Next Midwest City To Build A Tower Over 700' Tall
 

Springboarding off the other thread about the south, I thought it'd be interesting to explore a similar issue for the Midwest.

Chicago is excluded here, for obvious reasons.

Outside of Chicago, there have been a total of 7 buildings over 700' tall built in the midwest - 3 in Minneapolis, 2 in Cleveland, and 1 each in Detroit and Indianapolis - but the last one was built nearly 3 decades ago now.

We all had high hopes that Detroit was gonna be next with the Hudson Tower project now U/C, but it will fall just shy of the mark at 680'.

So, which midwest city is most likely to build the first 700+ footer in the region (outside of Chicago) since 1992?

I'd say Cleveland. Minneapolis's tallest is as old as I am.

Columbus has the growth to start seeing some residential skyscrapers. They've seen an impressive amount of infill, but most of it has been low-rise so far. I could see a high-rise boom happening in C-bus soon, but not sure if it'd rise to 700 feet.

Cleveland's getting a new Sherwin Williams HQ, but I think it's expected to be more in the 500' range. They've had a couple residential towers go up too, and lots of historic conversions downtown. Not sure if they have the growth to justify a 700' residential tower, but the Cleveland region does appear to build taller than Columbus, despite Columbus growing much, much faster.

I can't decide. Cleveland somehow has a strange ability to build tall, and also Columbus seems like it's overdue for a big project. If Minneapolis builds something that tall it would have to be a hotel+residential but I don't see that happening any time soon. Indianapolis could surprise us.

You're also forgetting Grand Rapids, not that I think it could pull this off but it's a bigger city than Omaha and way bigger than Des Moines.

The latest we are hearing from people in Sherwin Williams is that the HQ tower will be the city's second or third tallest, which would put it over 700ft.

No idea honestly, but I'd hazard to guess it'd be in either Minneapolis, Columbus, Indianapolis or Cleveland if the Sherwin Williams HQ pans out.

It could be Milwaukee... especially if the Hiawatha improvements happen.

I only included Midwest cities in the poll that have at least one 600+ footer (I rounded up for St. Louis). It didn't have anything to do with population.

Grand Rapids tallest building is only 406' tall.

I think Minneapolis is most likely, but Detroit would be my second guess.

I mean Detroit got pretty close :haha:
But they're building a 680ft tower at Hudsons and a 500ft tower at Monroe blocks is being proposed so I could definitely see them build something over 700ft.

Cleveland is getting the new Sherwin Williams HQ where the downtown population has grown over 20% so they’re in a good position to get a tower over 700ft.

Minneapolis has been getting some new developments recently, the tallest of them being 547ft so they’re getting close but I don't think they will build 700ft+ for another couple of years.

Indianapolis is one of the fastest-growing cities in the US and is in a prime position to get new tall towers but so far they only have the PanAm project to look forward to and it ain't no 700 footer.

Columbus is getting some new proposals and a new tower is under constriction at the convention center but nothing close 700ft.

But If I've had to say I think it would be Cleveland or Detroit, most likely Cleveland

Hopefully, these cities get some new tall towers soon, but nothing taller than Chicago though ;)

Minneapolis has the healthiest overall market downtown for new urban high rises.

If Sherman Williams doesn’t pan out for Cleveland, Minneapolis would by my best guess. It’s the only city that really is regularly seeing large high rises going up.

Milwaukee has the influence of Chicago builders though too, and has quite a few tall buildings proposed right now. I could see them doing it too.

Minneapolis, but Milwaukee would be my next choice. It seems to be ripe for a really tall tower, probably mixed-use (residential and something else).

Yeah, figured at least based on economy/markets, Minneapolis makes the most sense, followed by a couple other cities that are kinda/sorta thriving right now or were before the pandemic (Cbus, Indy, [*insert your pet city here*])

I voted for Milwaukee. . . just because they need more buildings. . .

. . .

I refuse to vote in a poll that doesn't include Schaumburg as an option.

I voted for Milwaukee because they deserve one, dammit.

Though it might end up being somewhere unexpected, like St Paul or Toledo or Sheboygan or Wausau or Eau Claire or Superior because Superior is superior.

But the thing is building that tall in these cities is not really an economic necessity. It's about whoever has the money, the vision and the ego to build it and whatever city happens to get it. That's why this is so hard to predict and why a city like Cleveland gets a Key Tower, they certainly dont need it.

Right, this is all just pure speculation/opinion, except for maybe the SW headquarters in Cleveland?

I'm not familiar with some of the cities on the list but I went with Minneapolis.

Clayton, MO

If someone could revive the Bottle District proposal from many years back, maybe St. Louis could do it.

I would guess Minneapolis or Detroit.

I'm going with Detroit. Big Auto either gobbles up or out-competes Tesla and celebrate with a new office tower.

Cleveland, Sherman-Williams.

A local developer has been talking about building a 1050 ft tower in downtown STL for about 15 years now. Originally the McGowan-Walsh Tower, but McGowan and Walsh split so I guess it would just be the McGowan tower if it ever gets built. Plenty of empty office space downtown that needs to be filled first, but the USDA just signed a 20-year lease on One Metropolitan Square so the largest is out of the way. Honestly, I'd rather see multiple 300—400 foot high rises go up downtown than a single 700 footer, but wouldn't kick it out of bed for eating crackers either.

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Not with a 277 billion market valuation they aren't. I think Musk alone is worth more than GM, Ford and FCA combined.

Almost but not quite there. Big 3 (minus Peugeot) 84B vs Musk 68B.

Tesla is insanely overvalued, though.

At this point, that valuation is a burden not a blessing for the company.

Yeah, there's no way they're going to be live up to that so it will be an exercise in finding someone else to hold the bag.

I'm not really qualified to have this opinion other than my time hanging around this site, but I'm pretty sure skyscraper construction does not directly correlate with business activity or wealth. I mean sure, growing and prosperous cities have more development, duh, but then look at Phoenix or Orlando and then compare those places with Chicago. Also, I've noticed that high rise construction comes in waves. Few cities build just one new tall building downtown and that's it. Instead some cities have minimal construction and then one building seems to open the door for more. That sets a precedent where a city is now a "high rise" city. It's like proving that high rise residential breaks a barrier, and soon there's more, a lot more, and they just get taller and taller until the economic cycle ends and things reset. At the end of the day even a very big tower has maybe 300 people in, a rounding error of a percent of a couple million in a metro area, so its not like you need major growth, just interest and desire.

So I'd name Milwaukee, moreso than Minneapolis or any others. Milwaukee has always built at least some tall buildings including residential ones in every decade despite being economically and demographically in the pits and a third-rate metro. There are few other cities comparable to Milwaukee in size that have so many mid-rise apartments and condos in an established neighborhood like going north of downtown to UWM.

To me what that says is developers in Milwaukee embrace taller construction, the downtown and lakefront of the city is comparatively desirable even other parts of it are rough and in decline, and these areas continue to have interest. So, the city doesn't even necessary need a major boom, its just random that some point a developer with sufficient capital could put up a big condo tower in an area where there is proven desire for high rise living.

The problem with Minneapolis and other choices is that they've gone through lulls in development even when their economy and populations were doing alright. Columbus and Indianapolis haven't built any major skyscrapers in like 30 years and high rise living doesn't seem very popular, even despite their healthy outlooks. Those cities have built a lot of low rises and have gentrification in the city but don't go vertical for some reason and to me that suggests even a tremendous growth spurt wouldn't produce tall buildings.

Doesn't St. Louis have height limits? I thought you're not allowed to build anything taller than the Arch?

I went with Minneapolis because they seem to have the corporate (and residential) culture for skyscrapers.

But I get you--I, too, don't have any good argument for Milwaukee, but just watching the return of high rise development to Milwaukee in the last few years, there seems to be momentum for something really tall. I've got a gut feeling that they're going to put up a 700'+ tower, but take that for what it is.

While obviously smaller, it has been pointed out on this forum before that Milwaukee is something of a mini-Chicago in terms of its lakefront-and-river location, with similar land uses (mostly office downtown, high-rise residential along the shore north of downtown). I don't think a new 700-footer in Milwaukee would only be residential though--I'd expect it would be mixed residential-office or perhaps even residential-hotel-office. After COVID is tamed, of course.

just east of broadway, i think, which is about 2 blocks west of the arch grounds. and probably two or three blocks north and south of the arch grounds as well. that leaves most of downtown amenable to > 630 ft.

While 6 of Milwaukee's 12 buildings over 100m were designed by Chicago architecture firms, I don't think any of them were actually developed by Chicago companies.

Historically true, but Minneapolis has two towers over 500' tall U/C right now, so they FINALLY seem to have gotten their skyscraper mojo back up there, which is why I voted for Minneapolis.

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Ya know, technically, Detroit has a 750 ft tower under construction right now, the Gordie Howe Bridge

So Detroit wins. :D

Yeah, I forgot about that.

SSP lists the new bridge towers at 722' tall, but either way, that'll still make them that tallest free-standing structures (ie. not broadcast antennas) built in the Midwest (outside of Chicago) in over a generation.

They will dwarf the Mackinac Bridge's 550' towers to become the tallest bridge towers in the midwest. In fact, I think they'll be the second tallest in the nation after the Golden Gate Bridge's towers.

Oklahoma City? Devon Tower two, unrelated to Devon Tower. I think it could be a city similar to OKC that is often not associated with tall buildings.

I would also go with Minneapolis (pre pandemic trends).

^ Oklahoma is generally considered a part of the south, not the Midwest, hence why OKC wasn't included in the poll.

I was thinking a city similar to OKC, a city that sneaks in there from what seems like a logical place like Minneapolis or St. Paul.

St. Paul doesn't seem like a logical choice to me, given its lower skyline stature, but it could be a good dark horse option if an ambitious enough local developer ever got the cajones to upstage the bigger brother nextdoor.

In a similar vein, Clayton, MO might also be a long shot contender if some big-balled developer ever wanted to upstage St. Louis.

Do these governments encourage or restrict tower heights?

In my area, there are strict limits for floor area ratio for commercial uses, and strict height limits for all uses. Plus millions in fees. Rents are high but so are land and construction costs.

This discussion includes a bunch of factors that don't seem terribly relevant. The land use code, the building code, economics, tenant expectations (like parking), and sometimes specific signed tenants govern these things.

i'm certainly no expert on all of the development particulars of these cities, but generally speaking, i think it's probably fair to say that the political/governmental hurdles to getting a 700'+ tower built in most midwest cities would take a gigantic back seat to the economic ones.

most midwest cities generally aren't in a position to "punish" developers like some coastal cities such as seattle seem to do; they're usually glad to take whatever they can get development-wise.

after all, beggars can't be choosers.

^^Very tall towers only make economic sense where land is scarce and expensive and I agree with Steely that economic factors are controlling in these cities. But none of them really have the kind of land scarcity and cost that justifies building very tall.

In undemocratic countries (and even some democratic ones), trophy buildings get built as vanity projects. Less commonly, a private company will do something similar (and the record is full of companies that found themselves in economic difficulties soon after building vanity headquarters buildings--consider such as the Sears Tower and Pan Am Building). So I'd suggest people look for a city with a corporate headquarters of a company so successful it has the ego and cash to build (or lease enough of to put its name on) a vanity HQ in these difficult times.

And yet, many of the US cities in the multiple 700'+ club (Chicago, Houston, Atlanta, Dallas, Minneapolis, Cleveland, Charlotte, Denver) don't have unusually high land scarcity/prices like one finds in the big coastal cities.

In these places, the very tallest towers must be driven by more than just pure profit. Ego and culture do factor into the equation.

US cities with multiple 700'+ skyscrapers:

NYC --------------- 80
Chicago --------- 28
Houston -------- 12
Los Angeles ---- 9
Philadelphia ---- 7
Miami -------------- 7
San Francisco - 5
Atlanta ------------ 5
Seattle ------------ 5
Dallas ------------- 5
Boston ------------ 3
Minneapolis ---- 3
Cleveland -------- 2
Charlotte --------- 2
Pittsburgh ------- 2
Denver ------------- 2

Source: CTBUH

Most of those are pre-S&L crisis. Very different world back then.

Technically, no.

US 700'+ skyscrapers built pre-1993: 88

US 700'+ skyscrapers built post-1993: 99


However, of those 99 post-1993 towers, 56 (57%) are in NYC, and 16 (16%) are in chicago, so the rich have been getting richer, so to speak.

Your gist isn't off target.

And to that point, no Midwest city (outside of Chicago) has built a 700'+ skyscraper since the early 90s, so the landscape for really tall buildings out here has changed.

But I still have faith that a Midwest city other than Chicago will eventually get there, sooner or later. Detroit got really fucking close with the Hudson Tower project at 680', so 700' in the Midwest isn't exactly mission impossible.

There's more to the value of being in a downtown core--and hence the value of land there--than the physical inability to sprawl (as exists in NY or SF). Lawyers want to be near courts for example and techies tend to cluster together for mutual inspiration (which is one reason why the ability to work from home may not be the death of offices). But in cities without industries that feel the need to cluster--and I won't try to catalogue all the reasons myself--there should be no reason not to put up low rise buildings on cheap land in the suburbs rather than expensive tell ones in the core. That pretty much leaves the reason to buiold tall in such places to ego and there's a limited market for expensive office space where ego is the only reason to shell out the extra cost (back to the lawyers--they really like to pay up for fancy offices because they think it gives the clients confidence, hence it does have an economic motive).

commercial real estate is fucked.

I mean in many cities...Denver, Houston, Dallas, Atlanta, Minneapolis, Seattle, etc.

Since then, towers have been tied much more closely to economics. (In Seattle's case, the economics are good but height and FAR limits make tall towers rare.)

Urban cores can make it much easier for companies to attract staff. Companies are often very clear about this when they relocate. It's particularly important with younger staff. The caveat is that this applies only (or mostly) to healthy urban cores.

Being close to transit is a huge factor, and related to the ability to attract workers. It's also a big part of basic tower economics. You can build far less parking in an urban core. If you're two blocks from a train station you'll do better than if you're six blocks or up a hill. Land might be in the four figures per square foot, but you can use much less of it.

Views are another factor, particularly in a scenic city.

The ability to support mixed-use is still another factor. Mixed-use has its own challenges, but you can find win-wins, and each component is a smaller bet. This is easier in a city where office, hotel, housing, and retail are all strong.

At this point in time I think Clayton would likely happen before downtown. St. Louis has never built that tall in the past, and there's currently a 587 ft skyscraper still sitting without a tenant in downtown St. Louis after AT&T vacated it.