There is an update on the 680 footer planned for downtown Austin. Looks to be more and more of a reality. Here is an article which appears in this morning's Austin American STatesman... Forum Member Kevin-FromTexas contributed to this story.. he was mentioned as an editor for Skyscrapers.com (Congrats Kevin!). The article focuses on the dynamics involved in our market which are resulting in taller and denser developments downtown. Very interesting reading.
Looks like the tower is within a year of breaking ground. And will be complete sometime in 2008. NO RENDERINGS JUST YET!
------------------------
http://www.statesman.com/metrostate/content/metro/stories/03/20skyscrapers.html
How high is too high?
Soaring project could pave way for denser downtown
By Asher Price, Shonda Novak
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Sunday, March 20, 2005
The corner slated for Austin's tallest skyscraper has been touted by its developer as the intersection of Main and Main. The new tower would stand 41 stories tall on Congress Avenue between Fifth and Sixth streets and promises three levels of stores, a 10-story luxury hotel and 350 condominiums and apartments, the sorts of numbers that make sprawl-weary city planners swoon.
The new project, which will be the tallest building downtown, highlights questions about just how much sky Austin wants its buildings to scrape. Moreover, it underscores the complexities of the city's struggle to move from a sprawling horizontal city to a vertical one.
On the one hand, the mayor, city planners and the entire region — through Envision Central Texas, a comprehensive planning group — have called for increased density downtown.
"Height only matters because it accomplishes density," said developer Tom Stacy, who hopes to break ground on his 41-story tower early next year.
On the other, the realities of market demand, laws protecting views of the Capitol and city regulations regarding the height of buildings have combined to discourage such high-rises.
Stacy's project is not the first to test city restric- tions that effectively limit a building's height. For example, a special modification to the city's zoning regulation was needed for the 33-story Frost Bank Tower, currently the city's tallest building.
Stacy's tower, which could rise to 680 feet and be completed in late 2008, would be the 19th tallest building in Texas, the tallest in the state outside of Houston and Dallas, and the tallest to break ground in Texas since 1987.
Along with more modest projects announced for other parts of downtown, it reinforces the sort of commitment to height, and infill, in downtown Austin about which city planners rhapsodize.
"You can't have a vibrant city without density," said Bill Hudnut, a senior fellow at the Washington-based city planning think-tank Urban Land Institute. "If you can shoot a shotgun through the city and not hit anyone, it doesn't have it."
But regulations revolving around the history of the city and views of the Capitol, as well as market demand, have kept Austin buildings largely squat. Although there's no specific height limit, downtown's floor-to-area ratio is capped at 8:1 — eight floors for a block-size building — establishing a hurdle for developers wishing to build high.
"The (ratio) acts as a de facto height limitation," said Greg Guernsey, a development services manager for the city.
Other city officials say the more pressing problem is the lack of a minimum ratio, a standard that would encourage height and density.
After the construction of the downtown post office, a single-story building taking up less than a quarter of its site in the heart of downtown, the city's design commission recommended a 3:1 minimum ratio. But the minimum was never implemented because of fears it would curtail parking on smaller downtown projects.
Developers also have to cope with the Capitol view corridors, legislated by the state and city, which prevent the construction of buildings that would obscure views of the dome from certain locations.
It's a tricky balance. The city's design commission tried unsuccessfully to finesse a new ratio several years ago when it proposed new guidelines increasing the area ratio for 'desired projects' as long as they didn't obscure the Capitol view.
Stacy, whose project will have to clear both the ratio and Capitol view hurdles, said he thinks the old model is outdated, as city planners shift their thinking to encourage density.
"Even in the '70s, buildings were built taller than the Capitol," Stacy said. "It's not that we don't want buildings taller than the Capitol."
Michael Knox, a principal planner for the city who works on downtown projects, said that only since 2000 have developers begun to ask for exceptions to the floor-to-area ratio.
"It's probably more economics, market demand, that has kept the buildings smaller," Knox said. "To build a 1 million-square-foot building in downtown doesn't make much sense. We don't have the market demand."
Density might be an urban planning ideal, but development seems likely to follow the market, and that could still mean building in rapidly growing outlying communities such as Dripping Springs.
And for those developers willing to build downtown, it's not necessarily cheaper to go big: Building tall might not be like buying in bulk, architects and city planners warn.
"The higher they are, the less efficient they become." architect Juan Cotera said. "The higher you go, more of a core of a building is filled with stairs and elevators. You need more pumping to get water up."
"It wouldn't be cost-efficient per floor if you have one or two offices around an elevator," Guernsey said.
But in each subsequent wave of growth, land values and demand, increase, justifying larger projects to help amortize the cost of the land, Knox said. And, he said, "we're now seeing the next wave."
The city may have to encourage height whenever it gets the chance.
"Downtown Austin is fairly limited by the lake, the interstate and the Capitol view corridors," Knox said. "We only have a limited number of opportunities to get a significant density."
Denser downtowns are more cost-effective for the cities administering them, say city officials and developers. Mayor Will Wynn said only 20 percent of every city dollar produced downtown goes back to downtown services such as roads and sewers.
"Downtown property taxpayers export a lot of money into our general fund that we then spend in other parts of the city."
Density also helps preserve open land outside town.
"There are literally surface parking lots, derelict single-story buildings, at a time we're trying to relieve development pressure off those outlying areas," Wynn said. "Environmentally sensitive lands, the rural heritage of Williamson County, the agricultural heritage of Bastrop County — if you want to try to protect some of that, then the required complement is much more dense, much more vibrant, mixed-use urban cores."
One measure of density is population. The city's downtown commission is considering a rough goal of 10,000 residents: enough to attract businesses that rely on a captive residential market, such as grocery stores.
The city estimates downtown's population at about 5,300 people sprinkled among 2,900 housing units. As recently completed projects fill up, those numbers could rise to 5,900 residents and 3,200 units. In addition to advancing the goal of density, tall, visible buildings tend to be a way — other than major civic projects such as a new federal courthouse headed for Austin or last year's City Hall — for a city to make its architectural mark.
"Designwise, it tends to lure big-name architects; since the building will be taller, it will have a higher profile and be more visible from a further distance,"
said Kevin Lehnhardt, an editor at skyscrapers.com , a commercial site that tracks large-scale real estate development around the globe.
"Skyscrapers are not just a place to put people and offices; they're a product to be sold. Developers spend a lot of money and time planning for them, so a striking, attention-grabbing design is key to fill the space and pay the bills. And big-name architects come with the prestige of a building, which also becomes a selling point."
Prev
Linear Mode
