Related Companies and partner CORE USA broke ground Feb. 11 on the Grand in downtown Los Angeles. Designed by Frank Gehry, the $1-billion project is located across the street from Gehry’s Disney Concert Hall. The Grand, set to open in 2021, includes 176,000 sq ft of retail and dining, a movie theater, a hotel, a public plaza and 400 luxury residences. “The project is on a difficult, sloped site with deep excavation going down about 60 ft,” says Rick Vogel, senior vice president at Related. He says excavation crews were surprised by 50-year-old parking structure foundation systems on site. “We were expecting spread foundations and found it sitting on very deep caissons, and that was one of our first challenges.” AECOM is construction manager of Related Companies’ in-house construction team.