YakuzaIce

I'm a bit surprised how close we could get. Though I guess the building isn't especially big. Still though, it was about half the distance of the last couple demolitions I went to. And my video since I seem to have been in the wrong thread before.

Well, today was the day they demolished the Ben Milam Hotel. Fairly light turnout compared to some other demolitions, but it didn't seem to have as high a profile. Kind of a shame they couldn't make some use of it, it only takes up about an eighth of the site. Here is the video I took. Before. What is left of the sign on the north corner. Looking down Preston St. afterwards.

Pretty sure he's just saying that a golf course is a very inefficient use of open space. There are only 48 tee times a day for a maximum of 4 people. Even if every time is taken with the largest party possible, that is only 192 people per day (although it could be more with the driving range and other ammenities). So even assuming it operates at maximum capacity year round, the zoo still averages 22.8 times more people per day despite using less than half the space. As a comparison Discovery Green saw an average of 850,000 visitors per year in its first two years ("over 4 million" since it opened, but I don't know as of when.), and that's just a 12 acre park. While it's nice to have a golf course so close into the city, I have to agree that it is wasted space in its current form.

I was really surprised at the number of people that were there. Far more than the Prudential building a few months back. Of course the weather was better, and I don't know how many hundreds or thousands were watching from the surrounding hospitals for Prudential. Here's the video I took of it. The demo jumped the gun a bit compared to the countdown.

Well the number of people viewing if from a distance would vastly outweigh those directly underneath it. Also I'm fairly sure the distance to be able to see the spire would at most be around a hundred feet away. It's not my money, but it seems silly to sacrifice the aesthetics to save $20 million on a $3.8 billion tower.

Was going to say it will probably be finished eventually since the foundation was made for a large building... Then I remembered the Metlife North Building. Nearly 80 years later and it was never finished. Of course it's probably more expensive to build an Art Deco tower than a glass and steel building these days.

Some pictures from this morning. Seems that it's topped out, and the cladding will probably be going on soon.

From this morning, there is some equipment on site now.

Pictures from this morning. This one seems to be going up pretty quickly.

Some updates from this morning. They seem to be about a floor and a half higher than the last pics.

(Full size http://i.minus.com/ilbhOk6Julk8r.JPG ) And, what it used to look like.

Much bigger crowd than I was expecting for early on a Sunday morning. Although it wasn't that early by the time it finally came down. Here's a video of the demolition. Also some pictures Around 9:30 can't see a damn thing Fog has cleared up, can see the full building now (I have a lot more and in higher resolutions if anyone is interested). The aftermath as people flee the dust cloud.

Main Place is quite a bit bigger at 973k square feet. Discovery tower is just a bit under 900k square feet. I don't think this will end up being very tall. Especially being on a 5 acre lot. Although the streets surrounding it are private and I believe they are partially included as part of the lot. A very rough estimate for the area they would be building on would be around 138,000 sq ft. A good chunk of that could be taken up with drop-off areas or landscaping though.

They also assume the trains are going to be self powered. Or more likely forgot to shop in the overhead lines. There isn't even enough room for the cars as they seem to be driving through the bushes.

Some pictures from this morning. Tower crane is still being put together. The back of the lot seems to have gotten underway.