AUSTIN | Projects & Construction II

[Jdawgboy]

I think from the western angles 360 should look taller than Frost but from the east it might not look as if its taller. it should look taller for the most part since the highest floor of 360 will be like somewhere in the 460 foot range I think compared to the heighest floor on Frost is around 400 feet. if the Frost crown is about 115 feet higher than the top floor then that would make the highest occupied floor on 360 half way up on the crown. Thats not including the mechanical part of 360 and the spire part. Either way I think 360 will be the first real vertical tall looking building we have.

[Strayone]

^ Yeah from the North and South it will be very narrow and seem like a knife blade. 360 is a bit wide from the side views, and really blocks a lot of area out of sight. 10 floors to go at this point, I'd say by sometime in late October it will reach the roof.

[priller]

Originally Posted by hookem

As they finish up the 34th floor in the next few days, is this an Austin milestone? The first 34th floor? I know Frost is 33, and I think there are some 30-32 floor buildings...

I was thinking much the same thing. The first building with 34 floors is certainly a milestone!

I know 360 still has a way to go til it reaches Frost height, and I'm very curious how it will look with the mainroof below the crown of Frost. I'm thinking it won't appear taller from some distant angles.

From the east, the Frost tower will certainly look a little taller:



From the west, however, I think 360 will really look big. In fact, I've noticed recently, when coming up 5th Street, where I used to notice the Monarch looming so large, I now notice 360 a lot more behind it. After another 10 floors it will really soar.

[KevinFromTexas]

Originally Posted by hookem

As they finish up the 34th floor in the next few days, is this an Austin milestone? The first 34th floor? I know Frost is 33, and I think there are some 30-32 floor buildings...

Yes, this will be the first time there's been a 34th floor in Austin.

The current list of buildings in Austin with 30 floors or more at the present moment:

Frost Bank Tower - 33 floors
One American Center - 32 floors
Austin Hilton Convention Center Hotel - 31
One Congress Plaza - 30 floors

360 will also be the state's new tallest all residential building and the tallest residential building period until the Mandarin Hotel in Dallas is completed which is 650 feet tall. This is of course if you count spires, which officially spires are counted in building heights. 360 will also be the first 40+ story building outside of Houston, Dallas and Fort Worth. Fort Worth's Burnett Plaza has 40 floors, but 360 will have 44. It'll also put Austin ahead of San Antonio by 17 feet, but Fort Worth will still have us beat by 4 feet with Burnett Plaza.

360's highest occupied floor will be 462 feet high versus 400 feet high for Frost Bank Tower. The building's roof at its highest point will be 472 feet high. I'm thinking that the roof will be slightly higher than where the crane is now. It'll probably be around 20 to 30 feet higher than the top of the boom. As for appearance on the skyline, 360's site elevation is 23 feet lower than Frost's. So the roof should be about halfway up the crown of Frost Bank Tower.

[hookem]

Originally Posted by KevinFromTexas

It'll also put Austin ahead of San Antonio by 17 feet, but Fort Worth will still have us beat by 4 feet with Burnett Plaza.

4 feet?! Some contractor involved with building that spire needs to make a measurement error, say plus 49 inches or so. Sort of a reverse of the Stonehenge set Spinal Tap error.

[KevinFromTexas]

Yeah, they should have gone for it. Oh well, there's still 3 more buildings in the works that would all be taller, one of which, The Austonian will have 56 floors. Another first, the first building in Austin over 50 floors of course, and the first in the state outside of Houston and Dallas with that many.

[MichaelB]

Originally Posted by priller

The time-lapse is great. You can also see the Intel shell get blown up and cleaned up at the same time.

That is soooo cool..... I can;t believe I was sooo focused on 360 (and the cars coming and going on the garage!) That I didn't notice the courthouse!

[jgouger]

Originally Posted by KevinFromTexas

Yeah, they should have gone for it. Oh well, there's still 3 more buildings in the works that would all be taller, one of which, The Austonian will have 56 floors. Another first, the first building in Austin over 50 floors of course, and the first in the state outside of Houston and Dallas with that many.

This may be going out on a limb here, but assuming that the level of construction and the market conditions continues for the next few years, Austin may have a skyline that rivals Houston and Dallas's today. Right now it looks like there will be at least 4 major new projects starting next year (21c, Four Seasons, 7th and Rio Grande, and T. Stacy's project) and possibly many more to come!

[eburress]

^^ Oh I don't know about that. Austin's skyline is coming along and will certainly feature some nice buildings, but Houston and Dallas' skylines are so much taller, fuller, more developed, and IMO striking. Maybe Austin's will catch up in 20-40 years -- assuming of course that Austin's development continues and those cities don't grow at all.

[andrew.A..T..X]

Originally Posted by eburress

^^ Oh I don't know about that. Austin's skyline is coming along and will certainly feature some nice buildings, but Houston and Dallas' skylines are so much taller, fuller, more developed, and IMO striking. Maybe Austin's will catch up in 20-40 years -- assuming of course that Austin's development continues and those cities don't grow at all.

i agree. Austin's skyline will look great in 3-4 years, but still nothing like Houston or Dallas. Im not sure why San Antonio doesn't have a big skyline, mabye there are some restrictions or something but it is a bigger city than Dallas if you dont count metro, 7th biggest in U.S, you would expect a bigger skyline.

[ATXboom]

Interesting discussion.

I fully agree in 5 years downtown Austin will still not have the hieght or density of Dallas or Houston.

However it will have a similar amount of highrise buildings but Austin will be much more spread out over a much larger downtown area. Really stretching from the Concordia campus to the government area out to Lamar diagonally. Square mileage wise almost three times the area of Dallas or Houston's downtown.

From a distance downtown austin will look very wide as illustrated in Priller's models.

Austin will have a much more "modern" feel as well. Houston and Dallas will have the 80's historical perspective. Austin will look more like a Singapore or modern city built 2000+

Most importantly Austin will have more residents downtown than both Houston and Dallas combined and of course the urban street life they miss.

Should be fun to observe.

Oh yeah... metro populations drive the amount of business done in a region and therefore downtown sizes with the exception of residential... however there are exceptions like Madison, WI which has a big downtown for its population... or Seattle and Miami where there are a lot of residents living downtown and hence most high rises are actually residential and not business related, etc... Austin will be more like a Seattle or Miami with lots of residents as opposed to business only like Dallas, Houston, San Antone, etc.

[Complex01]

Originally Posted by ATXboom

Interesting discussion.



Austin will have a much more "modern" feel as well. Houston and Dallas will have the 80's historical perspective. Austin will look more like a Singapore or modern city built 2000+

Austin will not look like Singapore, it will look more modern yes but not to the degree of an Asian city, thats for sure...

BTW that rendering is looking very good. Nice job...

[Mopacs]

Unless Austin gets a few 1000 footers, I dont think our skyline will ever have the same imposing presence that Dallas and Houston have. Part of the reason is downtown's location in the Colorado River valley, relative to the rest of the city. Downtown Houston and Dallas are situated amongst a vast prairie/coastal plain that aids in their overall visibility, giving a truer sense of building heights.

Now on the other hand, Austin has the advantage of panoramic hilltop/valley views, which add a dramatic element to it (especially from South and West Austin). From northern and central areas of Austin, the skyline appears rather squat. Hopefully that will change with the taller/sleeker buildings on the way.

[jgouger]

Originally Posted by Mopacs

Unless Austin gets a few 1000 footers, I dont think our skyline will ever have the same imposing presence that Dallas and Houston have. Part of the reason is downtown's location in the Colorado River valley, relative to the rest of the city. Downtown Houston and Dallas are situated amongst a vast prairie/coastal plain that aids in their overall visibility, giving a truer sense of building heights.

Now on the other hand, Austin has the advantage of panoramic hilltop/valley views, which add a dramatic element to it (especially from South and West Austin). From northern and central areas of Austin, the skyline appears rather squat. Hopefully that will change with the taller/sleeker buildings on the way.

Hey you never know! All of the doubting Thomas's out there are probably amazed that the 600' barrier is about to be shattered by the Austonian. If T. Stacy's project ever actually happens, then the 700' barrier will be shattered too!

[ATXboom]

Ha... I lived in Singapore. Downtown proper is actually considerably smaller than both Houston and Dallas. Orchard area has a lot of high rises... but those are just neighborhoods. Sing is certainly no Hong Kong and so forth.... and in fact most Asians don't consider it an "Asian" city... its a melting pot with many Inidans, Australians, and Americans.

I don't doubt Austin could get 1000 footers...

I think once the Waller Creek tunnel is done it will open up the east side of downtown to high rise development but that area is also subject to more cap view cooridor issues... so I see another fury of high rise development happening in another decade.

Too bad the city didn't plan for view cooridors from the outset like DC. You could have some nice avenues radiating from the capital.

[KevinFromTexas]

Yeah, I don't know about Austin rivaling Houston and Dallas just yet. Certainly the rest of Texas, but Houston and Dallas are monsters. Houston's downtown skyline is like a freaking mountain range. I guess size-wise, our skyline will be quite large, though, easily passing San Antonio and Fort Worth's. It's already 3 miles long north/south give or take from Barton Springs Road to about 28th Street, a distance of about 35 blocks. And it's about a mile wide. With the added height it'll be more dominant than it is now for sure. Also other areas of Central Austin are densifying and will expand the overall horizon of buildings past where it is now. The 30th and 32nd Street area looks like it'll have some highrises soon with St. David's expanding and the redevelopment of Concordia University. Also to the west are some low to midrise medical buildings in the 8-story range. Then farther north up around 49th to 51st you have a handful of midrise 10-story state office buildings. And then farther northwest will be The Domain. That's a good ways, though, about 30 to 40 blocks from those state office buildings at 51st Street. Still, it definitely is a densification of our city's core on a level that would have been unimaginable years ago.

And as far as the number of highrises go, Houston and Dallas still blow Austin out of the water. We'll have around 160 or so completed by 2011, but even now Houston and Dallas have a ton of buildings. At the present moment Houston has over 334 highrises completed while Dallas has over 238 completed. Dallas has 15 under construction while Houston has 18 under construction, Austin has 9.

Still, Austin is on its way to being the 3rd city in the state skyline-wise.

Ha, and that's the 2nd time in less than 3 days that someone here on the forum has mentioned a Texas city will look like Singapore. The other was Houston.

[Mopacs]

Originally Posted by jgouger

Hey you never know! All of the doubting Thomas's out there are probably amazed that the 600' barrier is about to be shattered by the Austonian. If T. Stacy's project ever actually happens, then the 700' barrier will be shattered too!

Oh i would never say Never either! All it takes is one building to break through a barrier, and it raises the bar for subsequent high-rises. 1000 footer is not out of the question in our future. Especially if developable land starts to shrink dramatically. Time will tell, and I'll be more than elated to be proven wrong!

[Strayone]

Dallas (11 Fortune 500)and Houston(23 Fortune 500) have such a large base of corporations compared to SA (5)that it is fitting they tower over the SkyLine in SA. The list below shows a lot of why Dallas and Houston have such dynamic economic presence. Many of the companies are in suburban Tx areas of Dallas and Houston and contribute to spinoff companies and they need office buildings somewhere.
2006 listing.
Texas
State Rank Company Rank Revenues
($ millions) City
1 Exxon Mobil 1 339,938.0 Irving
2 ConocoPhillips 6 166,683.0 Houston
3 Valero Energy 15 81,362.0 San Antonio
4 Marathon Oil 23 58,958.0 Houston
5 Dell 25 55,908.0 Round Rock
6 AT&T 39 43,862.0 San Antonio
7 Plains All Amer. Pipeline 65 31,177.3 Houston
8 Sysco 68 30,281.9 Houston
9 Halliburton 103 20,994.0 Houston
10 AMR 105 20,712.0 Fort Worth
11 Electronic Data Systems 108 20,537.0 Plano
12 J.C. Penney 118 18,781.0 Plano
13 Lyondell Chemical 121 18,606.0 Houston
14 Tesoro 132 16,473.0 San Antonio
15 Kimberly-Clark 140 15,902.6 Irving
16 D.R. Horton 162 13,863.7 Fort Worth
17 Texas Instruments 167 13,392.0 Dallas
18 Fluor 169 13,161.1 Irving
19 Waste Management 170 13,074.0 Houston
20 Burlington No. Santa Fe 171 12,987.0 Fort Worth
21 Centex 175 12,859.7 Dallas
22 Enterprise Products 183 12,257.0 Houston
23 USAA 189 11,980.4 San Antonio
24 Continental Airlines 207 11,208.0 Houston
25 Dean Foods 216 10,900.3 Dallas
26 Reliant Energy 220 10,708.0 Houston
27 TXU 228 10,449.0 Dallas
28 Tenet Healthcare 236 10,052.0 Dallas
29 Kinder Morgan Energy 243 9,787.1 Houston
30 CenterPoint Energy 244 9,784.0 Houston
31 Clear Channel Communications 252 9,468.9 San Antonio
32 TEPPCO Partners 267 8,618.5 Houston
33 Burlington Resources 298 7,587.0 Houston
34 Apache 299 7,584.2 Houston
35 Southwest Airlines 300 7,584.0 Dallas
36 Baker Hughes 310 7,218.0 Houston
37 Anadarko Petroleum 314 7,100.0 The Woodlands
38 Commercial Metals 329 6,592.7 Irving
39 Enbridge Energy Partners 335 6,476.9 Houston
40 Dynegy 337 6,438.0 Houston
41 Energy Transfer Partners 347 6,274.3 Dallas
42 Celanese 356 6,070.0 Dallas
43 Group 1 Automotive 361 5,969.6 Houston
44 Blockbuster 366 5,864.4 Dallas
45 Freescale Semiconductor 368 5,843.0 Austin
46 Pilgrim's Pride 382 5,666.3 Pittsburg
47 Smith International 390 5,579.0 Houston
48 RadioShack 423 5,081.7 Fort Worth
49 Atmos Energy 430 4,973.3 Dallas
50 Triad Hospitals 432 4,916.6 Plano
51 Temple-Inland 433 4,910.0 Austin
52 Whole Foods Market 449 4,701.3 Austin
53 National Oilwell Varco 452 4,644.5 Houston
54 El Paso 455 4,596.0 Houston
55 Affiliated Computer Svcs. 471 4,351.2 Dallas
56 Frontier Oil 496 4,001.2 Houston
57 Brinker International 504 3,912.9 Dallas
58 Neiman Marcus 512 3,821.9 Dallas
59 Michaels Stores 522 3,676.4 Irving
60 EOG Resources 528 3,620.2 Houston
61 XTO Energy 541 3,519.0 Fort Worth
62 Lennox International 560 3,366.4 Richardson
63 BJ Services 573 3,243.2 Houston
64 FMC Technologies 576 3,226.7 Houston
65 Holly 578 3,212.7 Dallas
66 EGL 599 3,096.5 Houston
67 GameStop 601 3,091.8 Grapevine
68 American National Ins. 609 3,045.5 Galveston
69 Crosstex Energy 610 3,033.0 Dallas
70 Trinity Industries 632 2,902.0 Dallas
71 Sabre Holdings 683 2,521.3 Southlake
72 US Oncology 684 2,518.6 Houston
73 Cooper Cameron 685 2,517.8 Houston
74 Stewart Information Services 703 2,430.6 Houston
75 Pioneer Natural Resources 708 2,417.1 Irving
76 Zale 715 2,383.1 Irving
77 Rent A Center 729 2,339.1 Plano
78 Builders FirstSource 730 2,337.8 Dallas
79 Adams Resources & Engy. 746 2,269.7 Houston
80 Benchmark Electronics 749 2,257.2 Angleton
81 Noble Energy 761 2,186.7 Houston
82 UICI 773 2,123.2 N. Richland Hills
83 Pride International 799 2,034.6 Houston
84 Southern Union 803 2,019.4 Houston
85 Perot Systems 807 1,998.3 Plano
86 Quanex 809 1,996.9 Houston
87 Texas Industries 822 1,951.2 Dallas
88 Pier 1 Imports 836 1,897.9 Fort Worth
89 Rush Enterprises 845 1,864.8 New Braunfels
90 Quanta Services 849 1,858.6 Houston
91 Newfield Exploration 870 1,762.0 Houston
92 Service Corp. Intl. 879 1,738.5 Houston
93 Men's Wearhouse 887 1,724.9 Houston
94 HCC Insurance Holdings 918 1,644.3 Houston
95 Kinder Morgan 932 1,594.5 Houston
96 ExpressJet Holdings 942 1,562.8 Houston
97 Alliance Data Systems 946 1,552.4 Dallas
98 Oil States International 953 1,531.6 Houston
99 Belo 962 1,521.2 Dallas
100 Pogo Producing 978 1,478.5 Houston
101 BMC Software 984 1,463.0 Houston
102 AmeriCredit 988 1,450.8 Fort Worth
From the April 17th, 2006 issue

[G Lee]

Dallas and Houston will always have more tall buildings than Austin but Austin's skyline is undergoing a more dramatic change. Dallas' tallest building was completed in 1985.

[KevinFromTexas]

Austin's seeing some impressive proposals, but they haven't all broken ground yet.

Dallas right now is building a 650 foot hotel/residential tower and has a proposal for another tower that is said to be 560 feet, though I think it might actually be taller according to the renderings. They also have one proposal which may end up being a 700 foot tower. Houston had the first 600+ foot skyscraper built in the state since 1987 back in 2001, and now it looks like they'll be getting another 630 foot tower. There's also a proposal for one that could end up being over 800 feet tall.

With The Austonian breaking ground, Texas will be the first state to have 3 or more cities with buildings at or above 600 feet tall. We already have more cities with buildings over 500 feet with 5 and 7 cities with buildings over 400 feet, soon to be 8 with South Padre Island building a new tallest. Come on El Paso, wink, wink, nudge, nudge.