Here are a couple of shots of the JW Marriott taken on Sunday, May 25th. Look at that interesting V-shaped support structure on the South side (right side of the top picture).

http://venish.com/JW-Marriot-west-May26.jpg

http://venish.com/JW-Marriot-east-May26.jpg

I'm curious what room the V will be when complete .

It's crazy that the view of Whitley, Hyatt Place, and Hampton Inn from Congress is almost gone. Good riddance, I say. It just feels so alien for something to be there. I wonder what the last building there was and why it was torn down.

Someone should go get some shots of 3eleven. I bet it has made a lot of progress by now. I'm not able to go down there myself right now.

Not a great shot at all [!], but this is what 3eleven looked like on Sunday (26 May) from Bowie street.

http://venish.com/3eleven-Bowie.jpg

Thanks. I thought it would be a little bit taller than that, for some reason. But, man, that is a really tight space to be building something.

Here are a couple not so great shots of 3 Eleven Bowie from the creek side taken last Thursday.

http://i.imgur.com/HXJmCi8.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/oMWGrkS.jpg

And another view of the V shaped pillars at the JW Marriott.

http://i.imgur.com/VpZCThr.jpg

I wonder if they are going to discount the room rates at the Marriott across the street from that ugly windowless west slab of Hyatt Place. :yuck:

I have been very curious as to what this will be in the building.
I take it as an interesting way to create some nice interior volume in a key
space in the building.
I remember the first day I saw them starting to frame this part...
I was very curious.!
Will be fun to see what it truns out to be. ( and I'm just to lazy right now to go search the plans!LOL! )

The last building where the Marriott is going up? It was a parking lot and three small buildings housing Las Manitas, Tesoros Trading Co. and Escuelita del Alma - a daycare center. They were torn down for an earlier version of the Marriott that (thank God) didn't get built.

Source

This was the parking lot and a side view of Tesoros from 2007:

http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/f...ke/Tesoros.jpg

......and on the Bazos side was an old "Oscar Snowden's" Appliance store. ( 208 Brazos to be exact). It was a cheap white (probably) 60s era metal warehouse with a glass front. Not sure what year that was torn down.

I'm wondering if that V column has anything to do with the strange little indention on that corner.

http://i.imgur.com/S6WtwUi.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/glkGBWG.jpg

This rendering seems to not show it, but there is something going on with the facade down there.

http://i.imgur.com/WHBPPWT.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/uMnR48W.jpg

It's probably a ballroom or something

It probably has something to do with the cantilever of the 3rd floor over levels 1 and 2 on the south side of the tower. Just my educated guess.

I agree that the Y supports are for the cantilever area. I wonder if the reduced width of the building in the model in the lower floors maybe reduces the structure load/weight so they can have smaller supports? If they built a full building the Y support may have had to be much larger, so instead they made it a design element. That open space where the Y is would be a great bar/dance club area with lights and such. Just me two cents.

This has nothing to do with Austin so if you want me to remove this post I will, however, this is mind-boggling:

This Will Be The World Tallest Skyscraper In A Few Months
China to build a 2,749 foot, 220-story skyscraper in 90 days.

http://gizmodo.com/video-this-will-b...in-a-510140081

What-the-what? 90 DAYS? Now, they are building it out of prefabricated modular units and they don't say how long it took them to prefabricate, but just the thought of assembling 220-floors in 90 days blows my mind. I work in development and I don't see how that is possible. Of course I work in Texas, not China. ;) This would not be possible in Austin, no matter how much money you threw at it. Facinating. Some of the links at the top of the page are interesting as well, btw.

it'll probably be illuminated at night

Not relevant at all to this thread. There are other threads where it would have been.

There is a thread on this development here:
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=199778

Whoooooaaaa!!!!
 

Holy cow! The Sky City is amazing! Watch the video! Although, it may be considered pornography on a skyscraper site!

The Seaholm website has an updated timeline for the progress that's planned:

April, 2013: Excavation for garage begins

December, 2013: Power plant interior demo work complete

January, 2014: Tower foundation complete

February, 2014: Front lawn complete

March, 2014: Power plant dry-in complete

April, 2014: Low rise exterior work

June, 2014: Power plant ready for tenant finish-out, low rise ready for tenant finish-out

July, 2014: Underground garage and streets work complete

September, 2014: Tower ground level ready for tenant finish-out

May, 2015: Tower exterior complete

June, 2015: Tower last unit ready for lease