Wow, it's like Republic Square park was built to be the entry plaza to that building. It's great to see a parking lot turned into something so worthy of that block's potential.

I was a regular at Waterloo Brewing Company (anyone remember that place? "4th and Guadalupe... Underneath the stars.. Water-looo-ooo-ooo brewing coooompany..." was the jingle) and I remember thinking how much DT was growing when the Plaza Lofts next door went up. Never in my wildest imagination at the time would I have envisioned this...

If Austin continues to increase the height of it's towers, it will soon give Charlotte's skyline some competition.

Austin’s skyline, in person, already appears much larger.

Depends on one's perspective.

When viewed from South Congress or driving North on I35 from South Austin, yes.

When viewed from North of UT or driving South on I35 from 290, not really.

Interesting. I know it's dangerous using wiki, but, if you take the current listing on complete, U/C, site prep, approved, under current city review and proposed towers for the two cities, in (roughly) 2022 you would get this:

Towers 900'+: AUS=0 CHA=0
Towers 800'-899': AUS=1 CHA=1
Towers 700'-799': AUS=1 CHA=1
Towers 600'-699': AUS=4 CHA=2
Towers 500'-599': AUS=8 CHA=3
Towers 400'-499': AUS=13 CHA=9
Towers 300'-399': AUS=32 CHA=17



*Obviously, this assumes everything on the table gets built as currently proposed*

Wow. Thanks for posting numbers. That is impressive.

"Some" competition? hahaha One might easily feel Austin's is already superior and like ILUVSAT posted, it appears Austin's skyline is objectively on par with Charlotte's.

I'm a Charlottean and I agree with this.

All I know is that Austin is doing a lot better than Lubbock.

See? City vs City is fun. :)

I didn't know that Austin had more highrises than Charlotte? Interesting.

I didn't either actually. I haven't exactly been keeping tabs, but it is interesting to note. I don't think this should really be seen as a city versus city as much as it is kind of a shock of the reality of the ranks Austin is climbing. I've always thought of places like Charlotte and San Diego as cities that I wished Austin could take after. I never imagined we'd actually be passing them in some ways.

Haha, I really don't see it as City vs. City either, I was just being a punk (sorry guys!). It is pretty insane to see the numbers of what is happening in Austin...especially compared to when I was a kid.

Wow at those numbers!

Hopefully Austin can get a few more hefty office buildings downtown. I prefer my skylines with a bit more heft in the office space category, purely subjective on my end. However, the growth within the last 3 years is pretty impressive any way you cut it.

I used to live in Austin and go through Charlotte often these days. My opinion is Austin has way more 'heft'....from mopac to 35.....water to UT, it creates a large mass of buildings, which is impressive. Charlotte has more of a balanced skyline which is more dramatic but has little in depth.

I would be happy to have either skyline now!

Since Austin already has an 800+ footer or soon to have one, a 900 may not be far away in the future.

Heck, a 1,000 footer is in the likelihood for Austin.

Can someone please repost (or post a link to the original post) the two photos comparing Austin's present skyline and its 1997/1998 skyline? From what I recall, it was a photo that you could slide from one side to the other, revealing all that's been built over the last 20 years.

Thanks!

https://i.redd.it/6ikavbg5h28z.png
https://i.redd.it/6ikavbg5h28z.png

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DBvryGoUQAEYsHg.jpg

http://urbanscale.com/wp-content/upl...Time-Lapse.png
http://urbanscale.com/wp-content/upl...Time-Lapse.png

http://i.imgur.com/C3l67v6.png
http://i.imgur.com/C3l67v6.png

Some data^ on skylines for those cities which anchor comparable US metro areas to Austin's (roughly those between ~1.9 and ~2.5 million*) IF you define a highrise building to be any with a height above 200' (as was done above):

• Charlotte, 2.53 million, 43 completed buildings taller than 200' with an average height of 376' -- the 5 under construction towers at 632', 378', 372', 280', and 252' will not change that average
  
• Orlando, 2.51 million, 21 completed buildings taller than 200' with an average height of 329'
  
• San Antonio, 2.47 million, 26 completed buildings taller than 200' with an average height of 312' and the 3 additional towers under construction at 386', 314', and 247' will not change the average height
  
• Portland, 2.45 million, 58 completed buildings taller than 200' with an average height of 279' and the 2 additional towers under construction at 358' and 325' will push the average to 281'
  
• Pittsburgh, 2.33 million, 64 completed buildings taller than 200' with an average height of 336'
  
• Sacramento, 2.32 million, 17 completed buildings taller than 200' with an average height of 312'
  
• Las Vegas, 2.20 million, 108 completed buildings taller than 200' with an average height of 371'
  
• Cincinnati, 2.18 million, 45 completed buildings taller than 200' with an average height of 303'
  
• Kansas City, 2.13 million, 41 completed buildings taller than 200' with an average height of 317'
  
• Austin, 2.12 million, 52 completed buildings taller than 200' with an average height of 322' and the 12 additional towers under construction (or in site prep) at 690', 542', 459', 446', 419', 397', 387', 386', 330', 247', 236', and 222' will push the average to 336'
  
• Columbus, 2.08 million, 30 completed buildings taller than 200' with an average height of 332' and there's one under construction tower for which I can't find a height
  
• Cleveland, 2.06 million, 45 completed buildings taller than 200' with an average height of 329' and the 1 under construction tower at 380' will push that average to 330'
  
• Indianapolis, 2.03 million, 38 completed buildings taller than 200' with an average height of 303' and the 1 under construction building at 290' will decrease that average to 302'
  
• San Jose, 2.00 million, 19 completed buildings taller than 200' with an average height of 248'
  
• Nashville, 1.90 million, 38 completed buildings taller than 200' with an average height of 323' and the 5 under construction towers at 550', 460', 345', 289', and 267' will increase that average to 330'

Some observations (using stats from data including both completed and under construction towers):

1. Vegas is the indisputable winner in our weight class in both height (371' average) and mass (108 buildings over 200')

2. The only other notable stand-out for average building height is Charlotte (376'), with everyone else between 300' and 340' except San Jose (at 248') and Portland (at 281')

3. Outside of Vegas, which has many more 200'+ buildings than any other city in this weight class, there are notable tiers in quantity of these highrises:

Pittsburgh (64), Austin (63), and Portland (60) are tier 1
Cleveland (46), Cincinnati (45), Charlotte (43), Nashville (43), Kansas City (41), and Indianapolis (39) are tier 2
Columbus (30) and San Antonio (29) are tier 3
Orlando (21), San Jose (19), and Sacramento (17) are tier 4.

Overall, taking bulk and height, I'd rank the skylines like this:

X. City (# / average / tallest)

1. Vegas (108 / 371' / 1150')
2. Pittsburgh (64 / 336' / 841')
3. Austin (63 / 322' / 683')
4. Charlotte (45 / 376' / 871')
5. Portland (60 / 281' / 546')
6. Cleveland (46 / 330' / 947')
7. Nashville (44 / 332' / 617)
8. Cincinnati (45 / 303' / 665')
9. Kansas City (41 / 317' / 624')
10. Indianapolis (39 / 302' / 811')
11. Columbus (30 / 330' / 624')
12. San Antonio (29 / 312' / 750')
13. Orlando (21 / 329' / 441')
14. Sacramento (17 / 312' / 430')
15. San Jose (19 / 248' / 286')

Consider the two skylines we were talking about: Austin and Charlotte. What is currently in the development pipeline that hasn't started turning dirt? If we include those buildings in our data Austin simply blows Charlotte out of the water and looks to be starting to give Las Vegas a run for its money:

Austin, 2.12 million, 85 highrises at 355' average height, tallest building at 848'
Charlotte, 2.52 million, 52 highrises at 372' average height, tallest building at 871'

Even if you only include the most serious Austin proposals, Austin still is potentially at 75 highrises above 200' within 10 years with these buildings having an average of 344'. We simply don't currently have an 850' + building dragging up our average height. Instead, we have breadth as was noted above. To expand on ILUVSAT's numbers above, I think this shows why I think that although Austin already has a larger skyline (if currently lacking a big tall signature building) it will soon have a substantially bulkier skyline with equal height:

Completed:

800 PLUS: AUS: 0 / CHA: 1
700-800: AUS: 0 / CHA: 1
600-700: AUS: 1 / CHA: 1
500-600: AUS: 3 / CHA: 3
400-500: AUS: 8 / CHA: 9
300-400: AUS: 16 / CHA: 12
200-300: AUS: 24 / CHA: 16

Completed + Under Construction / Site Prep:

800 PLUS: AUS: 0 / CHA: 1
700-800: AUS: 0 / CHA: 1
600-700: AUS: 2 / CHA: 2
500-600: AUS: 4 / CHA: 3
400-500: AUS: 11 / CHA: 9
300-400: AUS: 20 / CHA: 14
200-300: AUS: 27 / CHA: 17

Reliable Proposals:

800 PLUS: AUS: 1 / CHA: 1
700-800: AUS: 1 / CHA: 1
600-700: AUS: 2 / CHA: 2
500-600: AUS: 5 / CHA: 3
400-500: AUS: 11 / CHA: 9
300-400: AUS: 23 / CHA: 16
200-300: AUS: 32 / CHA: 19

All Proposals:

800 PLUS: AUS: 1 / CHA: 1
700-800: AUS: 1 / CHA: 1
600-700: AUS: 4 / CHA: 2
500-600: AUS: 7 / CHA: 3
400-500: AUS: 11 / CHA: 9
300-400: AUS: 28 / CHA: 16
200-300: AUS: 33 / CHA: 19

^data is mostly from skyscraper forum database with other sources used to supplement

*I chose this range because (1) to include both Austin and Charlotte) and because there are (2) no clear gaps in size between the 15 metropolitan areas in this range with no gap being larger from one MSA to the next, when ordered sequentially, than 121k and only 3 gaps larger than 50k and (3) because, in turn, there are obvious gaps in size between the largest city within this range (Charlotte at 2.52 million) and the next largest cities of St. Louis, Baltimore, and Denver (at 2.81, 2.81, and 2.89 million, respectively, with a minimum gap in population between Charlotte and St. Louis of 282k) as well as the smallest city in this range (Nashville at 1.90 million) and the next smallest cities of Norfolk (1.73 million, a gap from Nashville of 178k), Providence (1.62 million), Milwaukee (1.58 million), and Jacksonville (1.54 million)