AUSTIN | 5th + Colorado | 242 FEET | 18 FLOORS | Complete
 

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

Odd that it says 6 floors of parking in a 9 story building. Either the parking levels will be underground or it will be a 15 sotry building IMO... 3 levels of office on that square footage is just not viable.

Add another level for the lobby/retail and it could be 16 floors.

Even if you say the footprint is 200x200 (I think it's smaller), and say 100% of the square footage is usable office space, it would still take 3.5 stories to reach the 179,000 square feet number. I'm leaning toward a 15 or 16 story tower.

Kevin, where do you get those numbers you use to approximate a tower's height based on the proposed square footage and footprint?

They must have meant it'll be 9 floors of office over 6 floors of parking. They said the building would have 179,000 square feet of space. If that's not counting the parking garage that would mean the 3 office floors would have roughly 58,000 square feet each. I seriously doubt that would be the case. Most buildings typically have 20,000 to 25,000 square foot floor plates. That site is simply not large enough to have nearly 60,000 square foot floor plates.

The stated size of the building was 179,000 square feet. I'm assuming they're talking about the office space and retail space combined and not counting the garage space. The article said the building will have 6,000 square feet of retail. So let's assume they meant 9 floors of office space over 6 parking levels. So 173,000 square feet divided among 9 floors would be 19,222 square feet per floor. That seems more accurate. And remember, that's usable square feet, not the gross square footage, which includes the thickness of the walls and mechanical areas.

As for the lot size. I remember I had the dimensions of it saved from something related to the 1Hotel project that was slated for that lot, either the rendering had it listed or it was in an article. Anyway, the renderings I have saved for the 1Hotel project that was previously slated for that property, said the lot size was 124 feet by 188 feet. Multiplying those two numbers you get 23,312. So there's no way they'll be able to squeeze 58,000 square feet onto each of those three floors.

And I would not be surprised to see a 15-story office building ending up being about the same height that the hotel was planned to be. I would imagine this will be around 200 feet tall if it has 15 floors.

By the way, it was also Lincoln Property Co. that developed 100 Congress. They also teamed up with HKS, Inc. who designed it. They're both doing this tower as well. Hopefully it'll be something nice. HKS, Inc. does nice buildings. And this should obscure the fugly east wall of the Plaza Lofts a bit.

Aha! The Austin Business Journal article has now been updated and it states the project is planned to have 16 floors. That would certainly make it a 200 foot building.

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

Nice! :cheers:

Yeppers, that location could use some height. I like that we are getting some east / west verticle density especially further north of the lake. Even at just 16 floors, this will have a nice impact. Still waiting for that signature 800 footer office tower though...

How is that lot in terms of the CVC placement?

The property is at the southwest corner of West 5th & Colorado Streets. So there is no CVC on that block.

http://i.imgur.com/5qMRrwn.jpg

Am I correct that Lincoln Property is simply marketing this project at this point and has not filed plans or applied for permits? Have they made any kind of statements regarding construction financing? I'd love to see an office building on this site, but I am wondering whether they are going to be able to pull things together in light of the other office projects underway in the immediate vicinity. It would be wonderful to have that much Class A office space come on line at the same time downtown in that area.

There appear to be at least 3 or 4 CVCs that are directed at I-35 south of MLK. Given the possibility of TxDOT sinking (if not capping) the mainlanes of the interstate in the not too distant future*, could this potentially remove those corridors (thus opening up significant sections of the Waller Creek area)?

*Perhaps "Not too distant future" is a bit ambitious of a timeline :)

I was waiting to post this because I didn't want to get anyone involved in trouble, but it has been circulated around town enough that even the Business Journal has a copy now (I don't know why they haven't run it yet - not newsworthy enough?). This is part of the marketing that Lincoln Property Company is sending out to prospective tenants for their proposed building at 205 West 5th Street. 16 stories, approximately 185,000 square feet, ground floor retail, 5 floors of parking and 9 floors of office.

http://i1072.photobucket.com/albums/...ps243fc64c.jpg

That's a nice building.

I don't mind that at all. Looks pretty good.

Are you crazy! I hate it....just kidding...a little Green Water treatment redevelopment thread humor...I'm starting to like anything that's not built on top of a pedestal. I also like that this is not a perfectly square box. But I do wish it was taller...of course...

Not at all like the disdain for the greenwater designs. This is a smaller project. I don't mind it at all.

Not bad. It's pretty streamlined and simple. I do like the facade accents and the top is good. And it looks like the corners are sunk in some with columns running up and down the corner.

What's on that lot now?

It's completely vacant. Previously there had been one or two small buildings. Those were torn down a few years back to make way for that 1Hotel project. That project never happened, though, and we've been stuck with the parking lot ever since.

You can see the lot from the JW Marriott web cam. It is the vacant lot across 5th Street from the Chase Bank Tower garage.

http://oxblue.com/open/tournee/jwmarriottaustin

It almost looks like 2 or 3 separate buildings since the height and facade changes. If the rest of the block wasn't older and relatively flat, it would probably look even more like multiple buildings.

I wouldn't expect to hear the complaint on this forum, but just to nip it in the bud: the loss of those food trucks is a good thing. Walking near that block is a poor experience due to noise and air pollution from those trucks. There is no on-site power, so they each have loud generators. It's really a blight in an otherwise high-potential area. Food-wise, Chi'Lantro (diagonal across the intersection) is a much better option in my opinion.

Here's me complaining about the parking lot in 2010, with photo.
http://www.austincontrarian.com/aust...velopment.html

I loved your sarcasm. Sarcasm is becoming a lost art on the internet.

Ditto that...

You seem to be on an Avatar changing frenzy of late. :)

Hill Country, I miss your old avatar with the "I love you so much" written on the wall! I hope that picture was recent because, funny enough, I took a picture of exactly that wall on South Congress when I was in Austin two years ago and I'd be overjoyed to know that it's still there. :P

Glad the demon is gone. Scary... And congrats on being in the black on fb. The NASDAQ is a joke!!! :hell:

The NAZ had their biggest technical glitch today since the infamous Facebook IPO.

Whatever are you talking about?

There! You did it again! Sorry about your weed.

All this talk of changing avatars made me want to mix it up.

Nice. Having avatars based on Austin icons (or the "Round Rock" that the General is currently using) would be a great idea. Maybe I should go back the the "I love you so much" one. What's lost with the small size of my current avatar are all the bullet holes.

Looks like we're starting an avatar revival. It seemed like our skyline was changing faster than our avatars.

I see a lot of nice paintings and large framed photos of the Austin skyline in local galleries. As nice as they are I would never buy one because they get outdated so fast.

It be a wise thing to collect them... that way in the future when Austin's skyline truly outgrows itself you'll have them to remember and pass them on to your kids, and they to their kids, etc.

No. We got that internet thing to go down to memory lane on and visit times gone by. :)

C'est vrai. I'm thinking of those photos posted of Austin downtown from way back when. There's something timeless about those photos. I wonder if people in the future will look at ours and think the same about them.

One of the things I wish is that I had a couple of nice big skyline photos of Austin from the year I was born. I have a few small ones that I've saved on the internet, but nothing grand. The tallest building that was under construction at the time was the Wells Fargo Tower. It broke ground the year I was born. I only have one photo showing it under construction in the background and kind of blurred.

There was also a forum member who passed away last year - Robert Pence. He had family in Austin and visited here once in 1981 during the Memorial Day flood. He had been photographing cities since the late 60s. He took a bunch of photos of the skyline from his visit in 1981. Since his passing his website and photos no longer show up in his photo threads, unfortunately. I did save those photos back when he posted the thread.

Mike do you have any photos of the skyline in 1963? That is how old I am.

Nice avatar! I am keeping mine for awhile...even though someone else used it in the past and another new forum member has posted with it too.

Yesterday Bury, who are the engineers for Lincoln Property Company, submitted AULCC transmittals for both this building (5th & Colorado Tower, 190,000 square feet) and a second office/retail building at 4th & Colorado (90,000 to 100,000 square feet). The AULCCs say that construction is estimated to start as early as 7/1/14.

The documents are on the City's FTP site here:ftp://ftp.ci.austin.tx.us/ATD_AULCC/131121/

There is also a combined map showing the 2 locations here: ftp://ftp.ci.austin.tx.us/ATD_AULCC/...orado%20St.pdf

No site plans, renderings, elevations or construction drawings yet. I'm sure that will follow.

There's also an AULCC for a hotel at 7th & Congress (621 Congress). I can't remember off the top of my head which hotel this is, but there is a map included: ftp://ftp.ci.austin.tx.us/ATD_AULCC/...20Congress.pdf Feel free to move this part of my post to whichever thread is tracking that.

For those of you not familiar, AULCC stands for Austin Utility & Location Coordination Committee, and one of the early steps in preparing to develop a commercial building in Austin is to submit a request to this committee to locate and confirm the utilities in the area you plan to develop. They are they guys that spray-paint those orange (telecom), green (sewer), blue (water) and yellow (gas) arrows and lines on the roadways, showing where the utilities are. They also handle right-of-way disputes, crane approvals, etc.

Looks like dirt moving on the JW Marriott cam. I'll be at Frank tonight, so I'll take a quick look. Probably just checking for utilities or something.

20 floors now and at least 244 feet.

http://downtownaustinblog.org/2014/0...-5th-colorado/

344 feet on the link for 20 floors... Lol.

There's no way that's right. What probably happened was the elevation lists the ground elevation as "100 feet" instead of 0. When you read building elevations and measure the height you have to pay attention to what the ground level elevation is. Sometimes they list it as 0' and whatever number is above is the actual height. Other times, though, the ground elevation is listed as 100'. In those cases whatever number is listed above is actually 100 feet taller than the actual height. So if it says 344' you would need to subtract 100 feet. The elevations for the new Westin Hotel at 5th & San Jacinto are the same way. They list it as being 314 feet tall, but only because the ground elevation is listed as 100 feet. That hotel is actually just 214 feet. I'm not sure why they do it that way sometimes and sometimes the other way.

Could you look at past ones and see if they list it as 100' when they have below ground structure, and 0' when it's all above ground?

For the Westin it shows the sub-levels and subtracts from the street level "100 feet". So the first level under ground is listed as 88 feet, while the bottom level is listed as 58 feet. The Westin has 4 levels under ground.

For 7th & Rio Grande, it lists the first number above ground as 0 and there are no levels below ground. Maybe they do this when a building has sub-levels? Maybe that's the case and the 5th & Colorado office tower will have a few floors of parking below grade in addition to the ones above? We'll know for sure once the elevations are released for it.

The Shore also has the ground elevation number as 100 feet. Doesn't it have below ground parking?

That's what I was attempting to say. It's not an exact measurement of how deep the hole is, just that there is a hole.

It makes sense to start at 0 100 feet underground as opposed to 0 at grade for construction purposes.

Ok, so I've seen the elevation now. It shows the ground level elevation as 100 feet. So it's a pretty good bet it'll be shorter than the 344 foot height that was mentioned. The 244 foot height that was mentioned is to the main roof slab (the floor). The parapet (barrier wall on the main roof) is about another feet higher. So if you were standing on the main roof of the building your feet would be at 244 feet above the street and there would be a 4 foot barrier wall between you and the edge. The mechanical roof roughly measured tops out at about 269 feet. That's the highest the building goes. Also the 20th floor is actually a mechanical floor for HVAC and elevator equipment, so it's not an occupied floor, nor does it have space for lease in it. So the building should actually be listed as having 19 floors instead of 20. Most of the time mechanical floors aren't even mentioned in real estate literature. Imagine listing a residential building as having 20 floors and someone deciding they want a unit on the 20th floor only to find out that that floor isn't available because it's mechanical only.

The elevation didn't actually list the height of the mechanical penthouse roof (top of the building), so I had to measure it out with a sheet of paper. Mechanical penthouses are usually exempt in height variances as long as it doesn't block the view of a protected view such as our capitol view corridors. So, in most cases mechanical penthouse heights aren't even listed in building elevations.

And by the way, Austin does not have a single building over 250 feet tall with fewer than 20 floors. Every building in Austin (there's 29 of them) that is at least 250 feet tall also has at least 20 floors. The only building that is taller than 250 feet tall with fewer than 20 floors is the Capitol, and for obvious reasons.

I think the first building that will break that will be the new 17-story civil courthouse since courthouses typically have high floor-to-floor heights.

Anyway, if anyone wants it I can email them the elevation.

Anyway, it will be good infill. Until that Downtown Austin Blog post, I had forgotten what was on that site previously. I just hope the building ends up looking considerably better than that initial rendering they put out.

New marketing video that has updated renderings of 5th + Colorado, including lobby and street level.

http://vimeo.com/89447131