New San Antonio Downtown (Houston, Austin: lofts, luxury, live in)

[Metalmike]

Thanks.The views are fantastic!

[oldmanshirt]

Thanks for the link. Although the Vistana does look nice, I just can't help imagining how much cooler it would be if it was a slender 30 story instead of yet another low-profile "high rise".

[FastFerrari]

man...thanx for the link..even though im not in town ne more i can keep up with the progress...is that another tower crane in downtown SA...watch out Chicago...lol..jk

[imaterry78259]

Stop sugar coating it-SA downtown skyline sucks for a city this size. It is about the same size as DT Shreveport, La

[oldmanshirt]

Originally Posted by imaterry78259

Stop sugar coating it-SA downtown skyline sucks for a city this size. It is about the same size as DT Shreveport, La

I don't see Shreveport's 750ft observation tower, two (soon to be three) Marriotts, two Hyatts, Tower Life Building, and Alamodome. . . where are they?

That being said, anybody who has read any of my posts knows I secretly agree with the first part of your statement. I (partially) satisfy my need to see a dense skyline when I'm sitting at the Starcrest - Jones-Maltsberger intersection (where I always get a red light no matter which direction I'm going ). All the buildings along 410 around the airport make for quite a nice view. Then of course you have the I-10 corridor and the Medical Center a few miles west.

This is one reason SA takes time to appreciate and can't be judged just by looking at pictures.

P.S. Does Shreveport have a riverwalk??

P.P.S. I forgot our world-class convention center and Enchilada Red Downtown Library

[tgannaway89]

Who is sugar coating anything? We all know that San Antonio lacks a lot of massive buildings downtown. Just because we follow what is going on in San Antonio does not qualify as "sugar coating".

[adtobias]

sa can use more highrise buildings

[Insomniac]

Vistana - 17 stories

[oldmanshirt]

The odd thing about SA is not that it doesn't have lots of big buildings, because it does. For instance, the USAA complex is home to more than 4 million square feet of office space. Guess which other building has around 4 million square feet? The Sears Tower. Because it's spread out over a campus, it's difficult to envision what it would look like if USAA had built a high-rise downtown. Based on the gross square footage of what they did build, however, it's not difficult to fathom an 800-1000 ft. tall tower dominating SA's skyline instead of a Pentagon-style complex on a former horse farm in NW SA.

There's also a trend of large buildings being built in what appear to be multiple segments which combine to form a wide building instead of a tall slender one. One example I can think of is the Towers on Park Lane at Ft. Sam Houston (which is SA's tallest building outside downtown). At 368ft, the building is plenty tall, but its nearly as wide as it is tall, so you could easily split it in half and stack one half on top of the other and have a 700+ft tower that would have very pleasing proportions.

Do the same thing with the Grand Hyatt and you'd have a 70 story. There's also One International Centre at 281/410 that appears to be divided into 5 segments. The tallest of these segments is 213 ft, so at the very least if you stacked all the segments you'd end up in the 600-700 foot range.

There's other examples, including Tetco tower near 410/35, the Valero campus, and the numerous buildings along 410 east of the airport that lie in a flightpath and thus had to be split into two buildings.

Chalk it up to SA-style architecture, or the weird rules in the city that govern building height, but SA has for several decades now built low and wide instead of slender and tall. Hopefully that will change someday.

[imaterry78259]

Why does Austin get all the high rises downtown?