an office building, but get a new observation area on the sixty-ninth and seventieth floors, which will be connected by a new stairway; existing terraces on the sixty-ninth will be opened up as well, reports the LA Times. Meanwhile, the seventy-first floor, which has 18-foot ceilings and 360-degree views of Los Angeles, will get a new restaurant.
US Bank visitors will enter through a new second-floor portal with upgraded elevators and newish owners Overseas Union Enterprise Ltd. will also give the US Bank sign a "modernization" and add a curb cut at the Fifth Street entrance for passenger loading and unloading. Local mega-firm Gensler will design all of the changes.
Tourist traps do not come cheap: OUE will charge $25 a head, but thinks it can pull in half a million visitors a year. Broker/blogger Brigham Yen found that pricing is in the range for similar attractions: Chicago's Willis Tower costs $19, the Empire State Building is $29 to the eighty-sixth floor.
Not too far away from the US Bank building, however, the Wilshire Grand hotel/office building is under construction and set to be the new tallest tower in the West when it's finished in 2017. It will have an observation deck, infinity pool, and restaurant on its roof, which according to Yen will still be lower than the US Bank Tower's new deck.
· L.A.'s tallest skyscraper to get observation deck [LAT]
· New Wilshire Grand Renderings Show Sky Lobby And The Highest Rooftop Pool On The West Coast [Curbed LA]
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