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To all of you who don't know, a skyscraper boom is beginning to start in the UK with the building of our 1st 1000ft skyscraper in London, due for completion in 2012!
My question is...will the US begin another skyscraper boom? I know a lot of projects have been cancelled in recent times but do you know any big plans in any of your cities?
and do you think your skyline in your city will change in the next few years??
I know! I feel as though the new world trade centre will be the sign of new skyscrapers to come! to show that, whatever happens to america, they will bounce back!
Location: Austin, TX/Chicago, IL/Houston, TX/Washington, DC
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It doesn't necessarily work that way here in the United States though.
In the United States there are two models cities follow when it comes to Skyscraper Construction:
- Building off speculation
- Building off demand for newer developments and all existing occupied
- Building off speculation: This concept really applies to Miami the most and the other cities in Florida as well. Which is why their economy especially housing has seen such a drastic hit that it could take a long time to recover. Yes, Miami got itself a world class sized skyline last decade but it came with a price. It built out of speculation and what they thought consumers would purchase due to high levels of growth and relatively affordable market in a place with more desirable weather than where transplants were coming from (Snow covered areas). When the housing bubble burst, Miami saw itself depreciating its property values and people lost a lot of money via investments from that. Today Miami sits there with vacant towers and condos that it cant get rid of even with extremely cheap prices (Right now compared to before). Yes, Miami has a fabulous skyline it can boost about but the price its had to pay is just staggering.
Other cities that built on speculation: Las Vegas, Fort Lauderdale, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Orlando, Jacksonville, Austin, and a few others. And you can notice with the exception of Austin, all of the others have been hit hard from the housing bubble collapse. Los Angeles, Miami, & Atlanta had a few projects up that have either been canceled due to the state of the economy or postponed indefinitely such as Wilshire (supposed to become Los Angeles's tallest building) and for Atlanta it was the Trump Tower Hotel. & Met 2 in Miami which was completely scrapped, which was supposed to be a extremely tall building. Numerous other building plans like that have been done away with.
- Building off demand and limitations from existing buildings: This type of city like New York City, Philadelphia, Boston, Houston, Chicago and a few others only build skyscrapers off the fact that demand is needed for them. As in when their downtown vacancy rates or when they securing enough leasing room and tenants they proceed to build a skyscraper to suit needs. They build because they have to, they don't build because economically it would be a sound investment in the future without the back up any committed tenants or financiers.
Other cities like this are: San Francisco, San Antonio, Cincinnati, Detroit, Seattle, Boston, Houston, Philadelphia, New York City, Chicago, Baltimore, among others.
So yes the recession for many places seems to be drawing a close, but I suspect with the way the American Housing market is, which was the PRIMARY drive to the skyscraper booms as seen in across the United States last decade that we wont be resuming any large scale skyscraper building in our cities with the exception of a few (Those being the ones that are fast growing and economically healthy- Austin, Houston, Raleigh, Fort Worth, San Diego (fastest recovery in California), Denver, Seattle, & Washington DC Metropolitan Area). I do know New York City has ambitious plans that are underway as we speak. And Philadelphia, San Francisco, & Houston have plenty of plans of their own that are underway or will be in the very near future, but most of America is at a halt right now. And I suspect it will be the case for another 2-4 years more until we're steady in a state of health that existed Pre-Great Recession.
With the housing crash, I also suspect it demoralized the ethics of skyscraper booms in many cities like Miami & Las Vegas both of which in the future will be more cautious about building more buildings than acquiring demand for all of them. I think its safe to say for the first half of the decade we wont be seeing an insanely rapid skyscraper boom in most places in the United States, and especially in areas that built off speculation.
Location: Austin, TX/Chicago, IL/Houston, TX/Washington, DC
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Min-Chi-Cbus
There was a TON of residential spec in Chicago, though.
Yes but most of Chicago's skyscrapers while many were residential especially in the South Loop, most were for business use. As in demanded from higher tenants and new corporations and businesses.
Chicago is a bit of a hybrid city in many ways. It's not a fast booming city like the sunbelt but for Chicago residentials were spurred by the concept of infill more or less than anything else.
I'm not exactly sure what you are referring to, but my parents lived in Chicago for almost 10 years until they moved to San Francisco last year, and they had a hell of a time selling their condo and a big reason was because many of the new spec towers in the area that were recently build were less than 50% occupied. Some spec buildings went up with less than 20%-30% pre-sales! Developers totally overreached during the housing boom and many of the buildings still stand mostly vacant.
Location: Austin, TX/Chicago, IL/Houston, TX/Washington, DC
10,138 posts, read 16,007,138 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Min-Chi-Cbus
I'm not exactly sure what you are referring to, but my parents lived in Chicago for almost 10 years until they moved to San Francisco last year, and they had a hell of a time selling their condo and a big reason was because many of the new spec towers in the area that were recently build were less than 50% occupied. Some spec buildings went up with less than 20%-30% pre-sales! Developers totally overreached during the housing boom and many of the buildings still stand mostly vacant.
We're talking about two very different things. I was saying that yes Chicago has definitely built a lot of condo and residential towers especially in South Loop this past decade. But I was also saying that Chicago has built way more office buildings than it has residential buildings in the last decade. And Chicago only built those office buildings off demand because it needed to do that, where the office vacancy rates for last decade showed Chicago had to build more to keep up with expansions in businesses or new businesses altogether moving into the Loop.
As for residential, I agree. Chicago is like Miami there, it has been on a strong focus to infill more and to infill faster, and it built those in speculation, the whole "if we build some attractive towers, with lower costs, in a desirable area of the city, more people will come here and will supply a larger hosuing boom!'. That mentality is just dumb, and areas that have done that on a larger scale like the entire city where almost all the buildings built in the city were residential built off speculation, like Miami, Fort Lauderdale, and others they haven't been having a great time during this recession at all. And those residential towers are sitting empty, vacant, not used... that's the sad reality of it all.
Skyscrapers Built From 2000-2010:
New York City = 517
Chicago = 203
Miami = 135
Houston = 74
Atlanta = 73
Las Vegas = 68
San Francisco = 49
Los Angeles = 27
Miami & Las Vegas look impressive don't they given their size. But all those skyscrapers built, how many of those from either city do you think were actually for office or business use? Not many of them were.
Majority of the ones built in Miami & Las Vegas were for residential use. Majority for New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, & Houston were for office and business use with a smaller share in residential.
Los Angeles & Atlanta were about even in residential & business or office use skyscrapers.
If there were any cities that I didn't its mainly because most cities added less building than these cities which have added the most in the last decade as compared to all of the other cities in the country. I do love how some cities like Austin, Miami, & Jacksonville started to alter and change the look of their skylines.
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