Austin | Indeed Tower (Block 71) | 542 Feet | 36 Floors | COMPLETE
 

I thought we already had a thread for Block 71, but I guess we've just been posting about it in the update thread. I'll start one since there are at least two proposals. This latest proposal is from Minguell-McQuary Architecture and looks to be 36-stories.

http://i.imgur.com/LsEGBHG.png
http://i.imgur.com/CcHG8pe.png
http://www.minguell-mcquary.com/block71/

Here's a re-post of deerhoof's photos of the Nelsen Partners proposal taken at the offices of Nelsen Partners.

https://www.urbanplanet.org/forums/a...2952c37d22fa6a
https://www.urbanplanet.org/forums/a...75167d0726c928
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...postcount=2710

Please let the Nelsen Partners design be chosen. That other rendering is hideous. We can't afford to lose all of our unencumbered lots to stubby short buildings in the 30 floor range. Plus it looks like a strange version of the W.

Only thing that rendering's missing is an Airstream trailer on one of those exposed balconies.

I was about to edit my post to include 500 W 2nd lol

If the W and 500 W 2nd had a baby, that would be the outcome...:sly:

The only neat thing would be if they really included a forest within the highrise complex.

I'm not a fan of that first one. The tower portion is too close to design of the W, and those recessed windows make it look like a parking garage. That portion of the building seriously looks like a re-purposed parking garage. I rarely say this about buildings, but this one is ugly.

My biggest objection to the Minguell-McQuary proposal is that it isn't the Nelson proposal. What a terrible loss it would be, to not build what was previously envisioned, for which we got our hopes up. How can anyone not want the M-M building? What's wrong with our species that we would potentially pass on such an opportunity? I'm in a grief-stricken panic over this. [That might be a slight exaggeration.]

It looks like Trammell Crow is the winner. Paywall alert. :yuck:

http://www.bizjournals.com/austin/ne...w-life-as.html

Happy about this quote from the ABJ article linked above, but I do hope they keep the entire building and not just the facade:

"The system has asked the company to maintain the south and west facades of Claudia Taylor Johnson Hall at the corner of Lavaca and Sixth, which was originally built as the city's seventh post office in 1914 and is named after President Lyndon Johnson's wife.

Otherwise, most of the block is likely to be demolished — including a parking garage, a nine-story tower and a plaza with a water fountain that hasn't run since a drought started affecting the city about 10 years ago."

Also this: "Tames says the redevelopment of Block 71, coupled with ground-floor retail in its new OneUTSystem tower, will better link that stretch of central downtown to entertainment districts to the east and west." It sounds like UT is actually making an attempt to be a good downtown citizen.

Any guesses on which design they will use? I'm crossing my fingers for the Nelson Partners one.

I wonder if this will get off the ground during this cycle. Buildings could be razed in 2017 at least.

My guess is that it will be something completely different from the either of the two proposals we know about.

The snippet from the article made it sound like it would be multiple buildings. I just hope that doesn't mean two 400 footers on the same lot. I'd rather see a single taller more slender tower than two.

Someone other than the ABJ and their pay wall finally has the story. No building specifics yet, this is still a work in progress:

http://www.mystatesman.com/news/news...ntown-b/ns6Nk/

I'm more concenred that CTJ hall and the pocket park to the side remain in tack.
We will not affect the design.
Can affect the protection of CTJ and the park.
Debate away on the design!
I will prefer A-A because it repsects that history of CTJ hall and the public space and I think it is actully interesting and has potential. I like the depth in the surfaces as well.

The lease will require them (Trammell) to preserve (at least) the south and west façade of the Claudia Taylor Johnson Hall. The plaza, however, is not protected in the lease.

This also mentions a new energy engineering building on campus.

http://www.bizjournals.com/austin/ne...gineering.html

A site location map was posted to the city's FTP site.

ftp://ftp.ci.austin.tx.us/ATD_AULCC/...0Blk_PLANS.pdf

Based on the info in Kevin's link, there will be two towers.  Considering the info below from the permit filing and the size of the site, we're looking at a ~30-story apartment building and a ~40-story office building.

From the filing: 

"The Block 71 project will be developed on approximately 76,174 square feet (1.7487 acres) located at the property bound by Lavaca Street, Colorado Street, 6th Street and 7th Street in Austin, Travis County, Texas. The development will consist of high rise buildings with 236-unit apartment building, 665,000 square foot office building, and two (2) restaurants with on-site parking garage and utilities."

ftp://ftp.ci.austin.tx.us/ATD_AULCC/...216_Agenda.pdf

For those wondering, that comes from this document. There's more:

"Est. Construction Date: 06/01/2018 - 06/01/2020"

Well now we are getting somewhere. Potentially our first 40 story office tower is a pretty big deal. It won't be a 700 footer like we were hoping for (love the first rendering), but that would surely put the roof top of the tower into the 450 to 500 foot range. Frost is 33 floors, Kevin has better stats so correct me if I'm wrong but the 33rd floor sits right around the 400 foot mark. A 40 floor office tower would surely be at least 450 feet.

Less impressed with the 30 story counterpart. We just have so many in that range now as well as soon to be. 30 floors seems to be our defacto limit with many of the new towers.

If the ~40 story office tower has the same average floor height ratio as Frost (~15'), it would be 624' at 40 stories. Obviously, Frost's average floor height is screwed by it's crown.

I cannot remember...isn't the roof (not the top of the crown) of Frost 444'? If so, taking Frost, again, as an example, the new 40-story office tower could be in the range of 538' without any crown.

^The mechanical penthouse rises to 443 feet. The main roof slopes downward from 424 feet to 415 feet, so essentially, the mechanical penthouse is 19 feet tall. The crown sits on the main roof as well as the mechanical penthouse.

There have been some permits filed for this in the last week, but no site plan yet. A couple of the permits were for drilling on the site. Trammell Crow still hasn't announced their plans for Block 185. This project seems to be moving past that one.

While I was holding out hope for a 60+ story tower here, two towers might make for better density. Two ~25 story ones would have been a let down, but based on the square footage, it seems like we'll see a new tallest office tower if they have high floor heights and any sort of crown. That's a win. I'm assuming this will be a spec office tower, so some solid pre-leasing might bode well for the Travis county lot landing a big time high rise.

Question: Are we projecting about 40-stories based on an assumption about floor plate size, or is there something that references it in the documents. Part of me wants to hold out hope for a skinny tower - albeit unlikely.

Some math could be done by someone more motivated than me right now to better determine the height. We know the residential unit count and office square footage as well as the lot sizes. That historical building on the corner will apparently remain, so the residential tower will most likely be a point tower on 1/4 of the block on either side of the historical building. That leaves 1/2 of the block (a rectangle :yuck:) for the office tower. Of course we don't know if the parking will be all above ground, but based on other projects we could assume five levels of it may be underground. A nice crown would be a bonus.

http://i.imgur.com/cNeroWC.png
http://www.bizjournals.com/austin/pr...road-trip.html

I think we can rule out both of the two proposals that we have renderings for. They don't match the info we now know.

Nice rationale. In that case, the orientation would probably be similar to Google Tower. I remember talk of a public plaza though too. Of course that may have been wishful thinking here rather than in an article. If that were the case, maybe we'd see 1/4th be the historical building, 1/4th a plaza to maintain some of those trees and then two point towers. Holding out hope.

As the above picture makes clear, unfortunately anything here won't make an impact on the skyline unless tall. This parcel fills no major gaps in the skyline at all, and is in fact surrounded in all directions by skyscrapers.

I doubt the office tower, if rectangular (a possibility mentioned above), would rise more than 350 feet. The residential tower probably would be similar in height, even on 1/4 of the block. So, I'm hoping for something decent in design but not expecting much with respect to addition to the skyline. All of the action here is going to be making sure the street level interaction is good and design is visually pleasing.

It might have a foot print similar to 500 W. 2nd St. That project is 400' tall with with 500,511 sq ft. this one will have 665,000 sq. ft. So it'll be about 1/3 larger. Third + Shoal has 345,000 sq. ft.

The office tower would have to be taller than 350' with 665,000 sq.f proposed. If the 40 story count is a vague guide at this point in the planning process, then we can assume for now that it will change either increasing or decreasing floors once more details come out.

I'm not sure the entire half block will be used for the office tower anyways. From what I understand, is that they want to create a mixed use block which will also help bridge the gap between the E.6th and W.6th entertainment districts. Then there is the plaza to consider. It wouldn't be a bad idea to incorporate that as part of the entertainment portion.

Given that we already have some numbers on the office tower. 665,000sqf and 40 stories, then chances are that the office tower will only take 1/4 of the block. So depending on floor to ceiling ratio, a 40 story office tower should defiantly make an impact on the skyline from that location being taller than the One American Center and any of the other buildings in that part of the CBD maybe by up to 200'.

I like the night rendering that shows how much taller the proposed building is than 600 Congress - aka the artist formerly known as One American Center but the owners are trying to rebrand it. :rolleyes: I realize that rendering was spec work and the tower will ultimately look nothing like it, but I'm hopeful something cooler than a glass box will go there. I have more faith in Trammell Crow's chops than I do Sutton Company tbh.

What might have been. Nelsen Partners' website now features their proposal for the site which would have been the winner if Endeavor was chosen over Trammell Crow.

http://i.imgur.com/vVQrdjZ.png
http://i.imgur.com/uAplsUM.png
http://i.imgur.com/pydfnfe.png
http://i.imgur.com/vtpW0OK.png
http://www.nelsenpartners.com/portfo...idential-tower

Yes. Awesome design.

However, Trammell's final design could be similar. At least in height. So far they are saying ~40 stories for the office tower (which may have 15,000 more SF than the Endeavor proposal above) plus a ~30-story residential tower. Considering Trammell cannot build on the entire block, these towers could be tall and relatively slender.

Well considering that the Endevor tower was a single building with hotel/office component and it would have been 46 floors (imagining a 46 story office tower in Austin:slob:), if there's going to be two towers with Trammell's proposal, I'm having a hard time picturing 650K possibly more for the office tower portion with only 40 stories.

Looking at the Endevor footprint, it takes up half the block. With two towers, each footprint would have be 1/4th of the block assuming that the plaza will stay. It doesn't add up so I think it's quite possible that the office tower will have more than 40 floors.

Hopefully we will get to see renderings before too long.

That Nelson Partners design is simply amazing. Is it a mere fantasy to hope Trammel Crow topped that?

What if we're looking at a ~30-story (340 ft) residential building and a thin 50+ story (600+ ft office tower). Looking at that the renderings, I don't see how they could fit a 600,000 square ft office tower and another building in there while keeping the historical building without going significantly vertical.

Question Two:

Doesn't Endeavor own the post-office site? Why can't this Nelson Partners design be built in a plethora of other places.

I loooove all the designs for this site and will take em' all!

You've seen them?

http://www.utsystem.edu/news/2017/02...s-revenue-city

This is the latest news I can find.

"The new development, which will maintain the façade of Claudia Taylor Johnson Hall, means that for the first time in more than 100 years, the property will generate property tax revenue for several public entities, including Travis County, the City of Austin, Austin Independent School District, Austin Community College District and Central Health."

That's the first I remember hearing that they'll keep the facade only. I was under the impression that the entire hall wouldn't be touched. If they take the plaza out of commission, too, that's pretty much an entire city block for redevelopment.

More footprint up for grabs than I thought.

I actually work in Claudia Taylor Johnson Hall occasionally and the interior has been redone several times and seems to offer no historical value. Much of what exists is remnant of a '70s office building.

+1 for eyewitness accounts.

Care to indulge us???


Well if they are taking more of a footprint then I'm a little nervous about how it will come out.

I wish we had renderings. They have to exist somewhere at this point. Anyway, several core sampling permits were filed yesterday which indicates this is still moving forward.

Any news on this potential tallest beauty?

So are we speculating on two potential tallests? This and block 185???:slob:

I'm afraid of being let down again with this one just because I loved the losing Nelsen/Endeavor proposal so much.

I feel like if we don't talk about it - even ignore it - that something good will happen here. Can we freeze this thread until that block is developed? I don't want to jinx anything. :)

This 185 AND Courthouse site

Well given that we've seen at least the massing of the courthouse block if not the general design, unless there's other designs that we haven't seen yet, it looks to be in the 700 foot range. If only we had more details about the other possible designs for block 71, I'd be a bit more confident that it could be one of the tallest in the city. Still, having 3 potential tall towers is better than none so I guess I shouldn't be greedy and stay content with the possibilities we have now.

I'm so hoping that SOMETHING reaches 700 ft before 2020...and something attractive