Austin | Block 185/Google Tower #2 | 594 Feet | 35 Floors | Complete

[wwmiv]

Originally Posted by KevinFromTexas

I'm kind of speechless about the height. I'll withhold judgment on the design until we see the east/west elevations, but the height would be amazing.

This could potentially be the tallest building in the U.S. outside of NYC, Chicago, and LA. and thus the tallest in Texas, but will almost certainly be the tallest outside of those plus SF, Atlanta, Houston, Philly, Seattle, Cleveland, and Dallas if we take 900' as an absolute floor provided that the design is what moves forward. If it dips marginally beneath that height, add Charlotte.

Discounting spires, of course, and counting only roof height this could potentially be the tallest outside of NYC and Chicago. That's... astounding...

Of course, none of this considers what might be currently under construction and proposed nationwide. Comcast (under construction) in Philly is taller than this building, probably, for instance, as could be a handful of other buildings proposed in Philly, Dallas, Miami, and Seattle. That puts us in mighty company.

[wwmiv]

Taken from the 308 Guadalupe / TravisCo thread discussion from a few days ago. If we had only known what was lurking behind the scenes.

Originally Posted by wwmiv

If we got a 900-1000' tower (slightly shorter than a super tall) after this one is built (if built at this size) it'd be similar to Cleveland or Charlotte, and less like OKC or Mobile, given that we'll at that point have three built towers between 680' and 750'.

I do agree that once we start approaching 1100' that a tower that height would be out of place.

Frankly, I don't even care if it could potentially look out of place because #braggingrights.

[wwmiv]

Originally Posted by wwmiv

No, it's too close to the river and it'll be affected by both the waterfront overlay requiring setbacks and the other overlay for shoal creek which also requires setbacks.

Might this design require a variance request due to overlay required setbacks/height limitations? Someone wiser than me on here must have some insight, right? Kevin? ATX? Urbannizer? Drummer? (others?)

Thoughts?

[KevinFromTexas]

I was thinking how unfortunate it is that the Frost Bank Tower wasn't taller. That building screams to be an 800 footer. It would have stood out in a huge way back then, but really it wasn't the tallest for too long at the height that it is and it would have been complemented by the others even if it had been taller. It's really sort of the one architectural mistake that Austin has seen that hurts the most, mostly because the design of the building deserves to be taller. The Frost Bank Tower is a fantastic design at either height, though, it deserved to be taller, but I can't say the same for this Block 185 design. Either at 900 feet or 500 feet, the design just isn't a landmark. It's much more suited to being the height, use, location and approach of say, The Avenue residential tower on Congress and being a pleasant filler building than some trophy tower standing front and center on the waterfront contributing to the face and character of our skyline. Austin seems to have a bad habit of taking our best most grand and beautiful designs and applying them to buildings that aren't tall enough to pay them respect or they get tucked away behind a wall of other less iconic buildings so that they go unnoticed far too often (The Monarch, 360 and Frost Bank Tower come to mind here), while giving more height and prominence of location to less dramatic designs. I want to see more prominence given to the Monarchs, 360s and Frost Bank Towers of our skyline than to The Bowies, Ashtons, Seaholm Residences and Four Seasons Residences.

[AustinGoesVertical]

The first time I looked at this rendering, I saw a slender tower that sloped to an edge at the top with a curvature cascading down, but now I'm wondering if that's just perspective playing a trick on the eyes. I'd really need to see an east-west facing view to make a determination but I'm wondering if it could look anything like One57 in NYC or if this is just a thin rectangle.

One57

[Jdawgboy]

I counted over 70 floors. This thing has to be more than 67 floors.

[KevinFromTexas]

Oh, man. I would love for it to resemble One57. Heck, I'd be fine with it looking like the Carnegie Hall Tower there as well. That one's long been one of my favorites in New York.

[urbancore]

So i went to bed early yesterday with a low grade fever, aching all over. I woke up in daze to screaming kids downstairs and I could not fall back asleep. I grabbed my phone to peruse the internet, as sometimes that helps me fall back asleep. When I read about Block 185, I almost fell out of bed.

I finally woke this afternoon and thought i was just dreaming last night (I'm sure we have all dreamed about buildings, amirite guys?)

Now I just logged on, to see this:

WOW! I have no other words. This is so cool.

[N90]

Any guess on the timeline for this thing?

[The ATX]

Originally Posted by N90

Any guess on the timeline for this thing?

Block 185 has always been planned to be the last of the Greenwater towers to start. A few years ago it was set to start in 2017. But I believe that was based on the assumption that Austin Proper would be completed in 2017. Since that didn't happen as planned and no building permits for Block 185 have been filed, I would go with 2018. But the fact that they are in the process of moving the big oak tree on the site is a good sign. They wouldn't be going through the trouble and expense to move it if this project wasn't moving forward.

[The ATX]

The main tower is going to be skinny. This is not a large block, and the L shaped ~30-story portion of the tower setback from Shoal Creek on the left and Cesar Chavez in the front, doesn't extend to the end of either side of the block. The main tower looks to only be a half block (or less) wide on the Nueces side facing Northshore.

The podium is not a parking garage. It's not practical to put all the parking needed for a project this size underground. I guess everyone will take CapMetro to work.

Also, I'm doubtful that they can get enough of a density bonus from the Design Commission for the F.A.R. needed to build this tall. That means a zoning change will be needed. I hope the Planning Commission can take care of that. I don't want this to go to City Council. Maybe 427MM can enlighten us on zoning change procedures since he's on the Planning Commission.

[wwmiv]

Originally Posted by The ATX

The podium is not a parking garage. It's not practical to put all the parking needed for a project this size underground. I guess everyone will take CapMetro to work.

There's definitely parking, though, likely underground, as there's a vehicle entrance to the podium on Nueces in the other rendering.

[The ATX]

Originally Posted by Dcbrickley

...I finally woke this afternoon and thought i was just dreaming last night (I'm sure we have all dreamed about buildings, amirite guys?)

Nah. I think you must be the only one to have such dreams.

[drummer]

Looking at that rendering again, it does seem to get thinner toward the top...could be an optical illusion given its angle, but it still seems to be curved rather than a simple rectangle as it seems to lack the right angle at the top on the north-side. Purely guessing/speculating until we see another rendering. If that is the case, that'd be a neat feature to break up the rectangles at least from some angles, and given its height it could be a pretty big statement for downtown.

[AustinGoesVertical]

Originally Posted by drummer

Looking at that rendering again, it does seem to get thinner toward the top...could be an optical illusion given its angle, but it still seems to be curved rather than a simple rectangle as it seems to lack the right angle at the top on the north-side. Purely guessing/speculating until we see another rendering. If that is the case, that'd be a neat feature to break up the rectangles at least from some angles, and given its height it could be a pretty big statement for downtown.

Right, if it were truly a rectangle there would be a little more of a hard angle at the top subtle - but it's still missing, which makes me think it might be curved like One57. Another example is 107 West 57th in NYC, which I believe is going to be dubbed as the skinniest skyscraper in the world. This curvature doesn't have to go along the entire building like that one, but even a slight curve with the last 15-20 floors would add some dimension. I think that small element could make this a truly signature tower. Either way, this is a groundbreaking project.

[lzppjb]

It might just be me, but the picture was a little blurry. I'm trying to see if I can get a clearer version.

[The ATX]

That's better.

It's difficult to get an exact floor count because the levels around the 30ish story setback are not easy to count. It's also hard to tell if that's a pool on the podium. A pool would of course mean there is a hotel or residential component. But that would also lower the overall height compared to an all office project.

This rendering seems to confirm both The Genral's recent and Syndic's 2015 sources about this tower. That means people should pay attention to SSP!

[wwmiv]

As to floors, counting the black lines on the lower floors and the more reflective (white) window panes that are occasionally displaced on the upper floors:



A few notes:

The E-W portion does NOT have the same number of floors prior to the upper portion as the N-S portion, indicating different floor to ceiling heights. Ergo, another indication to me that they're likely separate uses (hotel versus office).

The red lines in the first image with the floor counts mark the western edge of the tower and the roofline IF the building were not curved. Notice that toward the lower end of main tower that the building protrudes west of the vertical red line while toward the top end of the main tower the building marginally does not reach the red line at all and ends slightly east of that vertical, which indicates two things to me:

1. that the main tower of the building, contra the ATX's comment above, reaches either almost or all the way to W. 2nd Street at the lower floors(note that supporting evidence for this contention is found in the non-edited version of the rendering: there is a notch as the main tower begins above the E-W oriented tower portion -- see below).

2. that the main tower of the building at the higher floors does not reach either almost of all the way to W. 2nd Street, indicating that there may curvature.

However, both of those contentions are really really difficult to make at this point with only one rendering of the tower itself and with the speculated curvature being incredibly subtle. Of course, we'll all have to wait.



I still am not sure if there's an amenity or mechanical floor between 26 and 27 on the main tower, which is why I've marked the first floor of the upper tower "27?" rather than 27 (choosing to go with the lower number out of caution). However, this little red triangle indicates to me that there is a floor there, in which case you can add +1 to every floor in the main upper tower, especially when placed in combination with the vertical line at the 90 degree notch where the N-S portion and E-W portion meet matching for BOTH the upper and lower portions of the N-S tower (which would not happen if there was an architectural overhang):





There's ALSO the possibility that that hidden floor, if it exists, could actually be two floors, which would eliminate the floor count disparity between the E-W oriented tower and the N-W oriented lower tower, and bump up each floor of the upper tower by +2.



That would put the floor count at 70, as per Jdawgboy's count:

Originally Posted by Jdawgboy

I counted over 70 floors.

Furthermore, IF that isn't meeting space in the podium, but rather a wrapped parking garage (unlikely to my mind, but not out of the question as it doesn't seem to have any "doors" in the interior red walls in either rendering), then each of the first two "floors" would likely contain two levels of parking garage, putting the floor count at 72. That fully corroborates The Genral's and Syndic's inside information on a 72+ floor design.

[wwmiv]

As to height, 500 W. 2nd appears to be ~28 floors, which despite the slightly different design is the same floor count as the built version which is 400'.



Taking that and extrapolating that to the back edge of the block 185 rendering with slightly shorter lines equating to 400' segments as you go higher to account for the angle of the perspective puts this somewhere between 950' and 1050':

[wwmiv]

Me right now.