Wilshire Grand Center

1,100 feet to the tip of its spire — the tallest building west of the Mississippi, and the one that broke LA's flat-top rule.

Key facts

Wilshire Grand Center (900 Wilshire Blvd), by AC Martin Partners, opened June 23, 2017, and rises 1,100 ft (335 m) to the tip of its illuminated sail-crown spire — the tallest building west of the Mississippi River.
That 1,100 ft is the spire height; the occupied roof is 928 ft, lower than US Bank Tower's — the glowing crown and spire are what make it the tallest.
For decades a 1974 LA fire ordinance forced skyscrapers to wear flat roofs with helipads; Wilshire Grand won an exception, which is why it gets the sail-shaped crown and the spire the others don't have.

Narration transcript

Up on your right, the glass tower with the curved crown and the lit spike on top — that is the Wilshire Grand Center, and it is the tallest building in the entire western United States, anything west of the Mississippi River. It opened in 2017, and it stands eleven hundred feet to the tip of that spire.

Here's the catch worth knowing: most of that height is the crown and the spire. The top occupied floor is actually lower than the tower we'll pass in a moment. But the spire counts, and the spire makes it the champion. Look at the shape of it — that sail-like glass top, lit up at night in color. For about forty years, every skyscraper in Los Angeles had to wear a flat roof with a helicopter pad on top; it was a fire rule from the 1970s, and it's why the old downtown skyline looks like a row of boxes with their tops cut off. Wilshire Grand is the tower that finally won permission to break that rule — so it got a crown instead of a haircut.