Sorry if this is a dumb question, but has the Fairmont Hotel in Austin been canceled?

What project are the red & white cranes for?

No, and apparently it's going to break ground on December 1st according to a permit the filed with the city for street closures (staging area).

It's an 8-story residential project called Millennium Rainey. It'll only be 99 feet tall.

The blue crane is working on the 16-story Hotel Van Zandt, and the white and grey crane is working on the 19-story Westin Hotel.

The site plan was released today for the Block 23 office building. The elevations are shown on pages 25 through 27.

ftp://ftp.ci.austin.tx.us/ATD_AULCC/...20LA_PLANS.pdf

The heights are:

397 feet 6 inches to the mechanical penthouse. This is the highest point on the building.

344 feet 6 inches to the 28th floor. This is the highest occupied floor.

There are also 3 more levels above the 28th floor that are mechanical levels.

387 feet 6 inches to the 31st mechanical floor.

373 feet 6 inches to the 30th mechanical floor.

359 feet 6 inches to the 29th floor (main roof) parapet.

357 feet 6 inches to the 29th floor (main roof) slab.

Well now!

http://www.mystatesman.com/news/busi....257263.735529
http://i.imgur.com/vXTOwMJ.jpg

Yes!!!!!!!

Looking at the final design I'm not all that happy. It might kinda hurt the skyline.

While not as good as the original design, it is still an attractive building. Will it be only 595 feet including the spire? If it is, I don't see it looking too out of place.

Why in the world would this hurt the skyline? It's still a beautiful design.

What hurt the skyline is The Hilton. No offense that's a big eyesore with all that stucco on it.

Agreed.

You must like glass-façaded toilets! Take a look at it...it looks like a really fancy, modern take on a household toilet. Great design Manchester/Gensler! Maybe the gigantic, out of place spire will provide me wi-fi as I'm doing my business.

Austin does not need another block-long, flat-roofed, monolith (no matter the façade's makeup). The CBD is going to look like Vegas where there is a flat line at 500-600'...However, Austin's will be at 400-450'.

I still say the spire is too long for such a short building. This building is not 595, the building itself will be in the 400ft range like sooooooooooo many others. I don't consider a pole on top of a building to be the actual building height. If that's the case than let's stick a 400 foot spire in the center of Frost where the crown opens and then it will once again be the tallest building in Austin and it will be our first 800 footer too!:rolleyes:

:yeahthat: :multibow: :iagree: :multibow: :goodpost:

Im also upset that it was shortened but come on guys, we are so spoiled now that we get all upset about having a bunch of 400 footers dotting our skyline. Before Frost Bank we had 1 building over 400ft and that was just recently confirmed! Be happy we are even getting something built! In that location it will be very prominent! I do want something taller in the 700/800 ft range but lets hope the ECC site will quench our thirst for something taller :tup:

No I like infill.

Have you ever seen a toilet made of glass?

No? I didn't think you had.

#spoiled

http://www.veryabc.cn/movie/uploads/...WearsPrada.txt

Actually, yes...Abu Dhabi. Most comfortable dump I ever had! Pissed in a gold one in Dubai...a little disappointing in comparison. Oh, yeah...Astana too. Almost forgot, sorry. Still a bit disappointing compared to the experience in Abu Dhabi.

You?

#Yes...Ihaveworkedhardenoughtobespoiled!


I hear Buc-ee's - New Braunfels is "nice!"

Bruh, I'm an old money Ph.D. student, so you don't have a monopoly among us here on SSP in working hard and getting nice things.

By the way, tasteful rich people think that kind of stuff is tacky as all get out.

I guess it's a nice looking building and all, but it looks like it's been shrunk down a lot from the last renderings we saw—the ones posted at the building site, with the double towers—and I thought this new design is a bit of a pitty too, because we kinda have one like that already—the Marriottt a few blocks West of there.

But still, so vastly much better than yet another ugly open lot down town.

Also, I agree with the spire comment. I know it probably adhears to achitectural rules, but it feels a bit like cheating (to a layperson). How about putting an 700 foot spire on on the Gingerman and calling it the tallest building in Austin.

http://www.venish.com/apc-Marrott-Fairmont.jpg

Here's my latest list of active Austin projects that are at least 10-stories and/or 100'. I have documentation for 47 such projects now. There are more, but I can't nail down the documentation. Of the four status types (Proposed, Demo, Site Prep and U/C) it is not always clear what "Demo" and "Site Prep" mean. "Demo" can mean the site is being cleared for the start of construction or simply that the lot was cleared for a project that won't be built any time soon. "Site Prep" can mean anything from the site being fenced off for future construction or a big hole has already been dug for the underground parking levels prior to the immediate start of construction. So what I did was highlight in yellow all of the projects that are U/C or have been publicly announced as breaking ground with all of the financing in place and with construction immediately following the demolition and/or site prep. For all practical purposes everything in yellow is under construction.

http://i1121.photobucket.com/albums/...stingPage1.png
http://i1121.photobucket.com/albums/...stingPage2.png
http://i1121.photobucket.com/albums/...stingPage3.png

Haha!

You know just for the sake of not looking like a clone of the Marriot, I am in favor of the spire on this one. It might not look so bad. As long as its more needle-like, otherwise we'll be calling this one the Walkie Talkie Building. Or the old school Nokia brick building :D

We already have a USB stick (Austonian) and an SD card (JW Marriott). :D

Lol... that was to funny! :cheers:

Some pictures I took yesterday while walking around downtown.

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3938/...7c058079_b.jpg

https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5602/...2d382e8f_b.jpg

https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7510/...03cb4f45_b.jpg

https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7476/...ab3607bd_b.jpg

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3948/...91302d8d_b.jpg

16 new mixed-income town homes coming to East Austin

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3946/...1dd83e38_o.jpg

http://m.bizjournals.com/austin/blog...in.html?r=full

This blows... Fairmont is shorter now?!?!!!! Damn it!!!!!

http://www.mystatesman.com/news/news....257263.735534
http://i.imgur.com/hw9IpwR.jpg

Fairmont Hotel
 

Ok, so I've been sending emails to Gensler and Manchester trying to get the heights. Someone from Manchester came back yesterday with info from Gensler. The heights are:

595 feet to the spire.

456 feet to the "crown" - this should be the top of the mechanical penthouse.

It's listed as 37 floors, but in reality there are only 36 actual occupied floors. The reason for the discrepancy is it's tradition in the hotel industry to skip the 13th floor. So they go from 12 straight to 14.

It will also have 4 levels underground for parking. She said is breaks ground in November.

She said the design is complete, but that a different architecture firm is handling the skybridge to the convention center.

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

Nice pics, Jon. Thanks for the update. I really like that view of Seven. And it's good to see the Hotel Zaza finally moving forward.

Thanks Kevin, I notice about a month ago how Seven sticks out on W. 7th. Looks pretty cool like that. :)

Thanks Kevin.

Even worse that I thought. Almost a quarter of the building's listed height will be an odd-looking spire.

This is a real disappointment from the original design! It seems obvious that the cost of building the tower in its original form was going to cost well north of $400 million. If not, then what happened to the design?

Heck, they've cut 120' off the building (not including the spire) and raised the budget by $20 million.

I wish they (Manchester & Gentler) could have added some swerves or undulations to the façade...at least it would be more interesting than a cookie-cut version of a convention hotel. However, I don't think anyone at Gentler's Austin office can draw anything but a straight line.

I read that the firm doing the Waller Creek design is also doing the skybridge.

Read the same.!

Sad to say...
 

This is worse than boring - especially when compared to the initial design proposals. This project stands at a crucial gateway to downtown. Its message: meh, whatever - I've got a spire - sort of.

We fell for it again.
 

As usual, it seems the rendering was only to generate money for a "cost engineered" boxy version. So was that first ambitious design ever a possibility, or just "the guys" throwing a few curvy ideas around the office? This is such disappointing massing after the first one. A plinth for parking and a kleenex box tower. Stone Age in it's sophistication.

I still think the Fairmont looks nice. It isn't anywhere near as nice as the original design, but it'll still be a good addition to the skyline.

A few photos from yesterday.

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

http://i.imgur.com/ivxq88M.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/tTjJ5OL.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/w0jXcwJ.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/q6JjkAO.jpg

Do you guys think that Austin's light rail has a chance of getting passed this election? I like the idea of being able to visit and get around easier with rail. I hope they decide to give much of the rail its own right of way. Don't want it to end up like METRO Rail in Houston (stopping and slowing traffic).

I don't think it will pass.

This is good ol U S of A! Money/profit is the name o the game. A few extra dollars is better in a few pocket than spent in the public sphere o things. Companies make money. Even our city owned Hilton (yes the Hilton portion will return to being city owned in a few years) is just one bad public design created from a cost cutting point of view. The city got hosed on that building.

At least The Fairmont is glass.....not errrr stuccoesk crap like the Hilton. The Fairmont will still be a nice building, just not a stunner that we all were hoping for. Money speaks loudly in our economic system......

The Fairmont will still be our tallest hotel with or without the spire. It'll even have hotel rooms that are about 100 feet higher than the Hilton's highest ones, and maybe 30 to 40 feet higher than those of the JW Marriott.

Don't pee on us Kevin and tell us it's raining.

Well it will be.

The Fairmont will be 595 feet to the spire and 456 feet to the roof with 36 floors.

The JW Marriott is 408 feet to the roof and has 34 floors.

The Hilton is 377 feet with 31 floors, but the highest hotel floor is the 26th floor. The top 5 floors are condos. All of the Fairmont Hotel's 36 floors are hotel use.

While the W Hotel & Residences is taller to the roof than the Fairmont will be and has one floor more, the hotel portion of the W stops at the 18th floor. The rest are residential.

And that's it. We don't have another hotel above 300 feet at the moment.

In fact, this will still be the tallest hotel in Texas outside of Dallas when you don't count the spire.

So even without the spire it's still our biggest and tallest hotel with the most number of hotel floors. I agree I would rather have the old design, but we're still getting a new largest and tallest hotel that will help spark more development along Waller Creek.

I know... still I can't help but feel like it's Christmas morning and mom and dad got me the off-brand Huffy instead of the Schwinn.... oh well.... good problems to have I guess... Still, it will factor in to my selection of nursing homes. ;)

By the way, this user profile picture of the sausage is hilarious and awesome

:notacrook:

They have put the "JW Marriott" lettering on top of the building (east side of building) Sorry no pictures!

A couple from this afternoon.

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

http://i.imgur.com/J7JK8h8.jpg

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

The 5th & West condo tower going up by the Seaholm site:

http://www.austinboom.com/wp-content...h-and-west.jpg
http://www.austinboom.com/blog/fifth.../5th-and-west/