Austin Projects & Construction - Page 25

StoOgE · #**481** Posted **Jan 7, 2006, 2:28 AM**

also, do we know what the hieght to the roof is for this thing? I know the spire makes it taller than frost, but I want to know how the roof heights compare.. (also, frosts crown makes Frost look like a taller building, while this spire makes it look like a building of one hieght with something shoved on it).

KevinFromTexas · #**482** Posted **Jan 7, 2006, 2:35 AM**

Has anyone else heard about this? Below what that guy found out, I found another article about the project, 21 Rio, which says the building will be 220 feet tall and have 18 floors. This is planned for the corner of 21st and Rio Grande in West Campus.

From the Austin Forum
http://austinforum.net/viewtopic.php?t=183

Posted by Kropotkin

21 Rio will be at 2101 Rio Grande. It'll be 10 stories. This is the first building that will have a genuine "tower" quality to it since the 1960s in the neighborhood. 128 apartments will be built on .39 acres. The height should be in the 100-120 foot range. This is also the first project that uses the highest height zoning category (90-175 foot) and also the first project in the max-height zone for West Campus, which is from 26th down to MLK and between Rio Grande and San Antonio streets.

This is all I know.. I don't know if it'll be condos or apartments or a mix.

From the Austin Chronicle ~ November 18, 2005.
http://www.austinchronicle.com/issues/dispatch/2005-11-18/pols_naked.html

• Members of the Planning Commission are split on how exceptions should be made for high-rise towers in the University Neighborhood Overlay. This week, agent Mike McHone presented plans for an 18-story tower on the corner of 21st and Rio Grande. The project, 21 Rio, would use a transfer of development rights from the Maverick-Miller House – basically taking the height that the historic house will not be using – to break the proposed 175-foot height limit on 21st Street with a 220-foot tower. That's still about 30 feet shorter than the Castilian four blocks away and about 200 feet short of Dobie Mall across campus. Planning Commission members were divided on how this variance – actually a code amendment to the high-density West Campus overlay – would be handled. Commissioner Dave Sullivan, who chairs the codes and ordinances subcommittee, would prefer the variance go back to the neighborhood association and reappear at Planning Commission, in essence, as a neighborhood-supported zoning change. Chair Chris Riley, much more open to discussing high-rise development in downtown, was ready to start the ball rolling on a community discussion regarding height variances for an entire swath of West Campus, as long as developers committed to ground-level neighborhood-oriented uses. Deadlocked, the PC will continue discussing the issue at a future meeting. – K.R.

GoldenBoot · #**483** Posted **Jan 7, 2006, 6:23 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mopacs

This came as a surprise... Hard Rock Cafe on 6th Street just closed its doors, with talk of a replacement (and I hear Condo-Hotel) in the works. Anyone hear anything to this effect?

http://www.kvue.com/news/local/stories/010406kvueHardRock-cb.45f9ed8c.html

Hard Rock Cafe closes in Austin

04:49 PM CST on Wednesday, January 4, 2006

KVUE News
The Hard Rock Cafe in Austin has closed its doors.
Crews are already packing up the famous musical memorabilia the restaurant. Wednesday was its last open day.
Though the restaurant has closed on Sixth Street in downtown Austin, Hard Rock International hasn't given up on Central Texas.
The chain is looking for another location in the area.

It was a horrible location – that’s what we told them back in 2000 when they were scouting Austin (again – they were scouting Austin back in the early ‘90s just before the site in San Antonio became available). I’m surprised it took them almost four years to figure this out!

It's true, they have not given up on Austin. They are currently looking for another location - of which I do not know at this time. It may be part of a small outdoor amphitheatre being planed for downtown in the near future...

KevinFromTexas · #**484** Posted **Jan 7, 2006, 8:39 PM**

New rendering of La Vista on Lavaca slated for 17th and Lavaca Street. They say it's supposed to breakground in early 2006. This is the most detailed rendering I've seen of it. I like it.
http://www.lavistaonlavaca.com/
http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/downtown/lavista.htm

And a different rendering for The Monarch, (ZOM Tower). The site notes that it was supposed to breakground in December '05.
http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/downtown/monarch_zom.htm

Mopacs · #**485** Posted **Jan 7, 2006, 10:54 PM**

I like that new rendering for LaVista... it will fit in well in that corner of downtown. I think they have already begun site work for the tower. I drove past it last weekend and noticed the area fenced off and some construction equipment within.

As for the ZOM tower, I have heard it may not break ground in the immediate future, and 'may' be in some trouble, financially. This came from some downtown Austin residents (Nakoma) who were attending the Armadillo Christmas Bizarre. Just hearsay of course.

KevinFromTexas · #**486** Posted **Jan 8, 2006, 12:15 AM**

That would suck about The Monarch, the 2nd tower to bite the dust for that site, and the 2nd tower in Austin with that name to not get built.

StoOgE · #**487** Posted **Jan 9, 2006, 9:15 PM**

Perfect.

Mopacs · #**488** Posted **Jan 9, 2006, 9:23 PM**

Whoah, awesome! Orange glow to the Frost Tower. I know this is GSD&M's project, the "Live the Dream" campaign. The frost logo has been illuminated in orange (the west-facing side) for a few weeks now. But thats incredible. Is the Frost tower still illuminated?

On another note, I got some great shots of the UT Tower this weekend (as did 100's of others that night). I'll share some later today.

In the words of Snoop Dogg: "Perfection is Perfected"

StoOgE · #**489** Posted **Jan 9, 2006, 9:38 PM**

Not sure, its not my shot, hopefully they keep it this way for a while though, it looks great. Not sure how long it takes to change the filters for the lights, but it would be cool if they did this for other big wins too. Sorta to mirror main on campus. I saw it lit up this weekend though... they also did some cool stuff with green and red for Xmas and turned the frost logo green so it looked like a wreath.

StoOgE · #**490** Posted **Jan 9, 2006, 9:46 PM**

Also, this is horribly unrelated. But clear your calenders for Sunday.

Quote:

AUSTIN, Texas -- The University of Texas will honor the 2005 Longhorn National Championship football team in a celebration set for Sun., Jan. 15, at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium. Longhorn players and coaches from the school-record setting 13-0 squad as well as the UT band, cheerleaders, Bevo and other spirit groups will be in attendance.

Gates will open for the event at 3:30 p.m. (Central) and the program will begin at 5 p.m. Video highlights of the year will be running on the Jumbotron in the stadium beginning at 3:30 p.m. UT's Tower will be re-lit, bathed in orange with the No. 1 on all four sides, in honor of UT's fourth National Championship team, at 6 p.m.

The Longhorn LTD stores, located on both the East and West side of the stadiums, will be open during the celebration as will the stadium's concession stands.

The Westside upper deck of the stadium will be closed due to construction.

Time to show the team, the seniors and Vince how much they did for us... and nice to see they are going ahead with the upgrades to the stadium.. Im in the west side uperdeck, and while the rest of the stadium got fixed during the last overhaul, its still pretty bad. Especially the restrooms.

Saddle Man · #**491** Posted **Jan 9, 2006, 10:39 PM**

I never saw that Frost Bank had any special lighting for christmas or ut.

JRCool · #**492** Posted **Jan 10, 2006, 2:19 AM**

Umm, ya I've been downtown, or seen downtown almost every night since they won, and I never saw Frosty lit up like that. I saw the "live the dream" projection, and the frost emblem turned burnt orange, but I believe the above picture was just edited to make the rest look orange, because I have not seen the whole thing (the crown and such) lit up in burnt orange. It'd be cool if they did, but I'm pretty sure they never did.

KevinFromTexas · #**493** Posted **Jan 10, 2006, 4:20 AM**

I suspect the Frost Bank Tower pic above is computer done. Unless we hear something in the news about it being lit that way it seems it was computer generated. Looks amazing though, I'm sort of torn between liking it and being against it since the UT Tower should be THE burnt orange skyscraper in town. Still it looks awesome. I do wish the Frost Bank Tower would do more elaborate lighting schemes for the holiday. I think the crown would look awesome lit up green like a Christmas tree and I noticed One American Center didn't have the traditional red, green, red lights this year on it's setbacks. 100 Congress though looked great.

And I did notice one of the Frost Bank logos, on the western side I believe that looked red during the daytime.

By the way. Check this out. An old article from the American-Statesman from 1999 about the original 27-story design of Congress at Fourth, (Frost Bank Tower). It doesn't include the entire article. This is from the statesman.com's archive section from June 17, 1999.

Quote:

We have to admit, we weren't overly impressed by the published renderings of Congress at Fourth, the downtown office-and-retail tower planned by developers for Congress Avenue and Fourth Street. The scale and mass of the 27-story building are certainly bold-looking, but the style is vaguely bland and, we suspect, not very sympathetic to the surrounding cityscape. Of course, who can tell from a preliminary rendering? Things change in the world of design and development.

On the

StoOgE · #**494** Posted **Jan 10, 2006, 4:42 AM**

Yeah, I cant tell you if the entire tower has been lit up like that or not, I get off work at 5, and if Im still downtown by the time it gets dark, my vision isnt exactly 20/20. IF its fake its really well done though, I blew it up in PS and dont see any of the usual tells. My initial reaction to the photo was fake, but no one on hornfans.com seemed to question it.

KevinFromTexas · #**495** Posted **Jan 10, 2006, 6:17 AM**

More retro news. Some interesting articles about the new facade job for the then Bank One Tower in Austin. These are from January 12th and 13th of 1993.

Quote:

Dear Oracle Kelley:

Huzzah, Oracle! "Goldfinger" is a goner. The new owners of the Bank One Tower, that golden monument to garishness, are going to resurface the thing with a new color. No more are we to be zapped like bugs by the building's late-afternoon reflected rays. No more our eyes to be assaulted by what looks like an upended box of dime store candy. Allow me, sir, to register my approval of this long-overdue step. So how will the new exterior

And...

Quote:

The new Seattle owner of Bank One Tower plans to put a

60-foot-tall metal "cap" on top of the 21-story downtown building and to resurface it with a new color of exterior glass.

Westgroup Partners, known for redevelopment of prestigious hotels such as the Adolphus in Dallas and Biltmore in Los Angeles, began the interior work in October and plans to begin exterior construction in May or June, said Rusty Perry, managing partner for Westgroup in Texas.

KevinFromTexas · #**496** Posted **Jan 10, 2006, 10:18 AM**

Hmm, it looks like I found out who did that fake picture above with the Frost Bank Tower lit burnt orange.

I found this website that is actually the company that did the lighting for the Frost Bank Tower. And, I found this picture on their site which looks exactly like the one above same angle and all.
http://www.spectrumltg.net/projects.htm

Mopacs · #**497** Posted **Jan 10, 2006, 1:36 PM**

Good snooping Kevin! You're definitely right, that is the exact same picture. That would have been quite a task to tint every exterior bulb burnt orange, on the upper half of the tower. But yeah, they did have the Frost logo illuminated in orange, on the west-facing side of the crown (overlooking Congress Avenue and the Warehouse district), as well as the "Live the Dream" logo projected onto the side(s) of the tower.

Mopacs · #**498** Posted **Jan 10, 2006, 2:17 PM**

Looks like the University Towers residential complex on W24th Street (just west of campus) is about to undergo a major redevelopment, including significant new retail space.
http://www.cencorrealty.com/search/view.asp?PrimaryKeyID=534

According to Cencorrealty.com:

Quote:

The project represents the redevelopment of University Towers, a mixed-use project with college residential apartments with small local businesses on the ground floor and the first floor of the project. University Towers is in the heart of the University of Texas' west campus, and its retail space totals 90,883 square feet.

StoOgE · #**499** Posted **Jan 10, 2006, 3:05 PM**

Thats awesome. University Towers has been falling down for as long as anyone I know can remember. There have actually been rumors of it being razed a few times when I was in school.

and yeah, the Frost photo is PS'ed which is a shame, because it was very pretty.

Saddle Man · #**500** Posted **Jan 10, 2006, 3:54 PM**

The Frost Bank Tower building management said when the tower opened that the crown wouldn't change color for a couple of years. But, that they would begin experimenting.