Salt Lake City: Official Development News Thread - Part 3

[utenation]

Here's some project pic updates:

145:
















La Porte:











111/PAC:






















Capitol Theatre:











Walker Center Green cover:

[ToysNoiz]

Originally Posted by Comrade

That's awesome. I think a 700' tower would be fine. Hell, could even be taller and that angle would still feel fine.

God, LA. Such a sexy building...

[Future Mayor]

Great pic update utenation. I love the Capital Theater expansion, such a great piece of infill, now if we could just get a tower built next to it, maybe that would be a great location for the second hotel needed for convention attendees. It's a pretty small footprint, I wonder how tall 600 - 800 rooms would be on that site?

[ctobsl]

Nice job Comrade!

[DenverInfill]

Not to be a downer, but I think it's unlikely a new CCH in SLC would be much higher than 400-500 feet. Take a look at four comparable CCH projects:

Denver (Hyatt):
38 floors
1,100 rooms
Height to roof: 420'
Total height (with ornamental crown): 489'

Phoenix (Sheraton)
31 floors
1,000 rooms
360'

Houston (Marriott Marquis)
30 floors
1,000 rooms
400'

Austin (JW Marriott)
34 floors
1,012 rooms
408'

All three of these use the "slab" building design, as one long, double-loaded hallway is a very efficient hotel layout. Interestingly, however, Washington DC is building a new 1,175-room CCH hotel that's only 14 stories above ground, as it appears from the rendering to use a double-loaded hallway in a donut or "U" shape with a big full-height atrium in the middle.

However, there is another 1,000+ room hotel proposed in Austin that is 47 floors and almost 600' so you never know.

[delts145]

Denver Infill, we will have to assume your unaware of the plot of land we are now discussing. The Shilo plot has now been rumored as a very strong possibility for the hotel's location. If the Shilo Inn site is the location, then Salt Lake City's CCH will definitely not be a Phoenix or Denver style wall. There will be no choice but to go vertical, if the Shilo lot is used for a 1000+room hotel. The last thing Salt Lake City wants is an elongated wall of windows in it's growing skyline. Some would prefer to go vertically at a more measured pace, and have two large, but slender 400-500 footers. Perhaps a hotel on the Shilo site and one on the RWP or close to site. Whatever the case, we're pretty confident that the city leaders won't make the mistake of allowing a visual disaster like the Phoenix CCH.

[DenverInfill]

Originally Posted by delts145

Denver Infill, we will have to assume your unaware of the plot of land we are now discussing. The Shilo plot has now been rumored as a very strong possibility for the hotel's location. If the Shilo Inn site is the location, then Salt Lake City's CCH will definitely not be a Phoenix or Denver style wall. There will be no choice but to go vertical, if the Shilo lot is used for a 1000+room hotel. The last thing Salt Lake City wants is an elongated wall of windows in it's growing skyline. Some would prefer to go vertically at a more measured pace, and have two large, but slender 400-500 footers. Perhaps a hotel on the Shilo site and one on the RWP or close to site. Whatever the case, we're pretty confident that the city leaders won't make the mistake of allowing a visual disaster like the Phoenix CCH.

I see. I know you guys have been debating or speculating on a number of sites, but I wasn't thinking about that site in particular.

The problem with a slender hotel tower is the cost. They are just not as efficient as an elongated floor plate, and every floor added makes the project just that much more expensive. The CCH projects I mentioned are all generally in the $350 million range. I would think to do a 1,000-room hotel in, say, a 45-story, 600-foot+ slender point tower could go well above $400 million.

I think one of the reasons why you see these CCH hotels with the elongated slab form is because these CCHs are often public funded or subsidized to some degree and, therefore, there is political pressure to not bust the budget on a substantially more expensive point-tower design.

It will be interesting to see how this develops!

[Makid]

What will help the SLC CCH go vertical more than the slab style is the 100K sq ft of required meeting/exhibition space. To make the space more open and accessible, it can't have lots of columns. This will force the tower to shrink down in girth. It is possible to build stronger columns to handle the extra weight but that is rarely seen in hotel construction

I was just wondering though, what are the odds of this being built as a primarily reinforced concrete building and not a steel building?

If say the underground parking and the first could of levels are primarily reinforced concrete and then the next 30 to 40+ stories are steel based construction, would costs go down compared to a straight concrete structure?

Also, would a steel structure be completed earlier? I am wondering if there would be any time savings between the 2 types.

With the thought of the CCH opening by early 2017 or late 2016, is it possible to do that time frame if the construction used primarily reinforced concrete. Could it meet it with steel based?

If the Shilo is the spot, we would be looking at what, 1.5 to 2 months for demolition and excavation. With a quick RFP cycle and a developer has architectural plans in hand we would be looking at potentially November 2014 before actual construction/caisson work.

The underground parking/maintenance levels seem to take about 2 to 3 weeks per level, especially in the winter. Even if we say that most of the parking is in a separate garage, we are looking at nearly 2 more months before street level. So potentially anywhere from Late January to March of 2015 for street level.

At that point, we are 2 years out from the proposed/estimated opening stated for the hotel. I know that meeting space can be built quickly as it is mostly open space, so possibly 1.5 months for lobby/meeting space build out. - Mid March to May at this point.

So if we have 18 to 21 months to build the 30 to 40+ stories: First, can we do it? Second, which type of construction can get us there in time? Third, which construction type is cheapest for the timeline at this point. Fourth, all this being speculative, does this time frame seem possible?

My day job is as a numbers guy...not accounting though, and I am not sure we can hit either of the dates tossed about earlier this year without nearly 24/7 day work time frames.

[DenverInfill]

Hey Makid, a couple of thoughts...

Regardless of whether the SLC CCH ends up being a point or slab tower, the meeting/exhibition space is almost certainly going to be located in a podium base that will cover a good chunk of ground. In Denver, our CCH covers a full city block (104,000 SF) while the footprint of the two conjoined "slab" towers with the hotel rooms in them is only about 18,000 SF. If you look at the CCHs I mentioned earlier, they all typically have podium bases that contain the underground parking below, plus various levels of lobbies, ballrooms, exhibition rooms, back-of-house space, etc. I would think it will be the same in SLC regardless of the form of the tower above where the rooms are located.

Also, if you're doing underground parking at your CCH, I think you're looking at approximately 2-3 months, not weeks, per underground level. Almost all of the construction in Downtown Denver that has underground parking usually takes somewhere between 6-9 months for the construction progress to get back up to ground level. For our CCH, it took about 13 months to complete the underground levels and the five-story podium base. The overall project took about 30 months from groundbreaking to ribbon-cutting.

If the city officially picked a site tomorrow, I'd say you'd be doing great if you could be under construction within one year, and then you should count on a minimum of 24 months for construction, with 28 months a good target. If everything went well, maybe 36 months from site selection to grand opening: Summer 2014 > Summer 2017.

[SLC Projects]

2017 or 2018 seems more likely.

[bflatflat9]

Originally Posted by ToysNoiz

That's awesome. I think a 700' tower would be fine. Hell, could even be taller and that angle would still feel fine.

God, LA. Such a sexy building...

Looks awesomely perfect from that angle, and would accept it from any other angle. Also reminding all that I called late 2018 as opening time for the new CCH, back when the legislature finally caved to our wishes for funding. That's my story and stickin to it. Large projects like this have snafu as a by-product.

[Old&New]

What happened to continuous floor space? Will this mean a skybridge over 200 South? I sure hope not.

[utenation]

Does anyone know what's going on with the 3-4 acre lot on 6th south and about 3rd west? It's on the south side and they just got done with a demo. There's big piles of debris just sitting. Doesn't look like much is going on since they did the demo..

[sock puppet]

The Marmalade Branch Library groundbreaking is set for Thursday, May 29th on 500 North and 300 West.

This project has been delayed and delayed and delayed...and now finally it's going to happen. Here's a link with the plans and diagrams.
http://chnc-slc.org/wordpress/?p=504

[Future Mayor]

DenverInfill, thank you for your insights on the CCH. It's always appreciated to have some information regarding first hand knowledge of a similar project.

[SLC Projects]

Don't believe this was ever posted on here.....

14-story hotel planned for downtown SLC
http://www.good4utah.com/story/d/story/1...owntown-slc/10793/LvHwQqVkjEueg2YALUL_Uw

SALT LAKE CITY (ABC 4 News) - Downtown Salt Lake City will soon be home to a new, swanky hotel.

The modern-style boutique hotel is still in the design phase, but downtown leaders say once completed it could transform nightlife in the area.

In an online forum developer Ken Bretschneider writes, "We decided that there was plenty of office space in the downtown core and that a fresh new hotel with location based entertainment was something SLC really needed."

[Makid]

Thanks Ken (DenverInfill) for your insight and information.

[Orlando]

I think that photo montage that Comrade did, did not accurately show how tall a 700 foot tall tower would actually be. Check these out. Considering the Wells Fargo Tower is a little over 400 feet, these two massing images should give you a much better scale comparision. I think a 700 footer would be way out of place. Though, from what we've found out, I don't think we will get something that tall. Something around 4 to 500 feet would be awesome, IMO.

700 footer


500 footer

[Orlando]

Originally Posted by Makid

Thanks Ken (DenverInfill) for your insight and information.

What?? You think Denver Infill is Kevin?? DenverInfill has been on the Denver forums for a long time from what I recall. Not sure how you came to that conclusion.

[Comrade]

Originally Posted by Orlando

I think that photo montage that Comrade did, did not accurately show how tall a 700 foot tall tower would actually be. Check these out. Considering the Wells Fargo Tower is a little over 400 feet, these two massing images should give you a much better scale comparision. I think a 700 footer would be way out of place. Though, from what we've found out, I don't think we will get something that tall. Something around 4 to 500 feet would be awesome, IMO.

700 footer


500 footer

No way is that right. You have a tower sitting a bit further back from the angle than the Wells Fargo Center and almost exactly half its height - which would make that an 800 footer and not 700 - if not larger when you account for that distance (towers closer to where the photo was taken will look bigger than towers further away).

It'd still stand out, obviously, but not at the extent you're showing.