Talk about neighborhood spats.
Almost as soon as Korean Air’s Wilshire Grand Center project started to come out of the ground, the development was in the cross hairs of Brookfield Properties, downtown’s largest landlord.
Having locked horns throughout the permitting and construction process over issues including parking fees and spa accessibility, Brookfield, through its EYP Realty subsidiary, has now taken on its future 73-story neighbor’s architecture.
EYP said the glass exterior of the $1.2 billion building, the tallest in the West, is too reflective, and the glass installed has a troubling history of contributing to superheated “death rays,” as employees at another location dubbed them.
EYP, which operates the Ernst & Young Plaza, filed a complaint with the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety in June stating that Wilshire Grand is violating permit conditions by using a highly reflective glass to build a curtain wall that is creating “severe glare and reflective conditions” for several hours a day. The “high exterior reflectance” of this exact glass is not unique, according to the complaint, and has been involved in the production beams of focused sunlight that are alleged to have singed human hair and driven up ground temperatures.
“There have been several well-documented cases describing the adverse impacts of this specific product, particularly when designed with curved architecture in the southern part of the United States,” EYP’s complaint states.
The glare coming off the Wilshire Grand, according to the complaint, is a danger to motorists and pedestrians, and causes thermal heat gain and overall impairment of neighboring Ernst & Young Plaza.
Per the complaint, the Department of Building and Safety’s Inspection Bureau reviewed Wilshire Grand’s approved plans and concluded the glass was in fact in compliance, said the department’s spokesman, David Lara. The city then requested that Wilshire Grand have an outside expert evaluate the glass and submit the report to EYP and Building and Safety. EYP objected to the findings and pressed the city to revoke Wilshire Grand’s permits and order the removal of the glass.
The department said in its decision earlier this month that it did not err nor abuse its discretion in issuing the permits in question. EYP has until Nov. 28 to file another appeal, this time with the Department of City Planning.
Lisa Gritzner, president of Cerrell Associates and spokeswoman for Wilshire Grand, said the glare off the building lasts for five to 10 minutes a day, not hours, and is most likely only noticeable because a skyscraper was erected where there wasn’t one before.
“We believe this complaint is completely without merit and unfounded,” she said. “We’re very unclear as to what their issues actually are, and we are more than willing to be a good neighbor.”
Reflective nature
The Wilshire Grand wouldn’t be the first building to have issues with the highly reflective nature of the glass, called VRE-138 and manufactured by Owatonna, Minn.-based Viracon Inc., especially when used in combination with rounded architecture.
EYP’s complaint outlines the adverse impacts of this glass, citing a 2010 incident at the Vdara Hotel & Spa in Las Vegas, where it says there were complaints that the reflection off the building was so intense it created a “death ray” that burned the hair of poolside sunbathers. To combat this aggressive beam of sunshine, the hotel erected umbrellas to cover lounging guests.
While Gritzner said that incident was proved to be a result of the shape of the building, not the type of glass, Bob Linford, vice president of California operations for Giroux Glass Inc., said reflection rates are often influenced by both factors.
The same glass was used on the exterior of the Museum Tower in Dallas, built in 2012, which has a similar convex shape as the Wilshire Grand, according to EYP’s complaint. In that instance, EYP said sunlight reflected off the building into the nearby Nasher Sculpture Center and effectively raised the lawn temperature by 25 degrees.
Wilshire Grand’s project architect and construction management company, AC Martin, said there is no reason for concern.
“The glass installed on the Wilshire Grand is the same type of high-performance glass used in thousands of modern buildings all over the world,” the company said in a statement.
Indeed, the Wilshire Grand went through an extensive approval process with the city – including constructing mock-ups of the glass wall – before choosing VRE-138, Gritzner said. The glass was chosen for a number of reasons, including transparency, so the hotel could protect the privacy of its guests while still preserving their view.
Linford said VRE-138 is a high-performance material often used on commercial buildings because it is effective at keeping out heat and cold, which keeps energy costs down. Architects can choose among variations of this mirrorlike material based on aesthetics and reflectiveness, which can vary greatly depending on the shape of the building.
“You could take this same type of glass, and if it was installed in a window that was sunken back in the building, … no one would even notice it,” Linford said. If it’s facing west on the skin of the building, “in the late afternoon, it might blind somebody.”
