73% of America's 21st century 500+ footers have been built in just 3 metros

[Steely Dan]

digging through the SSP diagrams recently, i came to realize that the list of US 500+ footers* built/under construction since the start of this century is dominated by just 3 metro areas: NYC, Miami, and Chicago.

here's the breakdown by metro area (includes 21st century completed & U/C 500+ footers):

US total - 226

new york - 79 (35%)
miami - 45 (20%)
chicago - 40 (18%)

las vegas - 12
atlanta - 7
houston - 7
san francisco - 5
seattle - 4
austin - 3
boston - 3
charlotte - 3
philadelphia - 3
atlantic city - 2
los angeles - 2
cincinnati - 1
dallas - 1
denver - 1
mobile - 1
oklahoma city - 1
omaha - 1
pittsburgh - 1
portland - 1
raleigh - 1
st. louis - 1
virginia beach - 1


NYC & chicago have long dominated US skyscraper construction, but it appears that miami has now joined that elite group.




(*) there's nothing super magical about 500 feet, but for those of us nerds who have been doing the online skyscraper thing since the early days of the internet back in the '90s, we all fondly remember Marshall Gerometta's "Hot 500 list" which was likely the first website in history that attempted to track global construction of all buildings over 500 feet, so 500 feet just kinda became a nice round cut-off number for us old-timers.

[jd3189]

Miami's rising up. It's one of the only cities that has the geographical restraints,population growth, and overall setting to build more condos( and eventually office buildings) than most other US cities. Houston, Atlanta,Los Angeles, San Francisco,etc? They have more population but their growth is not as skyward as Miami's right now. If everything planned actually happens. Miami might have the most supertalls of a US city outside New York and Chicago.

[Muckk]

Originally Posted by jd3189

Miami's rising up. It's one of the only cities that has the geographical restraints,population growth, and overall setting to build more condos( and eventually office buildings) than most other US cities. Houston, Atlanta,Los Angeles, San Francisco,etc? They have more population but their growth is not as skyward as Miami's right now. If everything planned actually happens. Miami might have the most supertalls of a US city outside New York and Chicago.

Good point. I imagine Miami can't really expand outward due to all the swamp land.

[brickell]

It'd be interesting to see if we broke it down by municipality. Sunny Isles be near the top by itself.

[Fardeb]

Milwaukee will hopefully get on the list by adding two pretty soon, NML tower and The Couture, doubling up on its 500fter count.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by brickell

It'd be interesting to see if we broke it down by municipality. Sunny Isles be near the top by itself.

by itself, sunny isles beach has 11.

hannandale beach has 1.

and miami city proper is at 33.

Originally Posted by Fardeb

Are you adding Jersey City into the NYC number?

yep, jersey city's 9 got added into NYC's number.

[Fardeb]

^ Sorry the "metro" part didn't register with me at first, but yeah 9 in Jersey City is not bad.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Fardeb

^ Sorry the "metro" part didn't register with me at first, but yeah 9 in Jersey City is not bad.

no worries, i did it that way to make things easier.

the truth is that only NYC and miami had 500+ footers from other municipalities in their metro areas added in to their total. the rest of the numbers for all the other cities on the list are city proper because no other suburban municipalities in the US have built any 500+ footers so far this century.

[photoLith]

Interesting, its pretty sad that Pittsburgh has only gotten one, and its getting built right now.

[dave8721]

San Francisco seems like a city that has all the elements that one would expect to foster the growth of a bunch of towers (wealth, density, growth, geographical constraints...etc). Reading the SF tower threads in the development threads, its astounding that anything gets built with all the red tape developers have to go through there.
Here in Miami, there seems to be little anyone can do to stop a developer from building on the site of a 2000+ year old city layout as well as the site of modern Miami's most important historic structure (see Met Square development trying to cover over ruins of the Royal Palm Hotel and the ruins of an ancient Tequesta town). Developers property rights are not to be disturbed.

Two extremes I guess.

[photoLith]

Id rather have the San Francisco red tape so responsible development occurs rather than anything goes.

[philopdx]

Hey Steely, you can log one for Portland, OR. Park Avenue West has been restarted and will be 501 feet, 7 inches. We just squeaked over the line. :-D

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by philopdx

Hey Steely, you can log one for Portland, OR. Park Avenue West has been restarted and will be 501 feet, 7 inches. We just squeaked over the line. :-D

is that the correct height? i ask because the SSP diagrams have it listed at 476'.

[The North One]

I love how L.A. is bigger than Chicago, yet it's just barely above St. Louis.

[MolsonExport]

I reckon the same would apply to Canada:
Toronto leading the pack, followed by Calgary, and then Vancouver (although Montreal does have a few +500 footers U/C)

[Steely Dan]

^ Canada is dominated by toronto, primarily because it doesn't have that many major cities to begin with (relative to the US).

21st century 500+ footers built or U/C in canada (by metro area):

Canada total - 55

toronto - 39 (71%)

calgary - 8
vancouver - 6
montreal - 1
niagara falls - 1


-toronto's number includes 2 in mississauga.
-vancouver's number includes 2 in burnaby.



if you look at things on a combined USA/canada scale, toronto would be right up there with the big 3 in the US:

USA/canada total: 276

new york - 79 (29%)
miami - 45 (16%)
toronto - 39 (14%)
chicago - 38 (14%)

or cumulatively, 73% of all 21st century USA/canada 500+ footers.

those 4 cities really are greatly outbuilding the other cities in the USA/canada realm when it comes to 500+ footers.

[caligrad]

Originally Posted by The North One

I love how L.A. is bigger than Chicago, yet it's just barely above St. Louis.

Yeah its crazy but its for obvious reasons. LA for years was able to expand outward and give everyone that "American Dream" of a single family house and 2 cars in the driveway. BUT. I think the tide is finally turning. The LA basin is completely built out now, we have the ocean on 2 sides, the mountains on one side and on our eastern side, the desert, is already built out for miles and miles and miles and now people are starting to complaining of having an hour-2 hour commute every morning to the city. so now there has been an increased interest in rebuilding our downtown.... give it another 5 years and LA may be building upward faster than other cities. Its our only option now.

[brickell]

LA would (probably) be doing just fine on this list if they allowed highrises on the coast. We've covered that before though, and Angelenos seem to be happy enough with the current setup.

[Guiltyspark]

Detroit... 0 :-(

[caligrad]

Originally Posted by brickell

LA would (probably) be doing just fine on this list if they allowed highrises on the coast. We've covered that before though, and Angelenos seem to be happy enough with the current setup.

LA does allow high rises on the coast to some extent.... Long Beach for instance, part of LA county, has its entire downtown on the coast.... tallest being almost 40 floors. Redondo beach, santa monica, el Segundo, marina del ray all have skylines and high rises on the coast... and they are all within Los Angeles city limits, minus Santa Monica, but the big issue is as soon as a high rise is proposed on the coast, residents who live in the area, and the ones who been there forever and hate change, stomp their feet and cry so all plans are scraped..... But to be honest.... I don't think most of the people of LA want high rises on the coast. We rather our beach be a bit of our escape from the rest of the city which is already being heavily developed.