It will be 15 years before the power station lot is developed, at least.

It requires city budgetary funding of a replacement station elsewhere, which is time added.
It requires then the planning, building, and integration of that new station, which is time added.
It requires a bidding process for selling that land, which is time added.
It requires the permit process, which is time added.
It requires then waiting for market fundamentals to necessitate building whatever was proposed and permitted (and to get the funding necessary), which is time added.
And then it requires actually building, which is another few years.

It also requires finding another block Downtown to build a new substation, and at least $20 M to build the substation and all of the underground electrical ductbanks connecting it. The further the new location is from the existing substation, the higher the cost for the underground infrastructure to tie into the existing network.

I think the Capitol complex would be the best place in downtown for a new substation. That area already has a quasi-industrial feel anyway, and there are plenty of parking lots to do it on. Of course they're all state owned.

I'm pretty sure that will never happen.

Did you notice I said that?

Apparently not. But who cares other than someone who incessantly likes to point out typos and argue with other posters.

From today. 5th and Colorado:

https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7453/...ce2c327d_b.jpg

https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8678/...050d2bd7_b.jpg

My son will be happy to see this:

https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7425/...8efa05db_b.jpg


501 Congress Ave. They've cleared off the front sidewalk:

https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7292/...ed7023a9_b.jpg

https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8653/...a2dd5787_b.jpg

https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8580/...b60999a2_c.jpg


Hotel ZaZa. Not much happening yet, but at least the pylon drills are there.

https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8668/...31b2c2f0_b.jpg


Seaholm Residences:

https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7410/...9f0fc0a0_b.jpg

https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7342/...808c0b91_b.jpg


Hotel Indigo:

https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7350/...fbce1325_b.jpg

Thanks for all the pictures, priller.

Nice photos. I gotta say, 501 Congress isn't bad at all.

It's beautiful... we all just wish it was the exact same design for about 40 or 50 more floors topped by a beautiful crown.

My apologies. You were focusing on time, I was focusing on money. My point being, unless a new location can be found that is substantially less valuable than the current site, and the value of the current site goes up to at least $20 M + that differential, it is not going to happen.

I took these today. 8 cranes in total for the new UT Medical school.

https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7340/...3607837fe9.jpg

https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7307/...2c821c0456.jpg

Just curious, is there any reason why someone (the city, a contracted developer, etc) cannot simply build some sort of wall around the plant to hide it? Maybe a wall that is designed to "look" like an actual building? Or possibly an interactive electronic "art wall" or something? That way it not only hides the equipment, but also creates a human-friendly space along the sidewalk that enhances the skyline.

They already plan to build a wall around the substation.
http://buildingatx.com/wp-content/up...at-620x350.jpg

http://buildingatx.com/2014/04/publi...al-substation/

Sweet! Thanks for posting that!

Not a problem. :)

curious when we'll see this "art wall" start to take shape. I expected it to be done by now....

I doubt it will take very long to complete. They're probably waiting for some of the construction in the area to wrap up. I'm willing to bet we'll see them start on it when the bridge/trail is complete and they're putting the finishing touches on the library and the Seaholm tower.

Gotta love the crane porn. Down to the bare metal. :D

Any renderings of this development which can be posted?

Yes, there are two threads going on now in the Austin section covering the project. 3 of those cranes are working on the new 10-story teaching hospital. That building will eventually be expanded to 14 floors according to the site plan. That hospital will replace Brackenridge Hospital (it'll be demolished). Part of the redevelopment of that area is also going to include demolishing the Erwin Center. The rest of the area will be redeveloped with more medical related buildings. Some of them look to be over 200 feet tall from their stacking plans on the map. There's also plans for commercial office space, hotel and residential space. There's a 22-story hotel and residential building planned at 12th & Red River at the site of the old Brick Oven restaurant.

Here is the main thread covering the whole medical campus.
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=194368

Here's the thread on the new teaching hospital with all the renderings.
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=213131

I grabbed the renderings from this video. This shows most of the campus pretty well.
• Video Link

The video also shows the other buildings that are under construction now. One of them is a 6-story administration and education building with 85,000 square feet. The other is a 493,000 square foot building with an 8-story wing and a 10-story wing that will be for medical research and medical office space.

http://i.imgur.com/tp7ydDW.jpg

This is the 6-story administration and education building.
http://i.imgur.com/abYUdjm.jpg

This is the 10-story teaching hospital that will replace Brackenridge.

http://i.imgur.com/Wy3X87Q.jpg

How many floors is Brackenridge?

It's 9 floors. You can see it in that video around the :31 mark. It's the white building in the upper right corner.

Note the re-routed Red River will return as only 2 lanes ( plus a turning lane)

They really should have incorporated bike lanes into the plans.

Yeah, that's dumb. I take Red River on my bike pretty much every time I'm on the east side of the UT campus. Part of is hilly going up and down, so not having a bike lane is going to suck. Are they going to have on-street parking there anymore?

Dunno... I'm still irked that the city allowed UT to interupt one of our few N/S corridors in this area of town AND reduce it to two lanes.
SUX

Seaholm Residences - 341 feet - 30 floors, Austin Main Library - 123 feet - 6 floors, Northshore - 424 feet - 38 floors.

https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.n...36937381_o.jpg
Over Austin - https://www.facebook.com/overaustin/...type=1&theater

I love this, watching a city grow and mature before our very eyes!

You can also see the mobile crane in the background in the middle of the photo (to the right of 360 Condos) erecting the tower crane for 5th & Colorado. It's going to be a 19-story office building.

You can also see 5 or 6 of the 8 tower cranes that are working on the medical school just to the right and behind the Capitol.

This photo shows the crane for 5th & Colorado as it was being assembled.

https://scontent-a-dfw.xx.fbcdn.net/...60805954_o.jpg
Over Austin - https://www.facebook.com/overaustin/...type=1&theater

https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8654/...c2cb5d14_h.jpgJW MARRIOTT Lights Up Austin

I took a picture of that :yeahthat: on Thursday and sent to a friend and he mentioned it kinda looks like a bug lol. It does actually.

That pic is so bad ass.

I remember when Austin's skyline used to be less impressive than Tampa's. Now it's like double the size, maybe more.

^Yeah, the transformation on the west side of downtown has been incredible, and there's more to come. I can count where there's at least 7 more towers above 200 feet planned just in that view and just nearest to the camera in addition to what you see there. Only two of those are below 300 feet, and the others are considerably taller. One of them will be 61 floors. On the other side of downtown there's one more 200 footer, and the rest (5 more) are above 400 feet.

Here's another aerial with a drone. This one was taken this morning.

https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.n...97809206_o.jpg
Over Austin - https://www.facebook.com/overaustin/...type=1&theater

^^^ That's an awesome photo!

That is a fantastic photo and view. It doesn't even show the residential tower cluster outside of the photo to the left and Downtown is still looking good.

I know right? Watch your back Charlotte, lol.

We've got a ways to go before we catch up to Charlotte. I've seen their skyline in person (many times, in fact, since all the good shopping near where I live is in Charlotte) and it is substantially more impressive.

I agree with wwmiv. While Austin skyline is impressive, Charlotte takes it up a notch in terms of height. Although I would argue that Austin skyline is more comparable with Kansas City.

Oh Austin is better than Kansas City or St. Louis. Both of those cities are comparable to San Antonio.

Austin's skyline is not really comparable to another U.S. city.

It's in this middle ground between those cities and Charlotte.

Kansas City does have a nice skyline, though. It might not have tons of height, but the buildings go great together, and you can't beat the old skyscraper stock they have. It's a treasure trove of old tall buildings and neat architecture, but I know what you meant.

I agree.

Austin actually has more high rises than Charlotte, but they have the height. Also, Charlotte's downtown is more of a working downtown that's pretty lame after business hours. The surrounding neighborhoods like NoDa and Southpark are where people go while downtown sits in the dark. :shrug:

The Bank of America Corporate Center in Charlotte gives a good idea of what Frost would look like if it had been built about 300' taller.

Very. Very. True.

Here's a quick rundown of Austin compared to other cities. This is for buildings over 200 feet. I'm using a list from a friend, Marshall Gerometta, who has collected building heights of cities for like the last 40 years. The list is a couple of years old, so some of the other cities now have more buildings than this.

Austin - 55 - (includes site prep/under construction stuff)

New York - 1,190

Chicago - 529

Toronto - 400

Vancouver - 189
Houston - 187

Honolulu - 160

San Francisco - 155

Los Angeles - 146

Miami - 124

Las Vegas - 111

Atlanta - 109
Philadelphia - 103

Calgary - 98
Dallas - 97

Boston - 87
Seattle - 81

Montreal - 78

San Diego - 68

Denver - 59
Minneapolis - 57
Austin - 55
Jersey City - 53
Mississauga, Ont., Canada - 51
Pittsburgh - 50

Detroit - 48
Burnaby, BC, Canada - 47
Ottawa - 44
Miami Beach - 43
Edmonton - 42
Phoenix - 42
Sunny Isles Beach, FL - 42
Aventura, FL - 41
Baltimore - 41
Fort Lauderdale - 40
Portland - 40

Cincinnati - 39
San Antonio - 39
St. Louis - 38
Naples - 37
Milwaukee - 36
Atlantic City - 34
Indianapolis - 33
New Orleans - 33
Cleveland - 32
Kansas City - 32
Tampa - 32
Orlando - 31

Charlotte - 28
Columbus - 27
Winnipeg - 26
Albany - 25
Arlington, VA - 25
Nashville - 25
Oakland - 25
Bellevue, WA - 24
Fort Worth - 23
St. Paul - 23
Newark - 22
Hamilton, Ont., Canada - 21
Hartford, CT - 21
Jacksonville - 21
Louisville - 21
Oklahoma City - 21
Omaha - 20
Rochester - 20
Tulsa - 20

I wonder if there's a way to integrate a measure of verticality with the number of highrises (I agree on the 200' cut point, fwiw) so that we can get a more holistic measure of "skyline" impressiveness.

Actually, I'd include a measure of dispersion of those buildings that are over 200' as well.

One note though: there's no reason to separate Miami and Miami Beach. Those are for all intents and purposes the same skyline. I'd sooner separate Houston and Houston's uptown and Atlanta downtown/midtown from Buckhead than separate Miami and Miami Beach.

Miami Beach is its own city. Every comparison I've seen separates the two.

It is its own jurisdiction, yes, but it isn't really it's own skyline. The highrises are all at the very southern end of the island right across the bridge from Miami downtown. It appears from every vantage point - except that where you are on the bridge - to be a single cohesive skyline... especially if you are looking toward Miami from offshore.

I agree, but when do you draw the line? Do you combine Newark/New York or Minneapolis/St. Paul?

That's a very hard question. I'd argue that Newark and New York are the same substantive skyline, but Minneapolis and St. Paul are visually distinct with a good ten miles of nothing but suburban character between the two.

It's all about where the buildings cluster together.