AUSTIN: Green Water Treatment Plant & Seaholm Power Plant Redevelopment Update Thread - Page 50

Syndic · #**981** Posted **Oct 18, 2014, 2:42 AM**

Man, this building is just shooting upwards since they started on the main tower floors. In a month, this building is going to have a noticeable presence in the skyline.

KevinFromTexas · #**982** Posted **Oct 24, 2014, 12:35 AM**

The site plan was released today for the Block 23 office building. The elevations are shown on pages 25 through 27.

ftp://ftp.ci.austin.tx.us/ATD_AULCC/...20LA_PLANS.pdf

The heights are:

397 feet 6 inches to the mechanical penthouse. This is the highest point on the building.

344 feet 6 inches to the 28th floor. This is the highest occupied floor.

There are also 3 more levels above the 28th floor that are mechanical levels.

387 feet 6 inches to the 31st mechanical floor.

373 feet 6 inches to the 30th mechanical floor.

359 feet 6 inches to the 29th floor (main roof) parapet.

357 feet 6 inches to the 29th floor (main roof) slab.

Jdawgboy · #**983** Posted **Oct 24, 2014, 10:58 PM**

Boooo, we continue to get lame short office buildings.

JoninATX · #**984** Posted **Oct 24, 2014, 11:04 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jdawgboy

Boooo, we continue to get lame short office buildings.

Come on Jdawgboy where your sense of team spirit. J/K though I do agree, don't get me wrong it was fun seeing all these 300 & 400 footers at the beginning but now it's like come on man we need height. I'll take a 500 footer than another 400ft one in which we got like 20 or so of those.

KevinFromTexas · #**985** Posted **Oct 24, 2014, 11:16 PM**

It's kind of crazy to think One American Center is still our 2nd tallest office building. Only Frost is taller.

Anyway, yeah, that does bite. Originally 3 years ago I was told by someone from Gensler that the office building would be 419 feet. Most of that height came from a glass wedge above the mechanical penthouse that they've since eliminated.

This building will be almost identical to the height and design of Colorado Tower, but it'll have about 130,000 more square feet. I'm worried it's going to be really squat. It won't matter all that much, though, because it'll be surrounded on at least 2 sides by three taller buildings.

Jdawgboy · #**986** Posted **Oct 25, 2014, 12:34 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by JoninATX

Come on Jdawgboy where your sense of team spirit. J/K though I do agree, don't get me wrong it was fun seeing all these 300 & 400 footers at the beginning but now it's like come on man we need height. I'll take a 500 footer than another 400ft one in which we got like 20 or so of those.

I know..I know. At least it's another high rise that will add density to DT. I also realize that just 10 years ago, we would be elated with excitement about a project like this. The Frost tower was just completed and 300 W 6th was still fairly new.

My issue is here we are 10 years later with a huge portfolio of towers. We have broken both the 500 and 600 foot range. The top of the Austonian is within a few feet of the 700 foot mark so it's not like it would be a hard goal to achieve to break 700 feet. Is Block 24 going to be our only salvation with no other prospects of other buildings in the 700 to 900 foot range?

Kevin makes a good point, Block 23 is going to be one heck of a squatty building. 3rd @ Colorado is bulky but it's just thin enough to escape the squatty look. I consider bulky and squatty to be different things. The soon to be new UT System HQ is an example of what I consider squatty.

Another reason why I'm so over these Short (anything under 400 feet IMO) office buildings is it makes it less likely that a tall office tower will be built. Sure right now office space is in such demand that with the recent addition of IBC, 3rd @ Colorado and the Bowie tower, occupancy in DT will actually go up, not go down and that's great but it surely won't last. There will come a point when these new office buildings will meet demand lessening the need for additional office towers.

Another important consideration is there are only a certain amount of full city blocks left that can be developed. If most of them end up with mediocre buildings, then we will have a stubby flat skyline.

GoldenBoot · #**987** Posted **Oct 25, 2014, 1:39 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by KevinFromTexas

The site plan was released today for the Block 23 office building. The elevations are shown on pages 25 through 27.

ftp://ftp.ci.austin.tx.us/ATD_AULCC/...20LA_PLANS.pdf

The heights are:

397 feet 6 inches to the mechanical penthouse. This is the highest point on the building.

344 feet 6 inches to the 28th floor. This is the highest occupied floor.

There are also 3 more levels above the 28th floor that are mechanical levels.

387 feet 6 inches to the 31st mechanical floor.

373 feet 6 inches to the 30th mechanical floor.

359 feet 6 inches to the 29th floor (main roof) parapet.

357 feet 6 inches to the 29th floor (main roof) slab.

WOW...guess what? Gentler-Austin designed this one too (the other being the Fairmont). Maybe a developer should hire a Gentler architect outside of the Austin office?!? They seem to only design 400'-tall walls of glass. Sad...considering Gentler's other offices have designed some incredible structures!!!

GoldenBoot · #**988** Posted **Oct 25, 2014, 1:43 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jdawgboy

Boooo, we continue to get lame short office buildings.

Agreed! Have you seen the new mixed-use tower going up in Seattle? It includes 528,000 SF of office and an SLS hotel in a beautiful 660' tall tower.

Fifth+Columbia-Seattle

tie_guy · #**989** Posted **Oct 25, 2014, 2:19 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by GoldenBoot

Agreed! Have you seen the new mixed-use tower going up in Seattle? It includes 528,000 SF of office and an SLS hotel in a beautiful 660' tall tower.

Fifth+Columbia-Seattle

I remember when I visited Seattle in 2011, that site already had banner up of that building (like the Fairmont here) like it was about to break ground. It's taken some time, but it's finally being built. Makes me feel much better about the proposals in Austin coming to fruition. And while I do prefer taller buildings, I prefer five to seven 400 footers than just one 660 foot tower.

corvairkeith · #**990** Posted **Oct 28, 2014, 8:34 PM**

Is that another tower crane to the left of the frame?

KevinFromTexas · #**991** Posted **Oct 28, 2014, 9:31 PM**

I think it's a crawler crane. You can see the cab on the left side running off the frame. It could be that they're going to use that crane to place the decking for the bridge on the piers.

corvairkeith · #**992** Posted **Oct 30, 2014, 1:41 AM**

Yep, it's a crawler crane. It was hard to tell perspective from the webcam.

NYC2ATX · #**993** Posted **Oct 31, 2014, 6:30 AM**

A few things I've seen just now: there's construction workers on site, lights everywhere, buzzing with activity right now, and it's 1:30 in the morning. Talk about an aggressive schedule. Also, it's hard to tell from where I'm standing, but something is crossing the creek at Second Street. Who's got eyes at normal hours and can give us an update!

OtherKevin · #**994** Posted **Oct 31, 2014, 1:14 PM**

These pictures are from Thursday morning and afternoon. There was a large crew, probably a couple dozen people, who were working all day on installing the bridge supports. They don't quite reach all the way to the other side though.

morning

(click for larger image)

afternoon

(click for larger image)

jngreenlee · #**995** Posted **Oct 31, 2014, 3:21 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by OtherKevin

[...]the bridge supports. They don't quite reach all the way to the other side though.

Someone forgot to measure twice, cut once!

Actually to be fair, the extra bits are off to the left of the second picture. I suppose they'll be riveting or welding those together to close the gap. Maybe there was a DOT load length limit they had to work around.

airwx · #**996** Posted **Oct 31, 2014, 6:54 PM**

The city's site showing construction of the library is a great way to also follow the progress of the second street bridge.

Jdawgboy · #**997** Posted **Nov 1, 2014, 7:34 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by tie_guy

I remember when I visited Seattle in 2011, that site already had banner up of that building (like the Fairmont here) like it was about to break ground. It's taken some time, but it's finally being built. Makes me feel much better about the proposals in Austin coming to fruition. And while I do prefer taller buildings, I prefer five to seven 400 footers than just one 660 foot tower.

Yea but Block 23 isn't even a 400 footer it's a piece of crap, shorter than One American Center and no taller than 100 Congress height. Im sorry but we are going backwards with office buildings not forwards. I'm getting to the point to where I would rather see nothing built at all rather than another piece of $h@t stubby ass building. There comes a point where too many 375 to 475 foot range buildings creates an unflattering and dull skyline.

ATXboom · #**998** Posted **Nov 1, 2014, 8:14 AM**

Then San Diego, Vancouver and Portland all have dull skylines. Patience... Mixed use density makes a city. Houston has a beautiful skyline but it's not a functioning 24 hr urban center like Portland , VC, etc. beauty from a distance or feel on the street? I'll take feel on the street. And I think those 3 city skylines are actually appealing.

GoldenBoot · #**999** Posted **Nov 1, 2014, 4:51 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by ATXboom

Then San Diego, Vancouver and Portland all have dull skylines. Patience... Mixed use density makes a city. Houston has a beautiful skyline but it's not a functioning 24 hr urban center like Portland , VC, etc. beauty from a distance or feel on the street? I'll take feel on the street. And I think those 3 city skylines are actually appealing.

I agree with you; I'd rather see more activity on the ground. However, let's be fair here...The FAA caps the height of towers in downtown San Diego (thus, it's urban area casts a wider net leading it to be one of the densest cities in North America). Vancouver has (built or under construction) 2 buildings topping 600'; 2 more between 500' & 599'; 11 towers between 450' & 499'; 6 buildings between 400' & 449'; and 13 between 350' & 399'. As mentioned, this list does not count those being currently proposed.

All of the cities you mentioned have metro populations well north of 2 million. Not a real fair comparison to Austin, who's MSA will not surpass 2 million until sometime during the first or second quarter of next year (2015). In fact, the smallest you mentioned, Portland, has an MSA population slightly larger than that of San Antonio (as of the US Census' July 1, 2013 estimates).

Furthermore, in Vancouver's case, the vast majority of their towers are very aesthetically pleasing point towers (meaning, IMO, far more thought and money was put into their design and they do not take up as much "space" in the sky). They are not block-long monoliths.

So, in this case, a skyline "filled" with 450' towers actually does look really good. Let's not forget the water and mountains do add to Vancouver's beauty!

SMC · #**1000** Posted **Nov 1, 2014, 5:21 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by ATXboom

Then San Diego, Vancouver and Portland all have dull skylines. Patience... Mixed use density makes a city. Houston has a beautiful skyline but it's not a functioning 24 hr urban center like Portland , VC, etc. beauty from a distance or feel on the street? I'll take feel on the street. And I think those 3 city skylines are actually appealing.

Couldn't agree more.