AUSTIN | Colorado Tower | 397 FEET | 29 FLOORS | Complete - Page 22

The ATX · #**421** Posted **Aug 9, 2014, 6:27 AM**

From the topping out in July:

http://www.dpr.com/media/blog

the Genral · #**422** Posted **Aug 9, 2014, 12:05 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hill Country

I just caught the end of a news story on KXAN about another worker on this tower being critically injured. This project has an unfortunate history.

According to my source, the guy was hitting a metal pin with a sledgehammer, it sheared off and pierced his heart and unfortunately, the worker has died.
While the first accident was the result of violation of safety protocols, this one looks to be a freakish unavoidable accident. The first accident shows why safety rules are in place, and yesterday's tragedy reminds us how dangerous this job really is. My source's wife says she is acutely aware of this now.

The ATX · #**423** Posted **Aug 9, 2014, 10:13 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by the Genral

According to my source, the guy was hitting a metal pin with a sledgehammer, it sheared off and pierced his heart and unfortunately, the worker has died.
While the first accident was the result of violation of safety protocols, this one looks to be a freakish unavoidable accident. The first accident shows why safety rules are in place, and yesterday's tragedy reminds us how dangerous this job really is. My source's wife says she is acutely aware of this now.

A third reported accident was the customer eating at the open air restaurant below who suffered a head injury when wet cement landed on him.

corvairkeith · #**424** Posted **Aug 21, 2014, 5:12 PM**

Today.

KevinFromTexas · #**425** Posted **Aug 23, 2014, 12:29 AM**

KevinFromTexas · #**426** Posted **Aug 29, 2014, 3:21 AM**

IluvATX · #**427** Posted **Aug 29, 2014, 1:11 PM**

I guess it's just an illusion on the renderings where it looks like the top of the penthouse slopes back.

Syndic · #**428** Posted **Aug 29, 2014, 3:46 PM**

Yeah it's a little bit boxier than I expected. Either way, I'm anxious to see what this one will look like when it's lit up. JW Marriott, too. It will change the look of our skyline, for sure.

The ATX · #**429** Posted **Aug 29, 2014, 3:51 PM**

This is a great photo Kevin.

Mopacs · #**430** Posted **Sep 3, 2014, 5:18 AM**

Here are a few from yesterday, 9/1.

KevinFromTexas · #**431** Posted **Sep 3, 2014, 7:35 PM**

Nice pics, Mopacs! This one's growing on me. I had hoped it would be the taller version of the two, and I would have liked the crown to be more catchy, but it's turned out nice. It's a good filler building and the glass is awesome.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hill Country

This is a great photo Kevin.

Thanks. That was from the 22nd floor of the Hilton. I wandered around up there until I found a nice house cleaning lady who would let me take pictures of the view.

austlar1 · #**432** Posted **Sep 4, 2014, 4:59 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by KevinFromTexas

Nice pics, Mopacs! This one's growing on me. I had hoped it would be the taller version of the two, and I would have liked the crown to be more catchy, but it's turned out nice. It's a good filler building and the glass is awesome.

Thanks. That was from the 22nd floor of the Hilton. I wandered around up there until I found a nice house cleaning lady who would let me take pictures of the view.

Well, as long as you weren't up there trespassing, I guess it was OK.

j_type · #**433** Posted **Sep 4, 2014, 11:10 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by KevinFromTexas

Nice pics, Mopacs! This one's growing on me. I had hoped it would be the taller version of the two, and I would have liked the crown to be more catchy, but it's turned out nice. It's a good filler building and the glass is awesome.

Thanks. That was from the 22nd floor of the Hilton. I wandered around up there until I found a nice house cleaning lady who would let me take pictures of the view.

yea kevin were you actually staying in a room at the hilton? if not it sure sounds like you were trespassing.

tie_guy · #**434** Posted **Sep 9, 2014, 10:08 PM**

http://www.statesman.com/news/busine...-95-lea/nhJs9/

Jdawgboy · #**435** Posted **Sep 9, 2014, 10:20 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by tie_guy

http://www.statesman.com/news/busine...-95-lea/nhJs9/

That's great news and is a good indicator of just how strong the DT office market is.

We should continue to see office tower announcements and hopefully a substantially tall tower with between 500,000 and 1 million sq feet.

I'm specifically looking at Magellan and I'm interested in seeing if their 5th and Brazos proposal has been changed.

Austin1971 · #**436** Posted **Sep 10, 2014, 5:40 PM**

Betcha the developers are pissed since they could have easily added several more floors to this project. There loss will be another developers gain.....DT is ready for an 800 footer......

LoneStarMike · #**437** Posted **Sep 10, 2014, 6:25 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Austin1971

Betcha the developers are pissed since they could have easily added several more floors to this project.

If they had added more floors, they would have had to add more parking and as it is now, it's got 12 levels of parking.

There was a blog posting at the Austin Contrarian two and half years ago that discussed this.

Quote:

I suspect the real constraint here is parking. Drivers will only drive up so many ramps in order to park their cars. The taller the garage, the bigger the pain it is to park on the top floors. This puts a practical cap on the number of floors a parking garage can contain. The developer is proposing a 12-story garage, which is an aggressive estimate of that cap. It's safe to say that this plan would maximize the amount of parking on site.

Despite all that parking, the plan is proposing "only" 2.3 parkings spots per 1,000 sf of office space -- less than that, really, since some of that parking should be allocated to the ground-floor uses. Although this is more parking than the city requires, it is less than conventional wisdom says new office buildings in downtown Austin need, which I've been told is around 3 spaces per 1,000 square feet.

I'm not questioning the feasibility of this plan. As office rents rise, the opportunity cost of a parking spot increases, which should lead to less parking per square foot of office space. And I'd be delighted to see the ratio of parking to office space decline in downtown Austin. But the extreme height of the garage combined with the aggressive parking-to-office-space ratio suggests that the developer has proposed 17 floors of office space because it can't fit in enough parking for 18 floors. Put differently, the developer is building as much leasable space as its maxed-out parking garage will support.

tie_guy · #**438** Posted **Sep 10, 2014, 9:17 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by LoneStarMike

If they had added more floors, they would have had to add more parking and as it is now, it's got 12 levels of parking.

There was a blog posting at the Austin Contrarian two and half years ago that discussed this.

Couldn't they have built more garage levels underground? Having, let's say 15, garage floors above ground is a bit much, but if there were 7 levels under ground and 8 above, then no one would have to drive up or down more than 8 levels to get to ground level. I'm sure there's more to it than that, but it SEEMS like a solution.

LoneStarMike · #**439** Posted **Sep 10, 2014, 11:00 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by tie_guy

Couldn't they have built more garage levels underground? Having, let's say 15, garage floors above ground is a bit much, but if there were 7 levels under ground and 8 above, then no one would have to drive up or down more than 8 levels to get to ground level. I'm sure there's more to it than that, but it SEEMS like a solution.

I guess they could have, but I seem to recall reading that underground parking costs 1.5 to 2 times more than above-ground parking.

Speaking of underground parking (and maybe Kevin would know) what project (either built, under construction, or proposed) has the most levels of underground parking? I'm guessing whatever project it is would be either residential or hotel or some sort of mixed-use building.

As for towers that are purely used as offices (with maybe some ground floor retail) I don't know how many of them have underground parking and if any do, how many levels.

tie_guy · #**440** Posted **Sep 10, 2014, 11:20 PM**

1.5 to 2 times more cost to build underground seems like it'd deter developers from doing so, however it'd make for more leaseable space. In the long run, that cost would be more than made up for. Just a thought.

Also, not sure which structure has the most underground parking levels, but I'd say the JW probably has the most underground parking space simply because they had an entire block to work with.