SAN ANTONIO | Projects and Construction - Page 40

TXlifeguard · #**781** Posted **Jan 22, 2007, 10:54 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by NBTX11

Now we will have basically 2 skylines, one over by the Weston, BOA, etc, and the other by the tower with a big gap in between. If all of SA's talls were grouped together, we would have a great skyline.

Dude, it's like that now. Drive into downtown from the airport on 281 and 'the gap' is pretty visible.

JACKinBeantown · #**782** Posted **Jan 22, 2007, 1:37 PM**

I think it will pretty much always be that way. The riverwalk, Alamo, Rivercenter mall, and the convention center take up a lot of land.

One end of downtown is a bunch of hotels and the Tower of the Americas. The other end is pretty much all office buildings. So there are two distinct sections of downtown that really have little to do with each other besides geographic location. And in the middle is the riverwalk, La Villita (on the left where the flower roof is), the Alamo, convention center. And those areas will never really have a tall building, so the two groupings of taller buildings will remain that way.

NBTX11 · #**783** Posted **Jan 23, 2007, 1:06 AM**

^^^Some talls just to the right of the BOA and ATT buildings in this pic would help fill in skyline, also maybe one or 2 north of the marriott rivercenter. I wonder how much the proposed kress tower would help. Has anyone seen a rendering showing how it would fill in the skyline. For that matter if this project is still on. You would have another around as tall as the frost bank or crown plaza, and almost as tall as the boa bldg. We need at least one more tall office building, and maybe a 35-40 story condo building. I would think we are going to see a couple tall condos announced in the next couple years, what do you think. Unless the historic committee keeps scaling them down.

jaga185 · #**784** Posted **Jan 23, 2007, 7:17 AM**

I personally think that it is possible for a 35-40 story building, but it would have to be mixed use. More than likely the uses would be hotel/residential, but not limited to condos, it should include apartments as well.

I also do agree the skyline will always have the hole, and it is in part because of the riverwalk and such. No one is going to build, let alone be allowed to build very high in the center of downtown because of the amount of sun it would block from hitting the riverwalk. If you think about, do you really want the riverwalk to look like it does by the tower of life? It's still beautiful and all, but throughout most of the day it is covered by shadow.

Complex01 · #**785** Posted **Jan 24, 2007, 5:42 PM**

Well another building will deffinatley look nice to fill in the gap in the middle. There are plenty of ample spots downtown. Give it some time. Someone is gonna need more office space downtown.

tmathis · #**786** Posted **Jan 27, 2007, 7:15 AM**

Using this picture from Flickr.com

That is the view from Trinity University.

As you can see, there’s the Tower and Marriott on one side and then the office buildings on the other side with infill between the two.

There’s a ’‘gap’‘ between the TowerMarriott and the two AT&T buildings situated between Avenue B and the SA River.

That gap could be more than filled in with River North development, especially along Broadway St from about McCullough Ave and Jones Ave. You put in a few 20-25 story buildings and that gap is gone.

Also, perfect dream would be fore AT&T to consolidate all its office space and build a new super tall downtown, you can sell those two buildings in River North to a developer who could raze them and build a high-rise which would be right along the soon to be expanded Riverwalk.

River North is going to bring many new and exciting things to downtown San Antonio, it’s just a matter of when. With the Museum Reach portion of the Riverwalk expansion starting within 90 days, I’d say downtown SA is in store for some major announces in 2007.

tmathis · #**787** Posted **Jan 27, 2007, 7:19 AM**

Another that shows the skyline.

alexjon · #**788** Posted **Jan 28, 2007, 9:00 PM**

Downtown IS dense, but only at ground level-- you also have to knock off a few feet for the river being there, too. Downtown is built with the river in mind, which is one good reason we have so many campuses around town rather than a bustling CBD-- but now that downtown is becoming chic and people are realizing that it's not all that great to live in, say, AH, and have to drive from the 09 through the 08, they're starting to eye and drive a small condo "pop" down there. We won't have a boom, I don't think, but a pop all the way.

In my idealized world, I see those little gaps in the river "skyline" being filled in with peeks of taller buildings set back, like something to dwarf the weston, or something set just back from the AT&T building... something to make the city really pop from afar.

Anyway, a lot of younger cities with talls are like San Antonio in overall density... their towers really stand out. SA needs that-- especially now that Austin is coming close to outstripping us in height with its spur of development.

sakyle04 · #**789** Posted **Jan 29, 2007, 3:10 PM**

Open question...

Does anyone have knowledge of the Vidorra residential towers becoming the Vidorra tower...? As in, has the plan for two 22 story towers become a plan for one 20 story tower?

Look at the website under "Virtual Tour"... The building looks wider (larger footprint) and doesn't seem to leave space for tower 2.

kornbread · #**790** Posted **Jan 30, 2007, 6:06 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by sakyle04

Open question...

Does anyone have knowledge of the Vidorra residential towers becoming the Vidorra tower...? As in, has the plan for two 22 story towers become a plan for one 20 story tower?

Look at the website under "Virtual Tour"... The building looks wider (larger footprint) and doesn't seem to leave space for tower 2.

Last I heard was that the wider footprint was the result of a demand for larger floorplans and that a second tower is still in the plans.

I'm not sure I beleive that and would be surprised to see a second tower. Of course it will be nice just to see at least one tower rise to divert attention away from the cookie cutter hotels on that end of downtown.

KevinFromTexas · #**791** Posted **Jan 30, 2007, 12:16 PM**

Guy's I've changed the color coding a bit for the compilation list on the first page. I added a new height category, (900 to 999 feet), and shuffled a few of the colors around so there's not a wall of bright colors. This way once there's more proposals of varying heights the colors won't be so blinding, (I hope)!

michobq · #**792** Posted **Jan 30, 2007, 1:46 PM**

As far as Vidorra, the footprint of the building is wider and the project has been scaled down to 20 floors. There is room for both of the towers and after talking to people from the sales office, there are plans for a 3rd and 4th phase of townhomes, lofts, or maybe even more condos. The space is to the left of the condos if looking from downtown. The people that are building Vidorra also have plans to maybe turn the old Frederich Air Conditioning warehouse just down Commerce into lofts in the future. There is a lot of things going down in the St. Paul Square/Sunset station area that is off the radar.

kornbread · #**793** Posted **Jan 31, 2007, 5:29 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by michobq

As far as Vidorra, the footprint of the building is wider and the project has been scaled down to 20 floors. There is room for both of the towers and after talking to people from the sales office, there are plans for a 3rd and 4th phase of townhomes, lofts, or maybe even more condos. The space is to the left of the condos if looking from downtown. The people that are building Vidorra also have plans to maybe turn the old Frederich Air Conditioning warehouse just down Commerce into lofts in the future. There is a lot of things going down in the St. Paul Square/Sunset station area that is off the radar.

Presidian (Vidorra group) was not involved in the Freiderich project. Are they now? Those plans were actually announced way before Vidorra was.
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanantoni...wscolumn2.html
http://recenter.tamu.edu/news/recon111105.html (near bottom)

michobq · #**794** Posted **Jan 31, 2007, 7:51 AM**

I am not sure if Presidian is involved or not in the Freiderich building plans or not, but it was mentioned while I was asking the sales office at Vidorra questions about the surrounding area. The lady I was talking to said that the developers of Vidorra were buying land on the left of Commerce and people affiliated with Zachary Construction were buying to the right of Commerce in the Sunset Station area. If anyone can verify any of this info, please do.

Boris · #**795** Posted **Feb 1, 2007, 7:58 PM**

.....................

Here are some pictures I took of the Hyatt hotel yesterday:

You can see the rest of my SA photos at:

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...29#post2604529

............................

Complex01 · #**796** Posted **Feb 1, 2007, 10:13 PM**

Its getting Taller, i like that...

NBTX11 · #**797** Posted **Feb 2, 2007, 3:13 AM**

4 floors down, 30 to go!

ryan5021 · #**798** Posted **Feb 2, 2007, 3:40 AM**

Did anyone else notice that the current four floors of the Hyatt are equal to about 7-8 floors of the Marriott across the street.

jaga185 · #**799** Posted **Feb 2, 2007, 9:38 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by ryan5021

Did anyone else notice that the current four floors of the Hyatt are equal to about 7-8 floors of the Marriott across the street.

yeah, it's quite funny actually. oh, if only all of the floors were that tall...but we all know that is fantasy.

Complex01 · #**800** Posted **Feb 2, 2007, 10:52 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by ryan5021

Did anyone else notice that the current four floors of the Hyatt are equal to about 7-8 floors of the Marriott across the street.

yes i noticed that as well...