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Bank Of America Tower At 800 Capitol St.


barracuda

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So I was at Imagine this past saturday at GRB which is the TSA (Texas Society of Architects) Design Expo. Went to a lecture of sorts which talked about the building in some detail particularly about it's design intent as well as it's incredible LEED Platinum pre-certification. I want y'all to know that this building is going to be awesome! They really made this the Cadillac of spec buildings lol, but at the same time it should be very much affordable for tenets. It's also leading the charge nationally in terms of how people persue the newest version of LEED which is LEED v4. It will be one of only 3 buildings in America that will be classified as LEED Platinum under this new version which is only in Beta trails. That's a pretty big deal. Those distinctions alone will set it miles apart from other buildings downtown which will make it very attractive to tenets. It's presence at street level is going to be fabulous. I'm sure all of you have seen the renders of the two level open space that is at street level down to the tunnels. That's something that no building in downtown has approached the tunnel system in that way. It also has retail on street level. This one will be awesome to see when it's finished!

 

I like hearing that. Great news. The building's body seems a little flat / simple to me, but we will see. This sounds like this is still very much happening. Good for Houston.

 

Side bar: Will this building kill 6 Houston Center?

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I like hearing that. Great news. The building's body seems a little flat / simple to me, but we will see. This sounds like this is still very much happening. Good for Houston.

 

Side bar: Will this building kill 6 Houston Center?

 

Its generally flat to maximize space. I think people often forget that we have pretty small sized city blocks in downtown so it certainly limits what can be done sometimes. In this case it's a spec building so you have to maximize the space where you can. Apparently they looked several different configurations including some stair step looks, but settle on something like what is now the final design. Often times as designers you have to chose where you are going to have your most impact. Sometimes in architectural discussions you will hear the term thrown around called a "big move" which is essentially a key moment in a design that they chose to concentrate on to have the greatest impact. This building's big move is it's bottom floor, grand space that leads into the tunnel system, and maximizing the street presence of the bottom floor. They did try to work some stuff for the actual tower portion. What will breakup the facade a little bit are thin vertical fins that will go along the building from top to bottom which will act as solar shading. This should give the building an interesting look in the morning and afternoon, but we will have to see. Most renders have shown it only in Daytime or Night and not Dusk or Dawn.

 

As far as killing 6 Houston center...no. Office buildings each have their uniqueness to it or reason why they draw tenets. Sometimes its simply the brand of a starchitect who designed it, or a radically unique design concept, maximized floor space, amenities, etc... In this case the selling point of this building will be its LEED accreditation and other green components. So for instance if you run a company that is very environmentally conscious and you want to project that value in terms of where you work. This will be the place for you. Both buildings will serve different clientele. 

Edited by Luminare
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It would be wonderful if this could be done by the Super Bowl along with 609 Main and the host of other projects Downtown.  

 

I hope we will have at least a few buildings still under construction downtown come Super Bowl, that way all those that come to this city will see how fast we are growing and not assume the completed buildings have been there all along.

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will they build the garage in this location, then when finished, demolish the still standing garage, then build the tower where the current garage still sits?

 

That is what was explained at one point.

 

The still standing garage has a massive gash in the top of the roof/wall among other holes after the implosion. Maybe they are waiting until the cleanup is done to repair that, but I don't think the garage is yet operational again.

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The still standing garage is operational, just not to the general public.  Some but not all of the debris was taken off the roof; what's left looks like it's stable.  The wall with the holes is just some temporary CMU; I suspect that they won't be fixed due to a combination of the building not being long for this world and the holes being located away from where they're actually parking cars.

 

I'm just hoping that they open the Pennzoil / Esperson tunnel connection back up when the new garage is up, and before completion of the entire project.  It's doable - shoot, back when the Woolworth's building at Main and McKinney was torn down, the tunnel remained open with the same sort of plywood cover that usually goes on sidewalks.

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  • 3 weeks later...

There is still a bunch of digging out of very massive concrete foundation pieces and crunching them to rubble.  We are now past the Satisfying Large Easy Things.

 

Trust me, if you're nearby you have no illusions whatsoever.  Work is going on.

Edited by mollusk
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From the 4Q 2014 Development Update:

 

Skanska plans at a future date to construct Capitol Tower on the former Houston Club Building site. In the meantime, construction continues on a 7-story parking garage with est completion of 4Q15. After a decision to proceed with the new tower is made, Skanska will expand the garage to ten floors and build the tower. See website and video.
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