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Bank Of America Tower At 800 Capitol St.


barracuda

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I wonder how some of the interior offices look in our buildings. Do some exist in our taller and bigger "prized" towers that still have the typical ceiling tiles and old carpet? If they build this tower, I wonder how the price per square foot will compete with dated interior spaces, and if it would prompt smaller space renters (law firms), to fill up this one? Look what happened to BG Group. I know BG Group took a nice chunk but the rest of the available square footage filled up quickly. In 2008.

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Montrose1100, my company leased a couple floors of BG Group Place.  They didn't really bother building it out, though, so it's just bare concrete ceilings and pillars, plus rusty fire sprinkler pipes and fluorescent lights hanging by wires from the ceiling.  The HVAC system is fully exposed with all the insulated ducts that are supposed to be hidden by a drop ceiling.  I guess they are going for the industrial look.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I understand and respect Skanska's reasons for postponing the project because of the questionable economic environment, but I'm just disappointed that we're only getting a seven story parking garage for now in such a prime spot, especially because I feel like the building that they ripped down had potential to be converted into pretty cool residential units. I hope they are able to eventually find a lead tenant because I really like their proposal.

 

I agree.  It really gripes me that one of the most beautiful old buildings in the center of downtown was torn down to make way for a freakin' parking garage.  I realize the project is "postponed", but some of those postponements can last for decades (Bank of the Southwest Tower, Lamar Hotel block, etc).  

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I always thought of the old building as just sort of inoffensively there, but not anything remarkable. The Travis side had nice uniform slab canyon effect between this, Chase, and Esperson that was cool apart from the usually defunct club/restaurant space.  The Rusk side looked more run down.

 

I suppose they could have tried to make use of the residential incentives in a conversion, but that option was on the table before they started ripping things up and they chose not to take it. Given the thickness of the old building, I wonder if they would have had a hard time designing apartment space that would not have been either huge or windowless. 

 

Either they misjudged the risk of the grander project, or they are ok with waiting it out and building the tower someday, maybe. 

 

 

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No accounting for taste, I guess... but that building was mostly a parking garage before it was torn down.  It was the literal and spiritual predecessor of 601 Travis, right down to housing a parking garage, Texas Commerce Bank's backroom operations, and a private club up top.  Skanska's predecessor was having trouble giving away offices in there.

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All this labor for a parking garage. <_<

 

I know.  It makes my nose bleed just thinking about it.  

 

 

Since it's just a parking garage in the rear section, what are they going to do with the half-block facing Capitol?  Surface parking?  What about the tunnel connections to Chase Tower?

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I know.  It makes my nose bleed just thinking about it.  

 

 

Since it's just a parking garage in the rear section, what are they going to do with the half-block facing Capitol?  Surface parking?  What about the tunnel connections to Chase Tower?

 

I have no insight on the plan here, but they are drilling pilings around the perimeter of the block all the way out to the Capitol St. side (where the demolition continues).  You can see the gaps in the "tub" for tunnel connections to Pennzoil and Esperson. Once they get the hole dug the rest of the way down, I suspect you will see the same on that side. Whether they make provisions to accommodate the big lobby to tunnel thing in the rendering for an eventual tower atop whatever they build first, who knows, that whole design may be out the window at this point.

 

The squinty eyes in grady's post's smiley makes me think grady is suspecting that it might not be just a garage. In the case that a base is built that can accommodate a tower later, they would obviously have to build the foundation right the first time, though maybe Purdue can tell us if it would foul up the whole thing to build a foundation to hold the weight of a big tower only to partially load it for a number of years before pressing on with the final design.

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I'm not clutching my pearls just yet.  Skanska is still actively marketing the office component; my guess is that since the office market is taking a pause they've reorganized the project path and schedule to do all of the parking garage component first, rather than just half of it, in order to start getting some cash coming in.  The garage was always planned as a podium taking up the entire block for floors 2 - 11; all of the office space is above it.  With that, there's no readily apparent reason why the lobby and tunnel levels wouldn't be built out as planned.  Granted, it's a glorious lobby for a parking structure.

 

Another wild guess is that Those Whose Parking Shall Not Be Disturbed are perhaps a bit annoyed at having to use umbrellas to get around downtown, and were willing to sacrifice the parking to get their tunnel connections back.

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From what I hear, Skanska will construct the base of the tower to street level. I don't believe they are committed as of yet to go any further. I guess by doing this, they can connect into the tunnel system and control water and drainage on the site.

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I'm not clutching my pearls just yet.  Skanska is still actively marketing the office component; my guess is that since the office market is taking a pause they've reorganized the project path and schedule to do all of the parking garage component first, rather than just half of it, in order to start getting some cash coming in.  The garage was always planned as a podium taking up the entire block for floors 2 - 11; all of the office space is above it.  With that, there's no readily apparent reason why the lobby and tunnel levels wouldn't be built out as planned.  Granted, it's a glorious lobby for a parking structure.

 

Another wild guess is that Those Whose Parking Shall Not Be Disturbed are perhaps a bit annoyed at having to use umbrellas to get around downtown, and were willing to sacrifice the parking to get their tunnel connections back.

 

Ah, thanks.  I didn't realize that the garage took up the entire block.  So it will end up as large parking garage with a very grand lobby, for a parking garage.  

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I drove past the site last week when I was Houston. Man is that block massive! Also as I stated before, Skanska will build Capitol Tower as they are committed to the project. It's just a matter of when.

Edited by JoninATX
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I drove past the site last week when I was Houston. Man is that block massive! Also as I stated before, Skanska will build Capitol Tower as they are committed to the project. It's just a matter of when.

 

?

 

It's pretty much the same size as almost every other block downtown... (and our blocks are relatively small)

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?

It's pretty much the same size as almost every other block downtown... (and our blocks are relatively small)

From a perspective, it looked pretty big. I believe Houston blocks are a little larger than Austin if I'm not mistaken.

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Ah, thanks. I didn't realize that the garage took up the entire block. So it will end up as large parking garage with a very grand lobby, for a parking garage.

I'm okay with this for the mean time.. That lobby was the best part of the project, so I'm really just excited about that street level/tunnel interaction. Heh

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