AUSTIN | Fairmont Hotel | 595 FEET SPIRE/456 FT ROOF | 37 FLRS | Complete

[SecretAgentMan]

Originally Posted by Spaceman

Maybe Gensler will need some local architects for input on this project..isn't tovo's husband an architect...Wouldn't it be ironic if Gensler retained tovo's husband for a ton of $$$$$. The conflict of interest in that household would make me want to be a fly on the wall..

Gensler has an Austin office that is working on the hotel project. Their office is in the W.

[KevinFromTexas]

Screen shots from the Fox7 News cast.

This would be the view from the southwest. The podium levels at the base which would contain convention/meeting space face Cesar Chavez with the tower portion being on the north side of the block. From this image, it looks like they're planning green roofs for the whole building, even the very top of the tower.

[Mopacs]

Is it just me, or does the building look wider in the 2nd pic than the 1st? Also, the main tower section does bare a resemblance to the Ritz-Carlton convention hotel in Los Angeles. Which is not surprising, given it was also designed by Gensler.

http://www.gensler.com/#projects/73

Originally Posted by KevinFromTexas

Screen shots from the Fox7 News cast.

This would be the view from the southwest. The podium levels at the base which would contain convention/meeting space face Cesar Chavez with the tower portion being on the north side of the block. From this image, it looks like they're planning green roofs for the whole building, even the very top of the tower.

[KevinFromTexas]

I noticed that, too. I assumed it was just the rendering. But the most recent Statesman article you posted also says it will have 1,100 rooms, that's up from the 1,035 they originally mentioned.

Anyway, I've emailed Gensler. I'll try and get all the details. They're also designing the Block 51 office building, so I'll try to get that height, too.

[MichaelB]

Originally Posted by KevinFromTexas

I noticed that, too. I assumed it was just the rendering. But the most recent Statesman article you posted also says it will have 1,100 rooms, that's up from the 1,035 they originally mentioned.

Anyway, I've emailed Gensler. I'll try and get all the details. They're also designing the Block 51 office building, so I'll try to get that height, too.

I also think these are more about "massing". I would assume they will not invest in the "real" design or details until they feel certain this will go forward.

[austin242]

Austins Second 5 star hotel. What type of hotel does that sound like.

[Jdawgboy]

hmm, I really hope that the first rendering we saw will be the actual design. It looks sleek and thin overall compared to the new renderings, Im all about adding more rooms but please don't make it bulky. Also I know that these new pics are likely not the final design but I just counted the floors in the new pic and it is not 51 floors. They better not shorten the height on this thing. thats probably why it looks so bulky.

[DougRockstead]

Don't know if anyone saw this article in today's statesman online...

http://letters.statesman.com/198c86c...msoi5tyqyaaaaa

"Developer of 2nd proposed convention hotel: ‘We’re doing it’
By Shonda Novak | Thursday, July 21, 2011, 09:31 AM

The San Diego developer planning to build a $350 million convention high-rise hotel at Cesar Chavez and Red River downtown said his company will build the project even if a competing downtown convention hotel planned by White Lodging Services Corp. moves forward simultaneously. "

[verybadgnome]

Originally Posted by DougRockstead

Don't know if anyone saw this article in today's statesman online...

http://letters.statesman.com/198c86c...msoi5tyqyaaaaa

"Developer of 2nd proposed convention hotel: ‘We’re doing it’
By Shonda Novak | Thursday, July 21, 2011, 09:31 AM

The San Diego developer planning to build a $350 million convention high-rise hotel at Cesar Chavez and Red River downtown said his company will build the project even if a competing downtown convention hotel planned by White Lodging Services Corp. moves forward simultaneously. "

That is something. I wish I knew about cities that have gone through something comparable to what Austin is going through now. Is this part of the biggest hotel expansion period Austin will ever see or will this be the first of many phases of varying magnitudes? And how does it correlate with office and residential building? After the current boom will areas surrounding downtown be under pressure to rezone? How much will spread south across the river?

I'm from the D.C area and the growth there happened for different reasons in much different ways. You can't even build high rises downtown b/c no building can be higher than 110 feet or 20 feet taller than the adjacent street is wide.

[KevinFromTexas]

This article says the hotel will be 45 to 50 floors. This article mentions it'll have 1,100 rooms and have at least 950,000 square feet.

http://www.statesman.com/business/re...inglePage=true

Austin's second convention hotel is a go, developer says

By Shonda Novak
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Updated: 11:19 p.m. Thursday, July 21, 2011
Published: 9:13 p.m. Thursday, July 21, 2011

The architect for Manchester Texas Financial Group's proposed 45- to 50-story hotel said the project has attracted serious interest from four potential operators: Hilton, Hyatt and Starwood , plus a fourth undisclosed operator.

"We're doing it," Douglas Manchester, founder and chairman of San Diego-based Manchester Financial Group, said after a city commission unanimously endorsed the 1,100-room hotel that his firm plans to build on land just east of the Convention Center along Waller Creek. "We're not here to paint."

Manchester executives said construction on the project could start in a year and take 25 to 30 months. It would have two hotels, with a single operator, under one roof — one of them a four-star hotel of about 30 stories, and above that a smaller, luxury hotel .

The project wouldn't require a zoning change. However, Manchester Texas will ask the city for 300,000 more square feet of building area than the 650,000 square feet currently allowed.

[StoOgE]

This is a positively huge building. It's roughly 400K more SQ feet than Frost or the Austionian. A bit shy of double their square footage. Needless to say, in additon to being close to 600 to the roof and probably 750 to the spire it will by far be the largest highrise in Austin.

[Armybrat]

I wonder if they'll have some kind of cool club (not nightclub) or restaurant near the top?

It used to be fun going to the Headliner's Club at the top of the old golden American Bank Tower once in a while.

[KevinFromTexas]

Use your private messages.

[KevinFromTexas]

I've been thinking about the height of this building. I recently emailed Shonda Novak at the American-Statesman. She does most of the development related articles. I was asking her if she'd heard anything official about the height. She said all she's heard is 45 to 50 floors.

I was thinking about Los Angeles' Ritz-Carlton Hotel that is part of their convention center. It is also designed by Gensler, as Austin's new hotel will be. That hotel is 663 feet tall with 54 floors. I figured the floor-to-floor heights should be similar for both hotels. So taking the numbers from LA's hotel, it is 663 feet with 54 floors.

So 663 feet /54 floors =12.2777778 feet per floor.

So if it's 45 floors, it would still be pretty tall.

12.2777778*45 floors=552 feet to the roof. The spire seems to be between 150 and 200 feet tall, so even if it's only 150 feet tall, the building will still be 702 feet tall.

And if it turns out that it is 51 floors as the original rendering suggestions, it'll be considerably taller.

12.2777778*51 floors = 626 feet to the roof + a 150 foot spire = 776 feet

Someone on the forum mentioned they thought the spire might be as tall as 180 feet. If the building ends up being 626 feet to the roof as my numbers above indicate, then it could be 806 feet to the spire.

By the way, 626 feet to the roof would put it only 4 feet lower than the main roof of the Austonian.

And here is the construction thread for the LA hotel. It's a really nice building, and was the tallest building LA has seen since the early 90s. Notice that the building hosts two different hotel chains. A Ritz-Carlton and a JW Marriott. One of the articles for the Austin hotel mentioned it will have two hotels in the building. So this LA hotel is a good hint at what we might see.
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=129618

[wwmiv]

That building is one of my favorite designs ever. Up with London's Gherkin, NYC's BoA Tower, and Barcelona's Torre Agbar.

[KevinFromTexas]

I sent an email to Gensler asking about the heights. They said the building is still in the design phase and that they wouldn't want to release any specific height details until the design is finalized. They asked that I check back in a few weeks.

[JAM]

Originally Posted by KevinFromTexas

I sent an email to Gensler asking about the heights. They said the building is still in the design phase and that they wouldn't want to release any specific height details until the design is finalized. They asked that I check back in a few weeks.

lol.... are these two hotels waiting for the other one to announce final height and then add something at the last minute like the did in NYC in the early part of the twentieth century...

[Jdawgboy]

Well we know the Marriott is not going to be anything to sneeze about as far as height so I doubt that the Manchester project even cares what White Lodging does.

[KevinFromTexas]

Ok, I got an email back this morning from someone at Gensler about the height. Some interesting info about it.

First, the heights.

It's planned to have 50 floors at this point, not 51 as I had counted.

It will be 600 feet to the very top of the roof and 554 feet to the main roof. The podium area, that is the lower section of the building that covers the whole block, it will be 105 feet tall.

She said there will be a "skydeck" on the 33rd floor at 375 feet above the street. So I guess maybe they're planning an observation deck of some kind.

I asked about the height of the spire, too, and she said at this point they're not sure if they'll keep the spire because the client is wanting a helipad. So that's interesting. It's unfortunate that the spire would go away, but that would be interesting to see helicopters landing atop the hotel. I'm assuming the new Formula 1 race track had something to do with this, since the track promoters were saying one of the preferred methods of transportation to and from the track would be helicopter ferries.

[wwmiv]

600 feet is not bad. A little bit shorter than we thought it was going to be to the roof, but not bad. They're probably going to scrap the spire in light of that information.