Orchestrating the massive concrete pour for the foundation of the New Wilshire Grand tower was the job of a lifetime.
Over the next three years, workers will raise the New Wilshire Grand tower 1,100 feet above the corner of Figueroa Street and Wilshire Boulevard. With an open promenade and an enormous swoop of glass above the entrance, this translucent airplane wing 73 stories tall promises to redefine architectural possibilities in a city not known for its tall buildings.
Beneath its design is the engineering of what is arguably the most complicated high-rise ever built in the United States. Calculated to sway during powerful Santa Anas and absorb ground movement during the most severe earthquakes, it is wedded aesthetically and technically to the unique footprint of the region.
But what mattered now was a pile of dirt.
Nothing this size had ever been recorded. In 1999, construction of the Venetian in Las Vegas included a continuous pour that made the Guinness Book of World Records. If the Grand Pour succeeded, it would be bigger.
Marchesano and his team had begun preparing nearly a year earlier: filing permits for street closures, having bus lines rerouted, ordering back-up equipment and calculating drive times.
More than 350 workers would be on site, and 227 trucks on the road, looping from batch plants to downtown and back. Any glitch, injury, accident or freeway snarl would jeopardize the plan, and that wasn't even taking into account the weather. Rain or a heat wave could force delays. God would weigh in on that.
