Hyatt Place is a whole lotta fugly, but Whitley has been growing on me more and more. I know it doesn't have all the bells and whistles, but the building is well done at least. I might even say it's one of our better (best?) small to midrise new residential buildings. I'd put it above Milago Condos and the Plaza for sure.

Yeah, Hyatt is so bad bad bad. Wouldn't be surprised if it gets razed in like 10 years.
On an off note, I realllllly hope Fairmont starts in November. That side of downtown needs something really beautiful stickin out.
ps. Seaholm crane is starting to rise...I'll try and snap a few pictures from my balcony soon.

Cool, so that makes 3 new tower cranes, 2 of which are in the UT area.

I think the Hyatt looks great. Call me crazy but I like the blue glass and brown/beige stucco-ish combination. It's not exactly world class architecture, but it looks just fine. I would be proud to own it!

You know what's REALLY ugly downtown? A few quick things come to mind:
*That old pitch black high rise near 6th and Congress -it's like some kind of glorified inner city prison.
*The City Hall bldg -what's with the rusty looking pieces of sheet metal? I know they were supposed to be 'bronze' and artsy, but it just looks cheap and gaudy. And the back with that sharp, seemingly random piece which sticks out over the street- FREAKY.
*The Long Center -what's with the checkered green/brown upper facade area? It always reminds me of old chair/mattress stuffing. I know they wanted to recycle parts of Palmer Auditorium, but they really could have done something else with that ugly glass.

The building that bothers me most downtown is the Hilton. It's just so prominent from the East Side or from I35 and it's just a giant wall of brown and beige stucco. Here are some photos I took of the East 5th Street redevelopment last week. I can't wait for the Fairmont to be built to give us a more interesting focal point from the East.

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

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

The only building downtown which is truly awful is the Hilton. Every other building is workable. And what's worse about the Hilton is that it will never, ever be obscured from the highway because off CVCs.

Although the hilton is not the best, I still don't see how people can complain about with that ugly brown hotel right next to it, to me that one makes the hilton look okay.

Ugliest Building in Austin
 

That Bank of America Center that looks all black, is actually bronze if you go up and look at it. Every city has one of those buildings from the mid 70's. We even had/have one in Johannesburg, South Africa, where I grew up.

I have to agree that the Hilton Convention Center is one of the most unfortunate looking buildings in Austin. And the Hilton Garden north of it looks a bit like a shapeless, brown tomb-stone.

What about One America Center on Congress with all that brown and white stucco and those steps? I think it's part of what makes me cringe over the new GreenWater 1 tower.

Yeah, the Hilton is pretty blah. It was interesting at the time seeing such a big building going up in Austin. I actually like it at night, though. I like that it doesn't have any accent lighting and only a few lights here and there on the roof. It looks like a big city skyscraper to me. The kind that you'd see in New York.

And I still gotta say I like the Bank of America Center at 6th & Congress. I know it's old, jet black and outdated, but that's why I like it. It's from a different era.

One American Center is actually limestone, at least the white part is. I'm not sure what the brown accents are. But I do know for sure that the white part is limestone. If the One American Center is made out of stucco than so are Austin's hills.

And Austin City Hall does't have bronze on its facade. There may be some in the building somewhere, but that facade is all copper.

And the Long Center recycled all of the roof panels from the dome of the building that they removed. Doing that they cut down on waste and also saved a ton of money since they didn't have to purchase new material. I will admit that I liked the original version more that made more use of the building's space, but I still do like that plaza, and the skeletal ring is a neat place at night. Go up there sometime when there's a full moon and stars. It's like walking around a space ship.

I stand corrected on the limestone cladding One American Center. Still not a design that suits my taste.

And the "black" metal parts of the Bank of America Center is certainly a "dark bronze" color up close. I like that building as something different in the city. I kind of wish the JP Morgan Chase tower had stayed gold (That was the building that was all gold glass for years, right?).

Yes, yes it was. :)

http://i1072.photobucket.com/albums/...psad8c8618.jpg

Ha! Hills of stucco. :) The brown accents are granite, btw. The lobby and common areas are all clad in granite as well. Granite and limestone were the defacto go-to finishes in the 1980s and 1990s. That is why you see so many buildings with those finishes.

Also, there are no office buildings taller than a couple of stories made out of stucco. Stucco is a very labor & time intensive process that requires hand-application. Even the spray-on kind of stucco would be impossible for a highrise. It's very finicky and will crack, chip and fade. Most buildings that have the "look" of stucco are made out of GFRC, which is a type of engineered concrete panel that contains fiberglass for strength and has texture to it. The material can be dyed any color during fabrication, and the panels can be shaped to any form. It's much easier and cheaper to use these lightweight panels to skin a building. They don't crack or chip because of the fiberglass, they don't fade, they resist stains and if one of them fails it can be replaced like a giant tile. GFRC can also be engineered to look like limestone (or any stone for that matter), and many of our suburban buildings have real limestone on the ground floor and as you go up it is GFRC 'limestone". Mostly because of cost. You can't really tell the difference unless you get up close enough to see all the little shell fossils in the stone.

Wish Chase had stayed gold as well and I love all the buildings downtown with granite and limestone finishes. I think One America Center looks good as it has a lot of very small setbacks with quality materials. Love the off-white with brown accents.

Here are some recent and amazing hyperlapse/timelapse videos of Austin. My personal favorite is the last one.

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/418553359089688360/

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/418553359089875871/

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/418553359089886908/

Govt Shutdown probably means that new projects come to a screeching halt! This looks like a pretty bad one.

Federal Courthouse is already finished. Not aware of any other federal projects taking place downtown.

Same, I do not see any new projects that will be effected by the Government shutdown.

Is the Hilton stucco or GFRC? It sure looks like "cheap" stucco.

Is The Plaza at 5th and Guadalupe GFRC?

To each his own...I really did not like the gold at all! It and Dobie were awful looking. They are much more to my liking now than before.

It really depends on how close we come to a default. We did not come even close to a default 17 years ago, and practically our entire budget was already enacted into law before that shutdown, but there was a world-wide financial collapse and the US credit rating was downgraded by Moody's and interest rates skyrocketed. If something like this happens again, I can guarantee you that MANY projects will be cancelled! And this could happen by the end of the month! Time to carefully plan the administration of your 401-K. If it doesn't happen, you can change it back to the way it was. Let's all hope that it doesn't!

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