Moretti says that Maguire has engaged Rick Keating of Keating/Khang Architecture, designer of Maguire's Gas Company Tower in Downtown L.A., as architect for the new 50-story building. Maguire believes the building will be ready for occupancy in approximately three years, at which time the REIT estimates the vacancy in the Los Angeles CBD should be below 10%.

Latest figures from CB Richard Ellis show the Downtown office vacancy rate at 13.6%, down from 14.3% a year ago and nearly unchanged from the second quarter of this year. Maguire intends to have the new building 40% preleased before beginning construction of the building, which would rise within walking distance of L.A. Live and the Staples Center, two venues that are considered catalysts for much of the development under way in Downtown.

The new skyscraper would be the first such development in Downtown L.A. since the office building boom of the late 1980s and early 1990s, which added millions of sf of space and transformed the city's skyline. The building boom created a glut of CBD office space, which combined with the recession of the early 1990s and consolidations in banking, accounting and other industries to keep the Downtown office vacancy rate in the 20% range or higher throughout much of the 1990s.

While suburban and West Los Angeles markets flourished in some of the years that the Downtown L.A. market struggled, specialists in CBD space pointed out that the best class A buildings nonetheless maintained high occupancies. Maguire's assessment, according to the company's web site, is that the Downtown financial district continues to attract corporate users for its central location, its large labor pool, the presence of prominent financial services firms from around the world and amenities like restaurants, hotels, museums, retail shops and cultural venues.

Maguire's assessment also cites the addition of Staples Center, the Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles Center Studios and "numerous large-scale office, condominium, and loft developments." Those developments have stimulated a residential and retail construction boom that many say is transforming Downtown into a 24-hour city.