2nd Book Tower? (Detroit, Cadillac, Empire: construction, costs, architecture)

[City of Motor]

Originally, there were plans for a second Book tower, which would be about 200 ft lower than the Empire state building. Instead, the depression buried the plans far below city planning.
I think we should construct it now. Screw the modern glass exterior. Do it classic-style like the first one!
I think it could put Detroit on the skyscraper Map. For anyone not familiar with the tower...

[Osito57]

There's a massive glut of office space in downtown Detroit. Why would you build so much space in a half-empty office district?

[MTUCache]

Originally Posted by City of Motor

Originally, there were plans for a second Book tower, which would be about 200 ft lower than the Empire state building. Instead, the depression buried the plans far below city planning.
I think we should construct it now. Screw the modern glass exterior. Do it classic-style like the first one!
I think it could put Detroit on the skyscraper Map. For anyone not familiar with the tower...

Money. No developer (or bank for that matter) would approve financing for this. Even if it was built at 50% of cost you wouldn't be able to make money on that space right now.

Second, there's a reason why buildings today are built the way they are. People didn't just stop making classic art-deco buildings because they didn't like the style anymore. It's because it's expensive, difficult, and labor-intensive. Modern steel and pre-fab buildings go up exponentially quicker and far cheaper. No one is willing to pay extra based on durability, and there aren't many who are willing to pay extra based on style.

Lastly, if being anywhere on the "skyscraper map" mattered to anyone, there'd be plenty of other cities out there doing this right now. Chicago's Sears tower wouldn't have just gotten re-named, and they'd probably start working again on the empty foundation of the Spire.

Believe me, there's already plenty of multi-100million dollar investments in Detroit that have already been stalled (Bloomfield Park anyone?). Even thinking about another one would make everyone but the construction workers cringe.

Sorry, I don't mean to make any assumptions about you or put words in your mouth, but it's opinions like this that really frustrate me. Yes, the Book is a neat building. So was Tiger Stadium. Yes, some sort of history should be preserved, and I can stomach mosts forms of nostalgia.... but this just smacks of naivety. Right now we need progress that makes a positive difference for this city, not progress just for progress' sake, "progresss" that just costs more people more money and doesn't really get us anything. Saving (or in this case, building) historical buildings is a nice idea, but it makes absolutely zero financial sense. Plus, it's just not that neat of a building. Sure, it's great, and it can be called one of the "jewels" of Detroit, but it's not ground-breakingly significant, it's not a watershed moment in architecture.

[City of Motor]

Originally Posted by MTUCache

Money. No developer (or bank for that matter) would approve financing for this. Even if it was built at 50% of cost you wouldn't be able to make money on that space right now.

Second, there's a reason why buildings today are built the way they are. People didn't just stop making classic art-deco buildings because they didn't like the style anymore. It's because it's expensive, difficult, and labor-intensive. Modern steel and pre-fab buildings go up exponentially quicker and far cheaper. No one is willing to pay extra based on durability, and there aren't many who are willing to pay extra based on style.

Lastly, if being anywhere on the "skyscraper map" mattered to anyone, there'd be plenty of other cities out there doing this right now. Chicago's Sears tower wouldn't have just gotten re-named, and they'd probably start working again on the empty foundation of the Spire.

Believe me, there's already plenty of multi-100million dollar investments in Detroit that have already been stalled (Bloomfield Park anyone?). Even thinking about another one would make everyone but the construction workers cringe.

Sorry, I don't mean to make any assumptions about you or put words in your mouth, but it's opinions like this that really frustrate me. Yes, the Book is a neat building. So was Tiger Stadium. Yes, some sort of history should be preserved, and I can stomach mosts forms of nostalgia.... but this just smacks of naivety. Right now we need progress that makes a positive difference for this city, not progress just for progress' sake, "progresss" that just costs more people more money and doesn't really get us anything. Saving (or in this case, building) historical buildings is a nice idea, but it makes absolutely zero financial sense. Plus, it's just not that neat of a building. Sure, it's great, and it can be called one of the "jewels" of Detroit, but it's not ground-breakingly significant, it's not a watershed moment in architecture.

Well that would explain the Cadillac Centre.
Still, It was an idea, I had found out that there were those plans. I didn't know a bunch of people would shoot it down so fast.