Your Your city's tallest unbuilt projects

[Comrade]

Originally Posted by The North One

Wow, that would have been so cool if it actually ended up looking like that, the design is so cyberpunk. Don't really like the PoMo bottom though.

lmao the bottom is the only design that really lived on - as Phase I of the Triad Center, which was built during one of the first phases of the project, is still there:

[plinko]

That SLC tower design is pretty similar to the Korean Life Insurance Building in Seoul, I wonder which was first? Both are somewhat derivative of the Georgia Pacific Center in Atlanta. Heavy and ominous looking.

[bflatflat9]

Originally Posted by Atlas

SLC had some big proposals (compared to its current towers) in the 80s that never materialized.

Phase II of the Triad Center:



which actually would eventually have had a twin:



More information from an old SSP post here.

There was also the Block 57 office tower (terrible splice from an old documentary):



We got the One Utah Center, Wells Fargo Center, and Gallivan Plaza instead.

Damn!, haven't seen that photo of the block 57 tower in decades, or so it seems. That was the old J.C. Penney site where One Utah is at. It was proposed at 50 stories.
And the Triad Center...shit...they had steel beams on site, after the "groundbreaking", which was strange, since they hadn't even started digging yet. Ahh,,..Khashoggi.

[CaliNative]

I couldn't find the link, but about 25-30 years ago "The Donald" proposed building the world's tallest building in L.A., on Wilshire Blvd. in Koreatown. I recall it was to be about 120 stories. Never built. Maybe somebody could post a picture. I was well covered in the L.A. Times etc. Not even a shovel of dirt was moved. Instead, a high school was built.

[The North One]

Originally Posted by Comrade

lmao the bottom is the only design that really lived on - as Phase I of the Triad Center, which was built during one of the first phases of the project, is still there:

Oh... yuck.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by CaliNative

I couldn't find the link, but about 25-30 years ago "The Donald" proposed building the world's tallest building in L.A., on Wilshire Blvd. in Koreatown. I recall it was to be about 120 stories. Never built. Maybe somebody could post a picture. I was well covered in the L.A. Times etc. Not even a shovel of dirt was moved. Instead, a high school was built.

I vaguely remember that. He also proposed one in lower Manhattan a while ago as well.

[(four 0 four)]

There was a mid-80's proposal by (I think) a relative to Mayor Andrew Young for a world's tallest in Atlanta called, cleverly enough, Atlanta Tower. It was going to be a world trade mart. I wasn't able to come up with a rendering with an online search but I think I remember it was shaped like a spire.

From Emporis:
Proposed in 1986 to have been the world's tallest building.
It would have contained 5.3 million square feet of office and exhibition space.
The building was scrapped because its height would have dwarfed the surrounding skyline.

Height (tip) 2,014.44 ft
Height (architectural) 2,014.44 ft
Height (roof) 2,014.44 ft
Floors (above ground) 130
Construction start 1987
Construction end 1990

[plinko]

Originally Posted by CaliNative

I couldn't find the link, but about 25-30 years ago "The Donald" proposed building the world's tallest building in L.A., on Wilshire Blvd. in Koreatown. I recall it was to be about 120 stories. Never built. Maybe somebody could post a picture. I was well covered in the L.A. Times etc. Not even a shovel of dirt was moved. Instead, a high school was built.

It was designed by Richard Keating. There used to be a thread, but I cannot find it now. I have some scans of what it would have looked like at home.

[Hindentanic]

Alamo Heroes Monument, San Antonio, Texas


(Photo from MySanAntonio courtesy Arcadia Publishing Downtown San Antonio)

Proposed in 1912, this 802-foot monument would have been the tallest man-made structure then in the United States and the second tallest in the world after the Eiffel Tower, dwarfing the actual Alamo at its base. The Washington Monument is only a mere 555 feet in height, and even San Antonio's own Tower of the Americas from 1968 is only 750 feet tall. The public fundraising drive by the Alamo Heroes Monument Association never quite gathered the then estimated $2 million (over $55 million in 2021 dollars) they believe would be required to build the monument. They were probably low-balling the estimate, as the shorter, 792-foot Woolworth Building that did actually open in 1912 then cost $13.5 million, or over $371.6 million in 2021 dollars. I wonder how much monument funding was really raised and where did it all ultimately go.

A much smaller Alamo Cenotaph was sculpted and built for the Texas Centennial in 1936. Recent proposals to move this monument a few hundred feet as part of a redesign of Alamo Plaza has seemingly sparked a local culture war.



Horizon Hill Center, San Antonio, Texas


(Original image from Arquitectonica, reposted on Twitter by Adam Nathaniel Furman)


(Original image from Arquitectonica, reposted on Twitter by Adam Nathaniel Furman)


(Original image from Arquitectonica, reposted on Twitter by Adam Nathaniel Furman)

Local developer Efraim Abramoff proposed this monster mega-tower and mega-mall development 1982, commissioning Miami-based Arquitectonica to produce a design of four 45-floor towers connected by a giant skybridge, almost 30 before Singapore's Marina Bay Sands' SkyPark and 40 years before Chongqing's Raffles City's Crystal Sky Bridge. Rice University's 1984 winter edition of Cite: The Architecture + Design Review of Houston mentions the project would have boasted 800,000 square feet of office space, a 366-room hotel, a 200,000 square-foot mall, and parking for 2,750 cars. Abramoff claimed at the time that he was negotiating with the FAA regarding airspace obstruction, which suggests the project was several floors over 500 feet in height.

Horizon Hill is over 7 miles outside San Antonio's downtown area and just outside Loop 410 along I-10, so this building would not have much impact on the downtown skyline. However, this somewhat off-scale collage image hints at what impact it might have had if built in the skyscraper district on the north portion of downtown.


(Image posted by desertpunk on SkyscraperCity: "San Antonio Never Built")

Amusingly, the still taller Alamo Heroes Monument would have risen just off the middle right side of that image. Horizon Hill Center would not have been the tallest building in Texas, but if located in downtown it arguably might have been the most overwhelming. It would have had a similarly stupendous impact on the Denman Estate Park and its Gwangju Pavilion, which currently neighbor the Horizon Hill proposed site. This proposal obviously went nowhere, but Arquitectonica did get to design the far less lofty Grand Hyatt San Antonio some 30 years later.

[fonzi]

City Center would've been capped by a 70 story 950 ft tower

https://skyscraperpage.com/forum/sho...ostcount=19038

[Buckeye Native 001]

I'm still holding out hope that one day, the City of Flagstaff and Coconino County will humor me by erecting a 30-story office building in Downtown Flagstaff, where each floor is a different county or city department.

If the feds want in, we can make it even taller! It's a government building, so it can't be too fancy.

Just one giant fucking box (I like Denver's Republic Plaza, so sue me) rising above a bunch of three- and four-story buildings in a city of 70,000. Makes perfect economic and governmental sense.

[TimCity2000]

all i can find is this awful elevation, but in 1987 birmingham had a proposal called "Shepherd Centre", which called for 2 towers (44-stories and 72-stories). not sure the height, but the proposed square footage was around 2.5 million. cost at the time was $200 million. pic courtesy of bhamwiki.com:

[fonzi]

Originally Posted by Buckeye Native 001

I'm still holding out hope that one day, the City of Flagstaff and Coconino County will humor me by erecting a 30-story office building in Downtown Flagstaff, where each floor is a different county or city department.

If the feds want in, we can make it even taller! It's a government building, so it can't be too fancy.

Just one giant fucking box (I like Denver's Republic Plaza, so sue me) rising above a bunch of three- and four-story buildings in a city of 70,000. Makes perfect economic and governmental sense.

Lots of 5-6 story apartment blocks popping up all over, but I agree. Even a 10-15 story condo or office bldg downtown isn't asking much...but apparently is.

[Dariusb]

Originally Posted by CaliNative

I couldn't find the link, but about 25-30 years ago "The Donald" proposed building the world's tallest building in L.A., on Wilshire Blvd. in Koreatown. I recall it was to be about 120 stories. Never built. Maybe somebody could post a picture. I was well covered in the L.A. Times etc. Not even a shovel of dirt was moved. Instead, a high school was built.

I bet now looking back, citizens are glad nothing connected to him was built there.

[plinko]

Originally Posted by CaliNative

I couldn't find the link, but about 25-30 years ago "The Donald" proposed building the world's tallest building in L.A., on Wilshire Blvd. in Koreatown. I recall it was to be about 120 stories. Never built. Maybe somebody could post a picture. I was well covered in the L.A. Times etc. Not even a shovel of dirt was moved. Instead, a high school was built.

Found it!


W-AMB01 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr


W-AMB02 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr


W-AMB03 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr


W-AMB04 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr

Source: scanned from Richard Keating, Master Architect II

It would have been built at the Ambassador Hotel site in Koreatown (where RFK was shot). Most of the site is now a high school. For reference purposes, the block tower across the street in the last photo (lower right) is the Equitable Building, 454ft. This thing would have been a beast. The elevation shows 135-140 floors.

[Atlas]

Pretty cool design except for that little graduation cap on the top. Kind of Isengard-esque.

[plinko]

^It's a helipad. Required at the time on all buildings over 150ft in LA. It's the 45 degree rotation that bothers me.

[Comrade]

Originally Posted by plinko

That SLC tower design is pretty similar to the Korean Life Insurance Building in Seoul, I wonder which was first? Both are somewhat derivative of the Georgia Pacific Center in Atlanta. Heavy and ominous looking.

I can see it and I think it's a good representation of what the tower would have looked like (tho, obviously, smaller). I loved that building in SimCity 3000!

To answer your question, the Triad Center had its groundbreaking in 1982. So, two-years after the 63 Building began construction.

The original Triad Center was developed by a Saudi Essam Khashoggi, who was the chairman of the Triad America. They had originally started construction on one of the towers (scaled down to 35 stories) before financial troubles halted construction in 1985 and the project was canceled a year later (with only a smattering of structures built - including the one I showed above).

Khashoggi would later face criminal charges with his wife after it came to light he posed as the owner of California Overseas Bank and stole more than $100 million from the Philippine treasury to buy real estate and art in New York.

He had ties to the state even before this development, as he was one of the original developers of Salt Lake's International Center, an office park built in the 1970s west of downtown by Salt Lake City International Airport.

Even then, he was in trouble, as he wasn't able to attend the groundbreaking of the International Center, as he was avoiding a subpoena by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on a potential illegal arms deal.

He would choose Salt Lake to be the US headquarters of his Triad company.

A really interesting story and it makes me wonder how Salt Lake's skyline would have evolved had this development happened - and the impact it would have had on towers built in the 1990s.

[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by plinko

^It's a helipad. Required at the time on all buildings over 150ft in LA. It's the 45 degree rotation that bothers me.

what? that's a ridiculous requirement. Is that part of why LA's skyline is more anemic than one might expect?

[Buckeye Native 001]

It's why LA's skyline is flat-topped. Then again, the tallest building in the city up until the 1960s or 1970s was city hall, and that was and still is an anomaly (no flat-topped roof).