Private Los Angeles Tours

The building was designed by John Parkinson, John C. Austin, and Albert C. Martin, Sr., and was completed in 1928. Dedication ceremonies were held on April 26, 1928. It has 32 floors and, at 454 feet (138 m) high, is the tallest base-isolated structure in the world, having undergone a seismic retrofit that will allow the building to sustain minimal damage and remain functional after a magnitude 8.2earthquake. Showcased on tours of Los Angeles, the concrete in its tower was made with sand from each of California’s 58 counties and water from its 21 historical missions. City Hall’s distinctive tower was based on the purported shape of the Mausoleum of Maussollos, and shows the influence of the Los Angeles Public Library, completed soon before the structure was started. An image of City Hall has been on Los Angeles Police Department badges since 1940.

Due in part to seismic concerns, prior to the late 1950s the City of Los Angeles did not permit any portion of any building other than a purely decorative tower to be more than 150 feet (46 m) high. Therefore, from its completion in 1928 until 1964, the City Hall was the tallest building in Los Angeles, and shared the skyline with only a few structures having decorative towers, including the Richfield Tower and the Eastern Columbia Building.

The building was designated a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument in 1976.

Fox Plaza is a 492 feet (150 m) high skyscraper with 35 floors in Century City, Los Angeles, California, a local landmark. Completed in 1987, the architects behind its design were Scott Johnson, Bill Fain and William L. Pereira. Owned by Orange County-based The Irvine Company, Fox Plaza is 20th Century Fox’s headquarters.

Former President of the United States Ronald Reagan occupied a penthouse on the 34th floor for several years after leaving public office. The 34th floor is now occupied by global management consulting firm, ZS Associates.

The Fox Plaza was the last building that Pereira worked on before his death in 1985.

The building has featured in at least four major motion pictures released by Fox. It appeared as Nakatomi Plaza, the setting of the firstDie Hard film, in which its destruction was accomplished using a scale model. The plaza and a neighboring building are the main setting for rock & roll comedy Airheads. The lobby featured in the opening scene of Speed.  Fox Plaza was also used as one of the buildings brought down at the end of Fight Club, and featured in “Family Guy” season 7, episode 10, “Fox-y Lady.”  Talked about on LA guided tours, Fox Plaza is featured in the video game, Midnight Club: Los Angeles. Fox Plaza is used for the corporate offices of Chimera Gas in the dark comedy Motorama. Fox Plaza is also used as the headquarters for Mr. Zalinsky’s Auto Parts in the movie Tommy Boy.

The Wells Fargo Center is an high-rise office complex located in downtown Los Angeles, California, United States. The complex includes two towers: the Wells Fargo Tower and KPMG Tower, which are connected by a three story glass clad atrium. It won the 1986-1987 and 2003-2004 Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) ‘Office Building of the Year’ award and numerous other awards.

The Wells Fargo Tower, at 723ft (220m) it is the taller building of the complex. It has 54 floors and is the 7th tallest building in the Los Angeles, and the 92nd-tallest building in the United States. When it opened in 1983, it was known as the Crocker Tower, named after San Francisco-based Crocker National Bank. Crocker merged with Wells Fargo in 1986. When the Wells Fargo Tower was being erected, its construction was featured in the 1983 movie Blue Thunder. The top upper floors were not completed during filming, so Roy Scheider’s character shot a helicopter chasing him from the unfinished top floor, often talked about on tours of Los Angeles.

The KPMG Tower is 560ft (171m) tall. It was completed in 1983 and has 45 floors. It is the 16th tallest building in the city.

Two California Plaza is a 750 ft (229 m) tall skyscraper located on the Bunker Hill District district of downtown in Los Angeles, California. The tower is part of the California Plaza project, consists of two unique skyscrapers, One California Plaza and Two California Plaza. The Plaza also is home to MOCA ( Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art), Colburn School of Performing Arts, the Los Angeles Omni Hotel and a 1.5 acre water court.

Completed in 1992, Two California Plaza stands has 1,329,000 square feet of office space. The towers were designed by Arthur Erickson Architects and named BOMA Building of the Year in 1997 and 2001.

The California Plaza was a ten year, $1.2 billion project. Started in 1983, the Two California Plaza tower was completed in 1992 during a significant slump in the downtown Los Angeles real estate market. The tower opened with only 30 percent of its space leased and overall vacancy rates in downtown office space neared 25%. It was nearly 10 years before significant tall buildings were completed again in the downtown Los Angeles, and sometime see from a distance on Hollywood tours.

The California Plaza was originally planned to include 3 high rise tower office buildings instead of the two completed. Three California Plaza at 65 floors, was planned for a site just north of 4th St., directly across Olive St. from California Plaza’s first two office highrises and was planned to house the Metropolitan Water District’s permanent headquarters.^[4]

The construction and $23 million cost of the MOCA Grand Avenue building was part of a city-brokered deal with the developer of the California Plaza redevelopment project, Bunker Hill Associates, who received the use of an 11-acre, publicly owned parcel of land.