AUSTIN | Dell Seton Med Center at U.T. | 232 FT | 14 FLRS | Vert Expansion U/C

[KevinFromTexas]

Southwest elevation (along Waller Creek).



East elevation



Northeast elevation



Main entrance (east elevation) facing Red River Street.



Southeast elevation (along Red River Street).



North elevation



Northwest elevation



West elevation



Southwest elevation



• Video Link

The building marked "hospital".

[KevinFromTexas]

The civil engineering plans were released today for the Seton Medical Center at University of Texas. They included the building elevations on pages 30 and 31.

The plans show the building to be 162 feet to the mechanical penthouse, and 147 feet to the main roof with 10 floors as measured on the west side of the building along Waller Creek. The property slopes down 20 feet from Red River Street toward the creek. The tower is 9 floors along Red River Street and 10 floors along Waller Creek.

The building will face Red River Street. The address is 1500 Red River Street. It will be at what will be the northwest corner of Red River Street & East 15th Street.

ftp://ftp.ci.austin.tx.us/ATD_AULCC/...s_PLANS_02.pdf

At 162 feet it will make it 1 foot taller than Brackenridge Hospital which is currently Austin's tallest hospital.

[KevinFromTexas]

Judging from the elevations for the hospital and the renderings, the other two new buildings should also be highrises. I'd say the Admin building will probably be around 130 feet and the research building will be around 145 feet.

By the way, the hospital is probably a little more than 162 feet tall because the building elevations show the roof to be completely flat, whereas the renderings show a few roof access "boxes" above that flat roof. So maybe another 7 or 8 feet. I may email the architect to see what they say.

http://www.bizjournals.com/austin/bl...ital-name.html

Apr 17, 2014, 2:33pm CDT
Seton unveils teaching hospital name

Chad Swiatecki
Staff Writer-
Austin Business Journal

Seton Healthcare Family’s new teaching hospital at the University of Texas’ Dell Medical School complex will be known as Seton Medical Center at The University of Texas.

Hospital system officials unveiled the name Thursday ahead of a ceremony Monday to mark the start of construction of the medical school.

Construction on the new $295 million hospital, which will replace University Medical Center Brackenridge, is slated to begin later this year with an opening slated for 2017.

[KevinFromTexas]

It'll pretty much be where that grassy area and rectangular parking lot are, and will extend north to that 3-story concrete building.

[Digatisdi]

A few of the renderings (specifically the third one) remind me of parts of the university college hospital near Euston in London. I remember it being really nice with all the natural light.

[Jdawgboy]

This is really gonna be huge for Austin. By all accounts, this will be the largest producer in jobs for a specific entity this century with an estimated 15,000 new jobs associated with the Medical school, not to mention the residual effects it will have by bringing in new medical companies.

I'd really like to see picture updates on a regular basis to follow the huge transformation that area is going through and in a pretty short amount of time too.

[KevinFromTexas]

With the way they've designed it they'll have room for expansion no doubt with new tower wings above that 2-story podium along Red River.

The interior of the medical center is free of capitol view corridors, but it is bordered to the north and south by them. That's actually going to force them to go more vertical in order to have the space they need. I wouldn't be surprised if several of the new buildings/expansions reach 200 feet or more.

[The ATX]

Three tower cranes for this one. That makes a total of seven tower cranes so far for medical school related projects.

https://www.austintexas.gov/devrevie...erRSN=11219768

[Austin1971]

Originally Posted by Jdawgboy

This is really gonna be huge for Austin. By all accounts, this will be the largest producer in jobs for a specific entity this century with an estimated 15,000 new jobs associated with the Medical school, not to mention the residual effects it will have by bringing in new medical companies.

I'd really like to see picture updates on a regular basis to follow the huge transformation that area is going through and in a pretty short amount of time too.

Think Boston and Raleigh/Durham. I agree this is Austin's next boom and think it's going to be huge.....

Kevin are they exempt from view corridors since they are a state entity?

[KevinFromTexas]

Originally Posted by Austin1971

Kevin are they exempt from view corridors since they are a state entity?

I don't think so. I found this permit request for a capitol view corridor height determination for the building.

https://www.austintexas.gov/devrevie...erRSN=11208539

[Jdawgboy]

I'm sure this was covered already but how much of the area is covered by the CVC?

[KevinFromTexas]

There are 4 corridors that run through what will be the medical center.

This building will sit between 3 of them.

[KevinFromTexas]

By the way, I was looking at the permit for the cranes, and on the diagram for the building it shows the building sections labeling the floor counts of each. Anyway, for the main tower - the 9-story section facing Red River Street, it notes that there is a plan for a "4-story future expansion." So they may be planning to add 4 more floors to the main tower eventually for a total of 13 floors facing Red River Street. Of course there is an extra floor on the west side of the building facing Waller Creek. If you look at the renderings, it does appear to be designed so that more floors could be added. In fact, most several of the buildings appear that way.

Right now the 10th floor of the building is planned to be 147 feet above the street. Right now the breakdown is 147 feet / 10 floors = 14.7 feet per floor. So 4 more floors would be another 58.8 feet. That would push the top floor height to 205 feet. Above that is the mechanical penthouse, which if they maintain the same scale and design as it is today, that would push the height to 220 feet.


That image also shows the routes of the capitol view corridors around the building.

ftp://ftp.ci.austin.tx.us/ATD_AULCC/...rane_PLANS.pdf

[Austin1971]

Originally Posted by KevinFromTexas

I don't think so. I found this permit request for a capitol view corridor height determination for the building.

https://www.austintexas.gov/devrevie...erRSN=11208539

Thanks Kevin. I think they need to go bigger. The original plans seem a bit small for such a burgeoning metro.

[Jdawgboy]

I agree but now that we know that several of the buildings can be added on to means that they did plan for future growth. So the initial school may seem small, over time, will look larger and more impressive.

My question is what do they plan to do once the avaliable space for expansion has been filled? There's only so much they can do with the kind of restrictions they are under. It would've been nice to see some 300 footers which would really bulk up the size of the school but that won't happen unfortunately. If it were me developing the long term plan, I would take full advantage of that small window with no CVC and place some tall thin highrises but we are talking about UT.

Eventually they will reach full build out of their 3 phase plan. Will they stop growing at that point or will they look for more land for expansion? The most logical choice would be to expand east of 35 however that would be a pretty big gap splitting the two sides (unless 35 is built underground).

[KevinFromTexas]

Originally Posted by Jdawgboy

It would've been nice to see some 300 footers which would really bulk up the size of the school but that won't happen unfortunately. If it were me developing the long term plan, I would take full advantage of that small window with no CVC and place some tall thin highrises but we are talking about UT.

I'm betting that will happen. The view corridors are actually going to force them to have to go vertical to achieve the same amount of space.

The stacking plan map that was released showed two towers that are 15 floors each. While those aren't 300 feet tall, they did appear to be about 200 feet. The map only showed the teaching hospital at 7 floors to the very highest point, even though it's being planned to have 10 floors with possibly 4 more planned later. Nothing is set in stone just yet as everything is still preliminary. And it'll be years before this is all finished, so I'm sure things will change.

The optimistic in me has me hoping I-35 will be redone before the medical center is built out, in which case the view corridors from the upper deck of I-35 wouldn't exist anymore.

[ATXboom]

What happens to view corridors if 35 is sunk?

[paul78701]

Originally Posted by ATXboom

What happens to view corridors if 35 is sunk?

I believe it will take action from the state legislature in order to modify/remove those state capital view corridors which preserve views from I-35. The city capital view corridors will likely be less daunting to change. I would hazzard a guess that the city council would approve that.

[LoneStarMike]

Originally Posted by paul78701

The city capital view corridors will likely be less daunting to change. I would hazzard a guess that the city council would approve that.

No, anything having to do with capitol view corridors has to be approved by the Texas State Legislature.

More info here

Texas Legislature: Rep. Mike Krusee of Taylor filed legislation (House Bill 3716) to establish a “variance process” to exempt development projects from a CVC. Currently, a CVC can only be altered by the legislature. The legislation gave administrative agencies the ability to grant a variance – without notice or public hearing. Preservation Texas, the PA and others expressed significant concern with circumventing the protective authority the Legislature has vigilantly administered for the past quarter century. After listening to these concerns, Rep. Krusee agreed not to pursue his original “variance” bill, and has now worked with interested parties to craft a study of the CVCs to be conducted, culminating with recommendations for action in the 2009 legislative session. This revised legislation is currently being considered by the Texas House of Representatives.

That was five years ago and I don't think anything has really changed since then. If it were that easy for the city council to grant a variance, we wouldn't have our current problem of the Waller Creek Tunnel Intake Facility being too high. The city council would have just granted an exception.

[The ATX]

Here's an updated crane permit filing from today. I'm not sure why it was done, but it says the three cranes will be going up in early January and will be up for 12 months:

ttps://www.austintexas.gov/devreview...erRSN=11230943