I don't recall whether or not this has been posted already in one of the Austin threads, but here's an elevation of 3 Eleven Bowie from Austin Towers. Construction should be starting in a few weeks according to the most recent articles about it:

http://www.austintowers.net/Austin_D...even_bowie.jpg
http://www.austintowers.net/Austin_D...wie-update.php

Wow. Those are the building elevations. I haven't been able to find them yet on the city's website. The site plan file still says "Awaiting update". Those actually show what the building's shape will be.

Try here.

It's the updated one & has the elevations on pages 43 & 44.

That's great. The elevations indicates it'll be 423 feet 3 inches to the mechanical penthouse. That would make it just 3 feet shorter than Spring and 100 feet taller than The Monarch. So it'll make a major impact on the west side of the skyline.

Think EAST Austin

http://thinkeastaustin.com/images/720_render_2.JPG

http://thinkeastaustin.com/images/720_render_1.JPG

http://thinkeastaustin.com/masterplan.html

Great design, but I dislike the "3eleven" on top. Reminds me of 21 rio in west campus.

I kind of like that 3eleven written on the top. :)

Pretty building. I like it.

I updated the OP to add those 3 feet and 3 stories from the plans for 3eleven and added the Trinity Place to the proposed list with the link to the new thread Kevin made. Y'all are becoming experts and finding this stuff on the cities website.

design wise...this is my second favorite of our "new" buildings... behind the fairmont. cant wait to see it finished.

It's one of my favorites as well. It will look really nice situated between Spring and The Monarch.

Speaking of, are there any plans to connect Bowie to the round about they put in on 2nd just East of North Lamar?

There is something of an extension of Bowie between the two apartments on that side of the railroad tracks.

With 3rd being connected all the way through, it would prevent that part of downtown from being toally cut off by the power plant (where 2nd would have a dead-end).

I'd really like to see the city do something there. Would really open up access to the lake area and further connect that corner of downtown (obviously the Green Water Treatment development will do the lions share of that though).

There is but it won't be until the start the Seaholm project. And it will just be for pedestrians not cars. Apparently any sort of interference with rail operations is a major deal. And when they are doing Seaholm they plan on moving the rail road a little and so they are waiting to build the pedestrian under thingie when they do that.

A couple other things being that 3rd isn't going to go all the way through. I don't think they are going to take down the old rail bridge over the creek, they are just going to use the pedestrian bridge next to it and maybe later upgrade the old rail trestle to be usable by the new urban rail that might go by there. On Second they are going to build a bridge over the creek, but it isn't really a good place for cars. It will have a road, but only two lanes like the rest of second. The road will end at the power plant, but pedestrians will be able to go under the plant and emerge on the other side near the railroad and Gables.

Edit: Look here at where the people are coming out under the plant:

http://www.seaholm.info/graphics/seaholmoverview.png

That isn't a tunnel under Seaholm, it is an entry at the middle level of three in the building. Most pedestrians going from the existing 2nd Street to Gables would walk through the Seaholm plaza and down the stairs beside the west entry.

Oh, I could have sworn I saw an entry on the east side where the intersection of 2nd and West will be.

SecretAgent: Do you know when they're going to even breakground? They said it was to be during late July....But still, nothing.

I can't give an exact date, but it will be soon. Probably September.

Ahhh...hope they're not experiencing troubles. I still won't believe it til' I see it.

WTF is this? It looks rather lame, misguided, and ridiculous; a total monoculture. Mixed-use isn't much good if you cut it off from the rest of the city and surround it with a bunch of parking lots and green space. Le sigh...

Also, the rendering looks like a bunch of monopoly houses and that website is just atrocious. Don't mean to sound completely negative, but wow.

I noticed that the two small Union Pacific containers that have long been on the site have been removed. So it looks like UP is handing it over.

Progress on the mixed use project on Rio Grande.

http://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphoto...69486689_n.jpg

What project is that? Is this Callaway House?

Thats the unknown project on Rio Grande, I wanted to go friday to talk to the foreman but as usual got caught up in doing other things, so hoping this friday I can swing by.

Ah, what corner is this at?

By the way, I saw either 2400 Nueces or Callaway House sticking up on the skyline from St. Ed's this afternoon. I could see the concrete pumper on top of the building sticking up on the horizon. A few more floors and it should stick up.

W. 23rd & Rio Grande, went up on the 2 story balcony which btw has some great views.

Kevin, I copied the google map link to give you a good idea on where it's at.
http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&cl...ed=0CAcQ8gEwAA

In Texas’s Capital, Construction on Many Corners
 

By MATT HUDGINS
Published: August 14, 2012
New York Times

AUSTIN, Tex. — Amit Sudharshan, 28, dons shorts and flip flops to walk the two blocks from his downtown apartment here to his job as a quantitative researcher at RGM Advisors.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/15/re...Y9XLQKNV6dSkFQ

Great article, but it doesn't tell us obsessed forumers anything we don't already know :haha:

Yeah, and not only that, but Gables Park Plaza II is already 3 floors up, not digging. ;)

What it does show is Austin continues to be in the national spotlight. Every person I met while I was on vacation in Los Angeles recently either had been to Austin, had family or friends living here or heard a lot about the city. All good signs that we are going to be a hot city for awhile.

I was at the JW site earlier looking at all the work they are doing and think it should be moved up to Under Construction since there is so much work going on there now. So I bumped it up to the U/C list from the Approved list.

It looks like this is getting closer to being for real:

Austin Business Journal, August 16, 2012
Austin Planetarium closer to securing prime property

http://www.bizjournals.com/austin/bl...-securing.html

That is such an ugly building - the tower part, anyway - so I hope it gets redesigned. At least it's TALL.

Holy balls, that would be the coolest modern building in the whole state if built

:previous: This!! :previous:

:banana::banana:

Awesome news...

:previous:

And it would go in this parking lot? (Where the Lego tents are?)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...-2010-08-c.JPG

(photo from Wikimedia Commons)

Yes, in that parking lot.

It would make a nice little area being across the street from both the State History Museum, and Blanton Art Museum, a block from the AT&T Conference Center and a 10 min walk to the Archer Gallery & Texas Natural History Museum and the LBJ Presidential Library on UT Campus to the north and the State Capitol to the south.

• Video Link

Very awesome news, its about time that side of town lost some of its barren parking lots. Whats the actual feasibility of this project going through? And whats the tower going to be? Offices?

I know its supposed to be a planetarium but I'm not sure what the actual tower is going to be.

This question was answered in the article.

Condos. The Planetarium has been raising money for the museum for a long time now, but the money for the condo tower they will hit up the banks. From what I understand now that they have the state's approvals they have one more approval from some sort of state planning board and then they are allowed to ask the banks for the money for the tower or something like that. I'd bet that the money from the banks will come pretty easy as long as they have done their homework and have a solid plan to show them. There are no condos U/C downtown currently, nor any planned to start in the next few years. And the condos that are not sold yet from the last building boom that ended with the finish of the W 18 months ago (W, Austonian, Four Seasons , ....) if current sales continue as they have been will be sold out by early next year. So with out any likely new stock if the banks can jump on this one which is noticeably different than the recent ones I'd assume they will do so.

The tower will be residential, most likely condominiums. BevoLJ, I remember you had emailed them and gotten the height for the tower. 655 feet. That would be our 2nd tallest, 3rd tallest if and when the Fairmont Hotel gets built.

That is what they said in the email. I also went to one of their monthly events they have at House Wine on Barton Springs and they said the same thing. They also said they would like to add a restaurant level and observation level at the top so it might be higher than the 655 they said, but that they weren't sure if they would be able to add it or not.

If anyone is interested they have a social gathering at House Wine in South Austin on the last Wednesdays of every month. When I went it was pretty cool. Lots of interesting science talk and other fun and interesting discussions if you enjoy itching your inner geek occasionally like I do. :) Also House Wine donates 10% of the night to the planetarium.

Also up in North Austin on the second Tuesdays of every month they have their monthly fundraisers at Opal Divine. I haven't been to that one as that far north may as well be Canada for me. :)

I didn't like the Planetarium tower at first, but now that I look at it again it looks like the side of the tower isn't concrete after all but instead windows. If that's the case, I think it could look pretty cool (at night, especially). I just hope there's some more development in the capitol district to help even things out in terms of the skyline.

Sorry - I didn't mean to offend. Maybe it's just an ugly rendering. ;) From the rendering it looks like the side of the building is either a metal or stone skin, or possibly concrete. That is not a smart design because if you are going to go that tall - especially with a residential tower - views are EVERYTHING! However, Syndic thinks that might be grey glass windows, which means the tower will look significantly different (and better) in real life. Finished buildings always look different than their renderings, so I'm optomistic.

Btw, there's a good article on super-tall residential towers in today's Wall Street Journal online, and it includes a slide show.

WSJ.com
Living The High Life
Developers are erecting super-skyscrapers for the very wealthy, selling apartments with helicopter views for massive price tags. Why everyone's looking up; plus, the realities of life on the 90th floor.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...232347238.html

Here is one of the graphics from the WSJ.com article:

http://i1072.photobucket.com/albums/...t/7b4d159a.jpg

The windows are set in a foot or two kind of like Perry-Castañeda.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...800px-PCL3.JPG
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...800px-PCL3.JPG

But unlike the Perry-Castañeda the Planaterium town isn't using the grid for its windown, but more of a whopperjawed random pattern that is more popular today. So they won't line up from one floor to the next, but will be a bit random on each floor.

It would be crazy to not have windown looking south or north. That would give them no views of UT to the north or the Capitol Building and Downtown Austin to the south. lol. :P

Remember this?

http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a1...ge_3660123.jpg

T. Stacy & Walton Street just put the land & existing buildings on the market for sale today. So this won't happen - at least not in this form. Hopefully a developer will buy it and build something cool there. It's one of the closest sites to the Capitol that can have a supertall building on it. They are referring to it as a 1.6M square foot development opportunity. For the record that's 2.8 Frost Bank Towers, which has 560,674 square feet.

Below shows you what is for sale. It includes Bank of America Tower, the BOA Annex, a parking lot and a couple of garages including the Littlefield garage. HFF has the sale listing. This image is from their emailer. You have to sign a confidentiality agreement, prove you are a licensed real estate broker AND name your buyer if you want to get a copy the sales package. They don't give those out to very many people.

http://i1072.photobucket.com/albums/...t/7ff6d409.jpg

Hmm. That doesn't make sense. The PCL was built that way to limit the amount of sunlight that comes in through the windows, both to protect the books and to limit distractions for students. Why would you do that in a residential tower? The views are what people are paying for. And whopperjawed (my new favorite word) random patterns might look groovy from the outside, but your interior floors and walls are still a grid - so the floors and walls will be cutting across windows? Weird. I guess I'd need to see more detailed elevations or renderings to understand. Maybe I'll go to one of those wine do-dahs. Thanks for sharing. :)

Well, at the very least we can hope some other experienced developer will buy and put some sic eye candy on the Austin skyline.

I wonder if T. Stacy backed out because of the new office tower proposed on 3rd & Colorado?

Progress I would say, but I see where ur coming from.

Lol, guess I was a week early in moving the JW from approved to U/C list.

Work starts next week on JW Marriott downtown convention hotel
By Shonda Novak