Hacking the Highrise - Wells Fargo Center Event Recap
The DCBID launched its "Hacking the Highrise" initiative on June 21st with a showcase event at Brookfield Properties' Wells Fargo Center North Tower. Attendees from across the real estate industry mixed and mingled over food and drink and heard from an expert panel on how the property is being reinvented for a new era of city living and a new generation of tenants.
Networking and drinks were followed by a dynamic panel, led off by Marin Turney, Rachael Zanetos, and Patrice Russell Hopper from Brookfield Properties, DTLA's largest property owner. They spoke about how it's more than just conference room technology and nice furnishings that get companies excited about office space. Today's tenants desire a full suite of modern lifestyle amenities inside, outside, and all around their workplace.
Next up was architect Carlos Madrid of SOM who did a deeper dive on how they are helping Brookfield hack Wells Fargo Center. He also treated the audience to a gorgeous 3-D video rendering of the new Halo Plaza project and how it will create community hub between the North & South Towers and across all of Bunker Hill.
Community is a central theme of Hacking the Highrise and is a defining element of Brookfield's partnership with Convene, an on-site hotel-style meeting and hospitality service tailored to the needs of office tenants. Derek Damon, Regional VP of Operations discussed how the new era of right-sizing & co-working impacts companies' office space requirements, and how amenities like Convene fill a critical role for tenants.
Attendees were then treated to a discussion on DTLA's emergence as the Arts & Culture epicenter of the entire region. Erica Overskei, Program Manager for Arts Brookfield, highlighted how their arts and cultural events and programming create a sense of community in Downtown and foster a dynamic environment of creativity and innovation. This is of paramount importance to the new generation of technology, design, and media industries that are increasingly coming to DTLA.
Innovation, creativity, and community are some of the key themes of our Hacking the Highrise initiative, and they were all on display at our launch event. We look forward to exploring them in more detail with our series of editorial and videos on Urbanize.LA and at our event series showcasing DTLA's top office towers. There's much more to come, so stay tuned!
