AUSTIN | Projects & Construction II

[Dan Denson]

Originally Posted by wwmiv

I didn't go, but I got stuck in the traffic on Cesar Chavez.

I was trying to head south on Mopac around 2 p.m. and the traffic was backed up to the north all the way to Anderson Lane. I didn't mind, because I knew it meant a lot of people were having a good time.

[AustinSkyscrapers]

I went-my family and I attempted something we never did before: be the highest flying kite at the festival. The highest was at 200 feet or something. We almost got there.

...Although Mopac northbound traffic was harsh, it wasn't as harsh as south bound. Anderson lane? I feel sorry.

[austintilIdie]

I was heading south on Mopac yesterday to my girlfriend's place in far south Austin. All of a sudden, Mopac came to a complete stop I made a futile effort to take the 35th exit to take the back roads. I was certain there was a bad wreck somewhere. Since traffic wasn't moving, I got on the phone decided to call a friend in DC I hadn't talked to in a while...lo and behold, she was in Austin this weekend and had just emerged from the gridlock ahead of me, telling me it was because of the kite fest. I've lived in Austin all of my life and I'd never realized how much a kite fetish this city had. From the Mopac bridge, Zilker looked packed. Folks were parking in the grassy areas off the frontage roads south of the river, likely overwhelming APD efforts to ticket/tow them. The Greenbelt parking areas just south of 360/Cap. Tx Hwy were full too. I was never fascinated with kites as a kid, so the fascination people have with them was lost on me. But indeed, it was a great day to be out. If people weren't flying kites, they were BBQing yesterday. Yesterday seemed to have marked the unofficial first day of spring.

[Hillaryrocks]

Anyone have any recent pix. regarding what used to be called East Avenue Project? It sits on the former site of Concordia University TX near 38th Street. Any recent pix. are appreciated. i am travelling there this summer.........but can't wait to see what it looks like.

Thanks,
m.

[KevinFromTexas]

I think that's the draw of the kite fest. They usually plan it for a nice day, and if it rains, they even postpone it, as they did with this one. I think with months of cold and a relatively good amount of rain we've had, I just think people craved getting outdoors. I know I have. Like today, it's rainy and about 55F. That's 20 degrees below our normal high this time of year. Tomorrow I'm sure I'll go for a bike ride if the weather is better.

[AustinSkyscrapers]

Originally Posted by Hillaryrocks

Anyone have any recent pix. regarding what used to be called East Avenue Project? It sits on the former site of Concordia University TX near 38th Street. Any recent pix. are appreciated. i am travelling there this summer.........but can't wait to see what it looks like.

Thanks,
m.

East Avenue Project? Sure.
You're going there this summer? What if it's not done? Is it?
All of the following pictures I got from forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=126304





These pictures from http://www.eastave.net/constrUpdtes.html
Infrastructure:

The Residences at East Avenue:

3305:

3300:

Andaz Austin:



Thanks for Lookin'

[AustinSkyscrapers]

Originally Posted by KevinFromTexas

Those are great pictures priller. I see you did the pano shot from the Convention Center garage.

Before: (Photo by me)
http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b234/K...n%20November%2026%202006/AustinPANO3.jpg

After: (priller's photo)
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2001/2221640445_73e8d8bbef_o.jpg

Originally Posted by priller

Yeah, looks like we were in the exact same spot. About the same time of day, too. We'll have to do it again once Austonian gets up there. That will be a *huge* change.

Have you done it yet, because you better do it now!

[StoOgE]

Originally Posted by Hillaryrocks

Anyone have any recent pix. regarding what used to be called East Avenue Project? It sits on the former site of Concordia University TX near 38th Street. Any recent pix. are appreciated. i am travelling there this summer.........but can't wait to see what it looks like.

Thanks,
m.

Yeah, there is basically no chance it's going to be anywhere near done this summer. I think the hospital expansion has been finished and that is about it. In fact, I think the entire design has been scaled back.

[AustinSkyscrapers]

Yay! I found a new way to find out how far and where you can see the Austonian! (It's very easy and fun!)

1) Download Google Earth if you haven't.
-Just type in Google Earth on Google and it'll pop up.
2) Go to the Austonian. (You should get used to moving around in a bit)
3) Click the add placemark button. (The one with a yellow pin)
4) On the view tab, in the "range" field, type in 100000m.
5) On the altitude tab, from the dropdown box, select relative to ground.
6) Set the altitude to 208 meters, which is equal to 683FT.
7) Make sure you check the checkbox for extend to ground.
8) Click the style, color tab.
9) For "Lines", increase the width to size 4.0
10) Change the color of the line if you want.
11) Click Ok.
12) Make sure the terrain setting is on.
Sidebar>layers>terrain
13) Drag to a location far away and zoom in all the way to the ground.
14) See the navigation tools on the right of the map?
-If you don't, click view, show navigation, then always.
15) The top most tool (the one with the eye), helps you look around without having to move anywhere. Click and hold the up arrow until you can see the horizon.
16) Click and hold the left or right directional buttons from the same tool until you see the your placemark. That's the Austonian.
17) If you see the line you made sticking up from the ground, it means you are able to see the Austonian from here!!!

18) Have fun looking around for other vantage points!

[KevinFromTexas]

Cool. Very cool find, AustinSkyscrapers. I added one step to your list. When adding the placemark, you need to set the range of the placemark higher than the default one they give. I just typed in 100000m for mine.

The default setting is only around 1,000 meters or so, which is less than a mile. So I set it to 100,000 meters, which is about 60 miles. I doubt you'll be able to see the building from that far, but it's a nice round number.

By the way, is there a way that you can save your placemarks permanently, so that you don't have to add them every time you wanted to do this?

[AustinSkyscrapers]

Originally Posted by KevinFromTexas

Cool. Very cool find, AustinSkyscrapers. I added one step to your list. When adding the placemark, you need to set the range of the placemark higher than the default one they give. I just typed in 100000m for mine.

The default setting is only around 1,000 meters or so, which is less than a mile. So I set it to 100,000 meters, which is about 60 miles. I doubt you'll be able to see the building from that far, but it's a nice round number.

By the way, is there a way that you can save your placemarks permanently, so that you don't have to add them every time you wanted to do this?

Yea, save your place marks to My Places. Your Austonian place mark will pop up whenever you come back. Just like any other place mark. One quick thing to add: if you want to save your spot where you could see the Austonian, just put a place mark right where you are!

-Were you placing your place marks in the Temporary Places folder? That's maybe why your place marks disappeared...

[zx14]

I know this is off topic but wow did texas choke in ot. Rick sure can recrute but as a coach he is just plain bad. Time to move in a new direction and stop squandering tallent.

[Mopacs]

Originally Posted by zx14

I know this is off topic but wow did texas choke in ot. Rick sure can recrute but as a coach he is just plain bad. Time to move in a new direction and stop squandering tallent.

Ugh... I feel your pain man. Though honestly, I still have faith in Rick. The same argument was used against Mack Brown early in his tenure... known as Mr. February. Give him a few years and maybe they'll get over the hump!

[Downtown_Austin]

Originally Posted by AustinSkyscrapers

Yay! I found a new way to find out how far and where you can see the Austonian! (It's very easy and fun!)

1) Download Google Earth if you haven't.
-Just type in Google Earth on Google and it'll pop up.
2) Go to the Austonian. (You should get used to moving around in a bit)
3) Click the add placemark button. (The one with a yellow pin)
4) On the view tab, in the "range" field, type in 100000m.
5) On the altitude tab, from the dropdown box, select relative to ground.
6) Set the altitude to 208 meters, which is equal to 683FT.
7) Make sure you check the checkbox for extend to ground.
8) Click the style, color tab.
9) For "Lines", increase the width to size 4.0
10) Change the color of the line if you want.
11) Click Ok.
12) Make sure the terrain setting is on.
Sidebar>layers>terrain
13) Drag to a location far away and zoom in all the way to the ground.
14) See the navigation tools on the right of the map?
-If you don't, click view, show navigation, then always.
15) The top most tool (the one with the eye), helps you look around without having to move anywhere. Click and hold the up arrow until you can see the horizon.
16) Click and hold the left or right directional buttons from the same tool until you see the your placemark. That's the Austonian.
17) If you see the line you made sticking up from the ground, it means you are able to see the Austonian from here!!!

18) Have fun looking around for other vantage points!

OUTSTANDING! Thanks or sharing.

[chewy]

FYI, there's activity at the Star Riverside site. The contractor trailer is back and there are bobcats scraping up materials, junk, homeless folks...

[KevinFromTexas]

Yeah AustinSkyscrapers. That was cool. The only thing is, I couldn't get it to zoom all the way to the ground. The lowest I could get it was around 700 feet off the ground. Also, the lines wouldn't always appear. Sometimes they would disappear and reappear. Like if I moved forward just a bit, they'd reappear.

That's neat though. I've been thinking of creating a Google Map and placemarking all the spots I know of where you can see The Austonian and downtown. The cool thing is with Google, you could then switch into Google Street View and actually see the view at that spot.

[Strayone]

I was talking to a friend today and he said that one of the assistant coaches was on record as saying the team imploded during the 7-9 stretch at seasons end. The players were basically not friendly towards each other and argued and berated each other on the court while playing at times. No way to know if it was a true statement andf my friend is an Aggies fan so I wonder where he came up with the info. But they looked like a bunch of prima donnas for some time and I could barely watch them at times...sad stuff. Also if it were true it would be on the coach to get the players on the same page, Barnes said it was his worst coaching of his career.

Originally Posted by Mopacs

Ugh... I feel your pain man. Though honestly, I still have faith in Rick. The same argument was used against Mack Brown early in his tenure... known as Mr. February. Give him a few years and maybe they'll get over the hump!

[AustinSkyscrapers]

:-P Thanks for your appreciation of my method. Yea, the problem is that if you zoom in to the ground at less than 700 feet you can't see it, so tip is to use reasoning. When zooming in, note for trees. Think to yourself: "Are the trees far enough from me so I can see the horizon or the Austonian?"

[AustinSkyscrapers]

Combat the Issue of Disappearing Below 700 Feet!

SO...I found another way to find where you can see where you can see the Austonian, solving the problems of the placemark disappearing as you descend below 600-700 feet range.

After you complete steps 1 and 2, do this method.

3) Click the add line button. (The one that looks like a line...)
4) At the Austonian, click on the screen to make dots. Make a square about the size of the Austonian.
5) After you set down your fourth dot, which almost completes your square, put down your 5th dot, but not where your 1st dot is. -Maybe put the 5th dot maybe 1 centimeter on your screen away from dot 1.
6) Click and drag your dot to the first dot and let go.
7) You've made an intact square!
8) On the altitude tab, set relative to ground.
9) Set the height to 208m and check the "extend to ground" option.
10) Do all the same steps that follow as with the placemark method, except you don't have to make lines to 4.0 width.

This method makes the Austonian NOT disappear less than 700 feet, so it's the method. And once again, happy looking around for vantage points!

[ivanwolf]

The yellow crane at the W is coming down today.

Should not be to long until we have a clean view of all the buildings without cranes. The only one that would show up is the Federal Court House but its low and might not show up in most pics. It will be nice to see the city as a whole without cranes for a while until something big comes along again to perk our excitment.