On their website, if you scroll to the right 3 slides, they show the building integrated with the skyline: http://www.oxforddevelopment.com/
Notice in the picture they show the New PNC Tower looking taller, but both are 33 floors? Plus (Not sure why they made PNC have all those insets on the side.)
I like the design. Yeah it isn't the most original but does every building need to be? I think it will fit in nicely in that section of town and I guarantee the renderings we see today are not doing the final design any justice. It would be one thing if it was competing for one of the tallest buildings in the city and looked like that but it isn't and it should help fill in a hole in the skyline. I say knock down the 6 floor building and bring on the 33 story building. Pittsburgh needs a lot less of the small buildings in the city core.
Notice in the picture they show the New PNC Tower looking taller, but both are 33 floors? Plus (Not sure why they made PNC have all those insets on the side.)
The PNC tower will have very high ceilings as part of it being the world's greenest skyscraper and all, so PNC's 33 floors are going to make for a taller tower than Oxford's 33 floors. The renderings for Oxford so far are awful though, I hope that they are just for massing purposes and a more respectable building will be proposed once a tenant is secured. If not, then I'd rather see the existing building renovated. And yeah, One Oxford Centre is MUCH more attractive than the building proposed today...
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I saw "sky deck" referenced in the official press release! Altho, I guess that would be only for corporate use and not public. Still, I say build this thing!!!
Oh, and thanks for not thinking I'm crasy btw Brian.
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I'm feeling an Icon Brickell vibe with this latest rendering
Obviously, an extreme mini vibe that I get, but looking at some of the angles and the "stacked blocks" appearance... there's a resemblance... and considering Arquitectonica is behind both, maybe I'm not delusional.
Last edited by Private Dick; May 25, 2012 at 1:45 PM.
Eh, I definitely prefer the older version with the copper color. It was a lot more daring than the new renderings which show a very safe design: glass boxes with silver framing, how boring... But it's still better than what Oxford proposed today and should really boost the density around Market Square, giving it more of that big city feel.
After seeing Oxford's proposals, I think the best idea would be to combine both plans. Renovate the Frank & Seder building and then build the 33 story tower on the parking lots across Forbes.
I see no need to knock down such a nice old building when there are still so many parking lots in prime locations throughout downtown.
Aside from the color and a shift from emphasizing some horizontal rather than vertical line, I'm not sure there are many differences from the second design we saw (the first one had a difference facade on the hotel part)--I think we're mostly just seeing it from more angles. Incidentally, the source document has even more information, and I wasn't aware before that the hotel portion wraps around the south side, which is cool and should look interesting from Fourth Avenue:
The other thing I didn't know before was that the hotel base is cantilevered out a bit so cars can drive underneath. That is apparent in the elevation from Market Square above, and also here:
That actually solves what I think of as the "Car Bomber Mystery"--in the earliest renderings it looked like a car was driving into the side of the building from Forbes, but I now know they were driving into that passage:
In a perfect world, the cleaned-up classic 1917 Frank & Seder would continue to anchor the intersection it has shared for nearly a hundred years with the 1924 Mellon Bank, the 1896 Park Building, and the 1898-1913 Kauffman's.
And the new Oxford proposal would be redesigned to look far better than what it does in the renderings, and the gussied-up, parking garage-looking absolute piece of shit below would be demolished to make room for it.
Last edited by Private Dick; May 25, 2012 at 2:41 PM.
Yeah, that whole intersection should remain historic. Where else in the city can you find 4 buildings all a century old at one intersection? There are lots of other spots where a solid-but-unspectacular 30 story office building can be built. The lower Hill immediately comes to mind.. maybe Oxford, the Pens and US Steel or Chevron can partner up and make it happen.
While Pittsburgh could be on the verge of a development breakthrough, the largely symbolic ban on gas drilling has made it harder to draw energy companies to the city, said David Morehouse, president of the Penguins, which hold development rights to the 28-acre site of the former Civic Arena.
The hockey team has plans for up to 1.5 million square feet of offices, 1,100 housing units and 350,000 square feet of retail and entertainment space. The Penguins have hired an owner's representative and started informal talks with a potential major tenant.
"What we can offer with our site is that you can be located in the central business district and still have a campus-like environment that includes office, housing and retail," Morehouse said. "That's the unique aspect of our development."
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