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

[The ATX]

Originally Posted by drummer

Now, now...let's not turn this into a "who has the crappiest pictures" contest.

I just drove by the Fairmont around 11:00PM. At least those guys took pictures. I didn't stop because it was drizzling, and I didn't want to get damp.

[KevinFromTexas]

This thing looks like a giant walkie-talkie. Those tiered sections really emphasized it. It really would be great if it could change colors. I'm usually cautious about going nuts with lots of color changing LEDs, but it would look striking and totally different from anything else on the skyline. I'm also really hoping that they light the mechanical screen on the roof. Right now with just the spire lit it looks strangely dark up there, but if the mechanical screen was lit it would elegant and would be one of the best lighting jobs so far.

[drummer]

Cast your votes on what should be on top of the spire:

a) a lone star
b) a bat
c) an electric guitar
d) an armadillo
e) a cowboy hat
f) a full-on cowboy on a bucking horse
g) a pedi-cab
h) a hipster (or just an iPhone)
i) a longhorn
j) a outline of Texas
k) a blind salamander
l) a bicycle (road bike or otherwise)
m) <<enter your own idea because I'm out of my own>>

Please, please...only one vote per person. Let's keep this civilized.

[wwmiv]

m) an invisibility cloak.

[The ATX]

Originally Posted by wwmiv

m) an invisibility cloak.

That was really good.

My main complaint about the spire is not so much that it exists, but because they didn't add five feet and call this a 600 foot tower. Was there a meeting where they compared renderings and decided to go with a 595' height because it looked better than 600'?

[wwmiv]

Originally Posted by The ATX

That was really good.

Did I win something?

[drummer]

Originally Posted by wwmiv

Did I win something?

Bragging rights, I suppose. I didn't think up any sort of prize, sorry.

[Geckos_Rule]

m) Have the spire make a 90 degree angle, so the whole building looks like a juicebox

[AusTxDevelopment]

Originally Posted by Geckos_Rule

m) Have the spire make a 90 degree angle, so the whole building looks like a juicebox

[Jdawgboy]

It's horrible. Not only is it the wrong kind of lighting, the spire itself looks terrible. Time to e-mail Manchester to complain that if they can't spend the effort to put up LEDs, then they might as well take the spire down.

[KevinFromTexas]

One possibility is that this lighting is only temporary and was put in place to satisfy FAA laws. Now that the crane is down there wouldn't have been any lighting in the airspace above the building. The only reason I say this is that if this was the finished product on the spire that it should also have a red aircraft warning light on the spire, but it doesn't have that yet. I'm also not sure this is the full height of the spire. It's supposed to be 144 feet tall.

Maybe AusTxDevelopment could take his whirly bird up for a closer look.

[lzppjb]

Yeah, I don't think it's done. It doesn't look 144 feet tall.

[Sigaven]

Also, the renderings show the spire being completely smooth from bottom to top (as opposed to telescoping as it appears to be doing so) - maybe what we see is just the under-structure and there will be a final cladding that goes over it?

edit: see below

[The ATX]

That's from the portfolio of the Block 185 rendering architect. I don't know if we can trust that rendering to be the actual one.

[JoninATX]

If I'm not mistaking, a while back before The Fairmont got started someone mentioned a helicopter would carry the last segment of the spire to top it off?

[The ATX]

Originally Posted by JoninATX

If I'm not mistaking, a while back before The Fairmont got started someone mentioned a helicopter would carry the last segment of the spire to top it off?

I remember that. But it was only speculation.

[gabetx]

Hey lets be positive here... At least we will have THE walkie-talkie tower of Texas! It is the signature tower that we were never hoping for.

[drummer]

Originally Posted by Geckos_Rule

m) Have the spire make a 90 degree angle, so the whole building looks like a juicebox

Originally Posted by gabetx

Hey lets be positive here... At least we will have THE walkie-talkie tower of Texas! It is the signature tower that we were never hoping for.

Haha, these are great.

[H2O]

Originally Posted by gabetx

Hey lets be positive here... At least we will have THE walkie-talkie tower of Texas! It is the signature tower that we were never hoping for.

What's a walkie-talkie? Is that like a cell phone?

[drummer]

Originally Posted by H2O

What's a walkie-talkie? Is that like a cell phone?

It's kind of like a walkman, I think.