Great Lakes Cities

[BigDipper 80]

I feel like it's really hard to capture how huge the Key Tower actually is in photos. It's pretty crazy that a mid-sized Rust Belt city has a 947 foot tall skyscraper.

[mrnyc]

Originally Posted by BigDipper 80

I feel like it's really hard to capture how huge the Key Tower actually is in photos. It's pretty crazy that a mid-sized Rust Belt city has a 947 foot tall skyscraper.

nah, but if you still want pretty crazy you should check out the ameritrust tower renders prior to the merger that canceled it. much taller. and if you want truly wild and crazy check out the early gehry progressive tower that didn’t happen either.

[East72nd]

Punches way above its weight, it just needs larger companies to improve and expand its downtown.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by BigDipper 80

I feel like it's really hard to capture how huge the Key Tower actually is in photos. It's pretty crazy that a mid-sized Rust Belt city has a 947 foot tall skyscraper.

It's still the tallest building in the midwest/rustbelt (outside of Chicago) for more than three decades now, and by a fairly comfortable margin.

Though, the height figure is padded a bit by its 60' spire on top. Taking the roof height of 888' makes Pittsburgh"s 841' US Steel Tower fairly close in height.

Originally Posted by East72nd

Buffalo...Punches way above its weight

As a city, yes.

But as a skyline, I'd say it's been a big underperformer for a while now.

Buffalo hasn't built a new building over 300' tall for 50 years now.

One of these decades.......

[iheartthed]

Based mostly on the data from the SSP diagram, here's some skyline "health" data for cities we consider Great Lakes and/or adjacent Rust Belt:

Average Height of 10 Tallest
Chicago: 1,070 feet
Pittsburgh: 614 feet
Detroit: 564 feet
Cleveland: 555 feet
Milwaukee: 460 feet
St. Louis: 454 feet
Buffalo: 332 feet

Average Age of 10 Tallest
Buffalo: 82.3 years
Detroit: 55.6 years
Pittsburgh: 49.3 years
St. Louis: 48.1 years
Cleveland: 42.6 years
Chicago: 28.5 years
Milwaukee: 24.4 years

Buffalo has the oldest skyline of this group by a country mile, while Milwaukee slightly edges out Chicago for the youngest. Buffalo also has the shortest skyline of this group.

Half of Detroit's top 10 are the Ren Cen towers and considering them as one single building would drive down Detroit's average height to 530 feet, and rank it below Cleveland. Detroit's average age would go up to 65.6 years, remaining the second oldest skyline among this group.

[IrishIllini]

Not a huge change for Detroit if you consider the Renaissance Center as one building.

Height is nice, but I'd 100% trade several of Chicago's towers on or adjacent to a podium for mid rises, even if it made the skyline less "impressive" from certain viewpoints. Bad podiums are a streetscape killer globally, but especially so in cities hit hard by abandonment, urban renewal, and car-centric planning and development.

It has gotten better in Chicago, but the bad ones that went tall 20+ years ago and quite bad.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by East72nd

Average Height of 10 Tallest
Chicago: 1,070 feet
Pittsburgh: 614 feet
Detroit: 564 feet
Cleveland: 555 feet
Milwaukee: 460 feet
St. Louis: 454 feet
Buffalo: 332 feet

And if you went back in time about 20 years to before Milwaukee started it's tower mini-boom, its top 10 average would've only been 379', which was more in Buffalo's league at the time, rather than St. Louis's.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

here's some skyline "health" data for cities we consider Great Lakes and/or adjacent Rust Belt:

I went ahead and filled in the rest of the Midwest's significant skylines, using CTBUH data.


Average Height of 10 Tallest:

Chicago: 1,112 feet
Minneapolis: 627 feet
Pittsburgh: 614 feet
Cleveland: 562 feet
Detroit: 560 feet
Columbus: 498 feet
Kansas City: 463 feet
Milwaukee: 460 feet
Cincinnati: 455 feet
St. Louis: 454 feet
Indianapolis: 440 feet
Buffalo: 332 feet

Source: CTBUH



KC, Milwaukee, Cincy, and St. Louis are all within 9 feet of each other on this metric!

[East72nd]

They did a fantastic job renovating this building especially the skin. Before it was just a brutalist nothing, now a true gem.

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

I went ahead and filled in the rest of the Midwest's significant skylines, using CTBUH data.


Average Height of 10 Tallest:

Chicago: 1,112 feet
Minneapolis: 627 feet
Pittsburgh: 614 feet
Cleveland: 562 feet
Detroit: 560 feet
Columbus: 498 feet
Kansas City: 463 feet
Milwaukee: 460 feet
Cincinnati: 455 feet
St. Louis: 454 feet
Indianapolis: 440 feet
Buffalo: 332 feet

Source: CTBUH



KC, Milwaukee, Cincy, and St. Louis are all within 9 feet of each other on this metric!

How do Rochester, Baltimore, and Philadelphia stack up on this list since we’re stretching this definition of Midwest?

I mean, Pittsburgh is way more Philly and Baltimore rustbelt than it is Minneapolis, Kansas City, and Indianapolis midwest.

[MayDay]

Originally Posted by BigDipper 80

I feel like it's really hard to capture how huge the Key Tower actually is in photos. It's pretty crazy that a mid-sized Rust Belt city has a 947 foot tall skyscraper.

It’s not so crazy if you’re familiar with the history and time period leading up to its construction, when Cleveland (as with so many other aspects) punched well above its weight in the banking and finance sector.

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

I wasn't trying to mock Buffalo, just lamenting its anemic skyline growth over the past half century.

I just meant that list made it seem like "poor Buffalo". It's hard for its Perma-rust belt image to start to fade away

Originally Posted by MayDay

It’s not so crazy if you’re familiar with the history and time period leading up to its construction, when Cleveland (as with so many other aspects) punched well above its weight in the banking and finance sector.

Back when KeyBank was a top 10 bank if not closer to top 5? I was a 10-11 year old in awe at the "Society Center"
Please correct me for my lack of CLEknowledge

Now, shockingly, it's been surpassed by Buffalo based M&T Bank. The former HSBC tower is now mixed use with terracotta/gun metal paint job, M&T logo/$58M tech hub.
For 50 years Buffalo didn't have much to boast about, okay

Wiki (West facing view towards Can-a-duh)


The rankings might change with the 1st quarter 2024 release
https://www.federalreserve.gov/relea...nt/default.htm