- Location
- Los Angeles, CA
- Year completed
- 2017
- Square footage
- 1,500,005
- Floors
- 73
Project overview
The Wilshire Grand Center replaced the original Wilshire Grand Hotel as the tallest building west of the Mississippi when it topped out in 2017. BEC’s scope covered the full Fire Alarm system (Edwards EST3 backbone, 12,000+ devices) and the Emergency Responder Radio Coverage System (ERRCS) covering all 73 floors.
Scope of work
- Edwards EST3 fire-alarm engineering and stamped plans
- Device installation across 73 floors and 4 below-grade levels
- Emergency Responder Radio Coverage System (ERRCS) — full BDA, donor antennas, AHJ-accepted commissioning
- Smoke control interface and stairwell pressurization integration
- Initial Reg-4 testing & LAFD acceptance package
- Ongoing 24/7 central-station monitoring and annual NFPA 72 testing
Why this one was hard
The Wilshire Grand sits on top of an active Metro line and a major freight rail spur — the radio coverage survey had to model RF behavior in a space where every donor-antenna placement was constrained by structural and AHJ requirements. BEC’s RF engineering team built a coverage model and iterated with the LAFD radio shop until every floor passed first time.
Outcome
Both systems passed acceptance testing on first submittal. The building has been on BEC’s central-station monitoring continuously since occupancy and has had zero unresolved trouble dispatches in the last three reporting years.
“BEC’s team understood the radio physics better than the AHJ did. The first-pass acceptance saved us about three weeks against the original schedule.”
— Senior PM, Korean Air / Hanjin Wilshire Grand
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