Austin | 6G | 874 Feet | 65 Floors | Complete

[The ATX]

Originally Posted by Dcbrickley

Who is financing this one?

My guess is nobody yet. With the exception of the Marriott @ Cesar Chavez and possibly the Mirabeau Hotel, I don't think any proposed major project has 100% of the needed financing in place.

[JoninATX]

Please let this be built. Even if they decide to stick with 62 floors, it will still be a game changer to the Austin skyline.

[wwmiv]

I loved the trusses on the previous design, but those seem to be absent in this otherwise much more elegant design. I disagree with Kevin in that I think this is an upgrade visually.

[pscajunguy]

Originally Posted by KevinFromTexas

Somebody pinch me!

The article mentions that they might be considering pushing the height to the mid-70s range on the number of floors. It's 62 floors now. Let's just say that they add 13 floors for a total of 75 floors. Let's say they split that number 7 for residential and 6 for office. Going by the elevation that we've already seen, the residential floors right now are each 11 feet slab to slab. The office floors alternate between 14 feet and 15 feet slab to slab for each floor.

So with 7 new residential floors that would be 77 more feet added.

For the 6 additional office floors, while alternating between 14 and 15 feet, that would add 87 feet to the tower's height.

Those two together is 164 feet.

The article also says the height is 850 feet tall, which is odd because we've worked out on the forum that it'll be 873 feet when measuring the highest part of the crown and the lowest elevation along 6th Street. If it is indeed 850 feet, that would make it 1,014 feet tall with the 13 additional floors. That would already make it the new tallest building in Texas. If is 873 feet at the 62-story height, that would push it to 1,037 feet with the new floors.

That is amazing.

As I mentioned earlier, even at the 873 foot height, we could expect to pass Oklahoma City, Denver, Minneapolis, Detroit, Indianapolis, New Orleans, Mobile, Miami, Boston, Pittsburgh, and Jersey City with this one, and Charlotte if it indeed is 872 feet 3/4 inches tall. Now, Jersey City is working on one that is 899 feet. It's actually under construction now. And Miami has about 8 buildings over 1,000 feet in development, though, they haven't started yet.

With the possibility of 608 Guadalupe being 1,037 feet tall, we could end up easily passing Jersey City, and then Miami would have only three proposals that would be taller than this one.

This would also mean that since we'd go from 873 feet to 1,037 feet with the increased height that we'd be passing Houston, Dallas, Seattle, and Cleveland in addition to the ones I listed above.

We would also have a higher roof than Los Angeles, Atlanta and possibly Philadelphia, depending on how tall the spire is on the Comcast Innovation & Technology Center is.

So in that case, architecturally, only New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Philadelphia, and Atlanta would have taller buildings than Austin.

Sales Force Tower in San Francisco is 61 floors with a 250 foot decorative crown, topping out at 1070 feet. Wilshire Hotel in LA has a skinny mast like the Fairmont. If this is built before Miami's plans and Philly's new Comcast Tower, this building would have the highest occupied floor outside of NYC and Chicago!! Wow!

[pscajunguy]

We need an observation deck!

[pscajunguy]

And it looks like it might have one next to the mechanical portion on the top of the building. You can see the other side of the mechanical roof through what looks like a glassed-in portion on the top.

[wwmiv]

Originally Posted by pscajunguy

We need an observation deck!

We need a standalone observation tower, to be honest.

[N90]

I love how this rendering includes the Independent, whose reign as the tallest building in Austin appears destined to be cut short lol.

[Jdawgboy]

Doesn't anyone think it would be pretty neat to see the office portion occupied while the tower is still under construction???


Also I would suspect that financing is in place or imminent. There's a couple of reasons why I think that.

I agree that this is the building that we were given heads up via Genral's contact, though 72 floors is technically not mid 70s range which would be 74-76 or if you want to stretch it 73-77. Its clearly low 70s. Is it possible that they have a tenant committed for the office element? The only thing that I can think of that would warrant the developer to say it could end up with 10 to 12 more floors than what is currently planned is that a company would request more space. It could be more residential but I would think adding more office would be less of a risk, especially if there is indeed a tenant that they are working with. Again all speculation but would make sense if they plan on opening the office portion while the building is still under construction.

As far as the updated renderings, I think the first rendering that we saw was simply the bare bones version. The renderings released today are much more detailed but the design is basically the same. It's one of the reasons why I have a feeling that they have financing secured if not forthcoming.

These guys have their ducks in order plus they have a good record with having completed buildings in Austin. Out of all the proposals aside from the 3rd and Colorado residential (which I still think they need to preserve and incorporate the existing building into that project), 608 Guadalupe has the best chance of getting built IMO. This is no Sutton situation.

[Geckos_Rule]

[QUOTE=KevinFromTexas;7885175]




This picture makes me think that they just took 5th and west, and then stacked the Bowie Apartments on top of it. Not super surprising, since this is the same developer as the Bowie.

[deerhoof]

I tend to agree with your thoughts on how quickly they seem to be moving on this project. It seems like they have a significant office tenant lined up and that's why it's full steam ahead. At one point it was speculated that Facebook was going to be part of a major project near Cesar Chavez. Maybe they decided to go this route, instead. Their current space is in 300 West 6th, which is right across the street from where this will be built.

Originally Posted by Jdawgboy

Doesn't anyone think it would be pretty neat to see the office portion occupied while the tower is still under construction???


Also I would suspect that financing is in place or imminent. There's a couple of reasons why I think that.

I agree that this is the building that we were given heads up via Genral's contact, though 72 floors is technically not mid 70s range which would be 74-76 or if you want to stretch it 73-77. Its clearly low 70s. Is it possible that they have a tenant committed for the office element? The only thing that I can think of that would warrant the developer to say it could end up with 10 to 12 more floors than what is currently planned is that a company would request more space. It could be more residential but I would think adding more office would be less of a risk, especially if there is indeed a tenant that they are working with. Again all speculation but would make sense if they plan on opening the office portion while the building is still under construction.

As far as the updated renderings, I think the first rendering that we saw was simply the bare bones version. The renderings released today are much more detailed but the design is basically the same. It's one of the reasons why I have a feeling that they have financing secured if not forthcoming.

These guys have their ducks in order plus they have a good record with having completed buildings in Austin. Out of all the proposals aside from the 3rd and Colorado residential (which I still think they need to preserve and incorporate the existing building into that project), 608 Guadalupe has the best chance of getting built IMO. This is no Sutton situation.

[wwmiv]

I'm still waiting on more details on the Merck office project. We know that's going to be large as well.

[AusTex]

Beautiful building in the newer rendering. Very elegant.

I think it would look even better and very striking at night if, (looking at the south and east elevations), the building above the metal/stone would continue up another two floors with an illuminated glass crown. Could this also serve as an observation deck?

[KevinFromTexas]

Originally Posted by N90

If that's the Catch 22 situation where this tower moving forward may put the Travis Co. block on hold, then it's not a bad Catch 22.

Because both towers haven't been built yet, we can only ask ourselves one question:

If it came down to where we could only have one of them, which would you choose?

I would choose this one over the Travis Co. block tower. Taller, moving forward, more distinct design for the Austin skyline, etc.

I think it's more likely that we would see a taller tower on this block than on the courthouse block, the reason being that the Capitol view corridor that removes some aerial real estate on part of the block forces the tower to be taller on the rest of the block. The courthouse block has no height restriction on the block which ironically could mean a shorter tower since it could be broader. They could even do two smaller/shorter towers instead of one taller one (the university admin redevelopment looks to be that way). They don't have that luxury with this block, so they're forced to go up. Plus, I love the idea that this tower will pretty much guarantee that the historical house on this block will be protected forever since they're committed to doing it as indicated by the permits and renderings.

[H2O]

Originally Posted by Jdawgboy

Doesn't anyone think it would be pretty neat to see the office portion occupied while the tower is still under construction???.

I don't think the fire department would allow occupation of lower floors while the shell is still under construction above. What they do sometimes allow, is occupation of lower floors after the shell is enclosed, but systems (including fire suppression and egress) are still being completed above. Even this requires unoccupied, but otherwise complete, buffer floors between occupied space and shell space still under construction, and other elaborate modifications to alarms and sprinklers. But even then, they are not keen on the idea. What is quite common, is interior finish out of upper floors above occupied floors. In other words, I don't think a phased occupancy would even be noticeable from the exterior of the building.

[The ATX]

This quote from the developer in the Statesman article makes it sound like the office will open before the apartments are completed:

The office portion of the project would open first, with space ready to occupy just over two years after breaking ground, Lynd said. The entire project is expected to take four years to complete, Lynd said.

http://www.mystatesman.com/business/...EotMqjZPWgQTP/

[the Genral]

A while back we were discussing the possibility of adding floors to a building and one notable example was in Chicago where they were adding I'm guessing 20 floors to an existing building that was engineered for the vertical expansion. I believe the existing floors were occupied during the construction. If the office portion of this tower is self contained, ie; a/c, plumbing, electric, sprinkler system and finish out is in place as I suspect it will be before occupancy, then we know it can be done, as proven in Chicago. I believe Kevin provided the name of that building in Chicago.

[AustinGoesVertical]

Originally Posted by the Genral

A while back we were discussing the possibility of adding floors to a building and one notable example was in Chicago where they were adding I'm guessing 20 floors to an existing building that was engineered for the vertical expansion. I believe the existing floors were occupied during the construction. If the office portion of this tower is self contained, ie; a/c, plumbing, electric, sprinkler system and finish out is in place as I suspect it will be before occupancy, then we know it can be done, as proven in Chicago. I believe Kevin provided the name of that building in Chicago.

Blue Cross-Blue Shield tower. Very interesting project. It was always designed as two phases, with the 33-story section delivered in 1997. Construction on the additional 24 floors began in 2007. I remember living in a building directly to the right just as they were finishing up. It was cool to analyze how seamless it looked. You are correct in that business operations remained unabated during the 2 or so years of renovation.

[N90]

Originally Posted by KevinFromTexas

As I mentioned earlier, even at the 873 foot height, we could expect to pass Oklahoma City, Denver, Minneapolis, Detroit, Indianapolis, New Orleans, Mobile, Miami, Boston, Pittsburgh, and Jersey City with this one, and Charlotte if it indeed is 872 feet 3/4 inches tall. Now, Jersey City is working on one that is 899 feet. It's actually under construction now.

Austin will surpass Atlantic City too with this proposal. The Revel in AC is 710 feet.

[Jdawgboy]

So given the info that we have so far this is starting to look more like 2 separate enclosed stacked towers.

I've also changed my mind about the possible addition of office floors. My thinking is that they will consider the residential demand while the office portion is built. In fact they likely already have complete schematics and renderings of a 72-75 story version. The lower half would have to be designed to handle an expanded upper half. Also given what Genral's contact had said, it makes sense. This tower has been in the works behind the scenes for at least 2 years I'd guess. You can be sure that they have both versions ready to go.