Homer said:
Los Angeles and Houston have minimal office space outside the CBD
Click to expand...

Hahahah... priceless. If you have in fact "driven around" LA (considering how big and congested it is, that would have taken a LONG time), you must not have been paying close attention.

Have you heard of Century City? They have several massive 500+ foot office towers there alone. It's just one of dozens of mini CBD's throughout the area. I'm not sure there's a better example in the WORLD of a city with more decentralized office space. It's as if you're trying to argue the exact opposite of reality.

Here's a thread with some estimates of the square footage of each, which shows that, yes, even the CBD figures are wrong:

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/archive/index.php/t-186764.html
 
Last edited:
Homer said:
Of course I am serious, I have been to Los Angeles and driven around, it is noted for the king of sprawl and you can see why. Looking out from Griffith observatory you see a cluster of tall buildings in the CBD then the city sprawls to the horizon. You mean Ottawa as the nations capital with all those (albiet small but numerous) Federal office buildings has more office space then LA. Wow what a shock. Buddy you need to get out more to get some perspective.
Click to expand...

In the LA case I'm even questioning the CBD numbers alone (see the post above but I'm not sure what it's based on) LA has many office buildings in its core, like Toronto, and most other cities for that matter, most are not 200m+

Having a closer look at the SSP link it seems fairly accurate.

I think the LA region is about 8/10 million so comparable to Chicago and the like, and the link above puts the office space on the same page, which adds up.

Of course Ottawa would have magnitudes times less space - yes capitals generally have a lot more office space relative to their size (check out Washington) but this isn't really the case with Ottawa and even if it was the population difference is enormous.
 
oh yes a comcast tower/centre would be very nice..... it's actually my favourite office building of all time..... what other nice office towers would be suitable for this fair city of toronto...?
 
DTGeek said:
Hahahah... priceless. If you have in fact "driven around" LA (considering how big and congested it is, that would have taken a LONG time), you must not have been paying close attention.
Click to expand...

Yes I have in fact driven around LA and it is big (sprawling) and congested (apparently Toronto is now more congested) and they have something called freeways which are easy to navigate, I found far less transports on them, and no express/collector issues.

Have you heard of Century City?
Click to expand...

Yes I stayed in a hotel there my first time to LA so it was my base.

They have several massive 500+ foot office towers there alone.
Click to expand...

Massive? what the hell do you mean massive, there are a few 40 something storey buildings.

It's just one of dozens of mini CBD's throughout the area.
Click to expand...

First I never said there were not office buildings outside the LA CBD just that the CBD contains most of it as the rest of LA is generally flat. Secondly, 'dozens', now who is kidding,

I'm not sure there's a better example in the WORLD of a city with more decentralized office space.
Click to expand...

Ok now I know your on crack or something

It's as if you're trying to argue the exact opposite of reality.
Here's a thread with some estimates of the square footage of each, which shows that, yes, even the CBD figures are wrong:

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/archive/index.php/t-186764.html
Click to expand...

oh this is a great a link to another 'blogger'... I remember now why I usually stick to just looking at the pictures on this site..
 
Last edited by a moderator:
sixrings said:
DIDNT they own that ritz carelton and RBC land for a decade or 2 before doing anything?
Click to expand...

I'm a little late to the party on this, but in answer to your question: Cadillac Fairview bought the RBC Dexia / R-C site from the CBC in Fall of 2003. They may have tied it up (i.e. optioned) before then, though.
 
DT Geek:

To be fair to Homer, he's not far off the mark. I lived in Southern California 2 years ago (with a number of trips to L.A. where I "took my time" and Century City is not a large cluster of 500 footers (not sure if there's even one that approaches 500'). North York blows Century City out of the water. As for downtown, I won't attempt to guesstimate the commercial square footage, but we're talking about a fairly modest number of towers that can be counted on any photograph... very little density around the towers but lots of highways.

If we are talking about "all" the commercial space in L.A., which is slightly bigger than France ;-) ... then the low/medium rise commercial would be very large indeed.
 
3Dementia said:
DT Geek:

To be fair to Homer, he's not far off the mark. I lived in Southern California 2 years ago (with a number of trips to L.A. where I "took my time" and Century City is not a large cluster of 500 footers (not sure if there's even one that approaches 500'). North York blows Century City out of the water. As for downtown, I won't attempt to guesstimate the commercial square footage, but we're talking about a fairly modest number of towers that can be counted on any photograph... very little density around the towers but lots of highways.

If we are talking about "all" the commercial space in L.A., which is slightly bigger than France ;-) ... then the low/medium rise commercial would be very large indeed.
Click to expand...

This is Century City in the foreground. There are at least 5 towers in the 150m+ range, with the two twin towers being the tallest 571 feet. Those two towers are quite bulky and have 2.3 million sq feet of office space (more than FCP).

http://i.imgur.com/TbysJ.jpg

Sure NYCC blows Century City out of the water in terms of skyline and density, but I doubt there's more office space. There are very few residential high rises in LA, so pretty much all of those buildings are office (or hotel).

I agree that their CBD doesn't have a lot of office space, just several tall skyscrapers and nothing else. That was the point - I was responding to the claim that LA had very little office space outside their CBD. If that were true, public transit might actually be viable and successful there. But employment is in reality very decentralized there. Wikipedia quote:

"Greater Los Angeles supports large business districts throughout its urban area. The central business district is located at Downtown Los Angeles. Within the Los Angeles city limits are multiple districts, and other than Bunker Hill, these are Century City and businesses lining Wilshire Boulevard. Other major districts nearby Los Angeles include Downtown Long Beach, downtown Glendale, and downtown Burbank. In the southern reaches of Greater Los Angeles, major business districts include Newport Center, South Coast Metro, and the developing business district in Irvine. To the east major business districts include the respective centers of Downtown Riverside and Downtown San Bernardino."
 
Last edited:
DTGeek said:
This is Century City in the foreground. There are at least 5 towers in the 150m+ range, with the two twin towers being the tallest 571 feet. Those two towers are quite bulky and have 2.3 million sq feet of office space (more than FCP).

http://i170.photobucket.com/albums/u263/jessemh431/CCandDT.jpg

Sure NYCC blows Century City out of the water in terms of skyline and density, but I doubt there's more office space. There are very few residential high rises in LA, so pretty much all of those buildings are office (or hotel).
Click to expand...

Here we go:

Central Business District 28,480,147
Los Angeles Central 48,190,055
San Gabriel Valley 11,154,556
Los Angeles West 50,064,083
Los Angeles North 30,702,947
Los Angeles South 30,688,998
Tri Cities 22,857,410
LOS ANGELES COUNTY NON-CBD 165,177,902

http://www.cushwake.com/cwmbs4q10/PDF/off_greaterla_4q10.pdf
 
LA has that much?!?! Well, now that finally settles the age old argument of how little all of this has to do with the proposed buildings at 156 Front Street!
 
So what does all this red mean?

LA2.jpg
 
Big Daddy said:
So what does all this red mean?

LA2.jpg
Click to expand...

Well this is a little old, last quarter in 2010 ... but it means LA was hard it, about 2-3 million of space was vacated.
You can see the vacancy rates are in the high teens / low 20s even. Only the airporate corpoarte center east in the GTA west (mainly Toronto) is comparable to that.


Anyway, one thing to keep in mind, some of these districts are very part apart if I recall ... the area is a lot larger then the GTA (again, if I recall correctly).


Also, not sure why anyone would be shocked by these numbers, the population of this area is in the 12-15 million range !
 
Automation Gallery said:
Wow, that would be second to New York.:confused:
Click to expand...
Nope, Chicago seems to be larger from what I can see - but it's really hard to compare, it's not apples to apples as the boundary lines for the metropolitan area and the suburbs (and exactly how far the suburbs extend) vary so much.

Anyway, Chicago has 158,464,347 in it's CBD alone ! (Well CBD being all of downtown here). The suburbs are about another 100 million.

For comparison, all of downtown Toronto is about 70 million. All of Toronto is about 120 million. Suburbs (i.e. inner 905 + a Scarborough) are about 70 million.
 
from today's Daily Commercial News, posted with the usual caveat......

CONDOMINIUM Proj: 9141527-1

Toronto, Metro Toronto Reg ON CONTEMPLATED
156 Front St W, M5J

$150,000,000 est
Note: Owner has submitted applications for Official Plan Amendment as well as rezoning. Construction costs as well as square footage are estimated at this time and expected to be confirmed fall 2011.

Project: proposed construction of a 65-storey condominium and a 54-storey office tower. The condominium tower will contain 620 units and have six levels of underground parking totaling 356 parking spaces and 160 bicycle parking spaces. The office tower will contain eleven retail spaces and an undetermined number of office units. There will also be 6 levels of underground parking totaling 360 spaces. Scope of work is preliminary and subject to change.
Scope: 1,200,000 square feet; 65 storeys; 6 storeys below grade; 2 structures; 620 units; parking for 716 cars

Development: New
Category: Apartment bldgs; Commercial offices; Retail, wholesale services
Owner Complete information is available to subscribers. Click HERE to find out how to subscribe.
This report Wed Aug 03, 2011.
 
You must log in or register to post here.

Back
Top