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I strongly doubt many of the cities you listed have their development as concentrated as Philly. In my opinion, the only city with more concentrated development is DC. Philly is basically building everything in Center City and Ucity. That is necessary to move the needle.
No, Philly's development is actually kind of scattered. Half of the projects now UC are in University City. The tallest is at Cira Center across the river and not in Center City. Many of the proposals are scattered, as well.
I only toot SF's horn when it needs tooting and this is one area where the city can't be beat. There are two adjacent ~4-6 block areas next to the financial district that contain virtually all of the city's high rise construction.
One one corner of the financial district you have TB Tower (61 floors and 1,070 ft), 350 Mission (33 stories, 454 ft), and 181 Fremont (54 floors and 802 ft), with 3 towers proposed for 1st and Mission one block away.
1.5 blocks away is where 535 Mission (27 stories, 380 ft) is topped off. 1 block away from this at 2nd and Howard is where Tishman's 4th tower they have UC in just a year (one is now complete, 3 UC)...222 Second (370 ft and 26 floors).
1 block away from TB Tower/181 Fremont is where 299 Fremont is going up (32 stories). Catty corner to that is Tishman's 2nd major resi project in the area, 2 Architectonica towers now rising above street level (38 and 43 stories). 1 block from both that and 299 Fremont is where 399 Fremont (42 stories) is rising. Across the street is where Equity Residential is about to start another 40 floor building, and catty corner is where Emerald Fund has topped off the 50 story One Rincon Hill North Tower.
And I forgot to mention 45 Lansing earlier! 45 floors, on floor 4 above street level now. This is 1 block away from 3 other towers rising to 40 or greater floors now.
What's happening in SF is Vancouver style development, only taller with more office mixed in. There are so many towers going up in less than a half square mile. There is no more concentration than that. When you drive into the city on the Bay Bridge, you easily see 25-30 cranes in your face. Some of these are building mid-rise resi and office/hospital in Mission Bay to the "left" of you (where a big building just burned down). Some are the resi high rises in SOMA/S FiDi. Some are mid-rises in the middle of the city all the way back to Mid-Market. Some are random.
There are other major projects rising, too, in the city.
2 Liebher Luffing cranes are up for SFMOMA expansion (~150 ft, ~$600M), which is a half block from 222 Second. There are a ton of mid-rise market and below market housing projects going up. One block/corner on Mission has 3 12-20 story buildings rising right now, with a 15 floor hotel going up a block away on Mission as well. Scattered throughout the city are infill projects.
There are also tons of crawler cranes in the middle of the city for the $1.7B Transbay Terminal going up right now, too.
All in all, anyone who has visited SF in the past few months is blown away by all the crap going up. Those of us who love seeing buildings going up walk around with erections all day. Nothing is more concentrated in this country right now.
But Miami would be 2nd most concentrated, followed by Seattle and Austin (Austin by sheer nature of its smaller size).
I know Oakland, SJ, and the Valley have some projects, but I honestly can't keep up or pay attention to anything outside of SF. If one were to add all the sub-20 story buildings, SF's list would be very long (there's one corner in the city with three 12-18 story towers UC right now and a 15 story a couple blocks down the street, for instance).
Of course there are planed demolitions and approved buildings and proposed buildings and recently completed buildings, but I think cranes up and excavation ongoing are the two metrics that should be used for "Buildings Coming Up".
In terms of sheer number of buildings coming up:
NYC
Chicago
Miami
San Francisco
Seattle
Boston
Houston
Philadelphia
Los Angeles
Austin
Atlanta
Dallas
In terms of skyline changing (going up *right now*):
NYC
San Francisco
Los Angeles
Austin
Boston
Miami
Seattle
Philadelphia
Houston
Atlanta
Dallas
I think it's subjective and difficult, but I think there is no question about the top 5 cities for most high rises actually coming out of the ground right now, and I think it's pretty clear the top 4 cities undergoing the largest transformation right now.
I don't agree with this list at all. You underestimate how much construction is going on in Houston at this moment. Literally, that city is #1 for construction and for multi-family units being developed.
I don't agree with this list at all. You underestimate how much construction is going on in Houston at this moment. Literally, that city is #1 for construction and for multi-family units being developed.
He included Houston in there, unless he meant the list in order.
D.C. can't really compete in the city limits for high-rise towers 20-40 stories tall for obvious reasons. I'm not even going to address the pathetic bill that congress just passed for D.C.'s height limit that only allows penthouse living now. Yay....SMH... I guess it's a start. We do, however, have some tower's rising outside of the city along our metro system and many more planned.
I only included buildings 16+ stories tall:
**Note: Urbanturf DC doesn't update it's website often so many projects are actually under construction that might still say planned**
http://www.downtownseattle.com/files...ment-Guide.pdf has a reasonable summary of the current ongoing projects in Seattle. I think the last rough count I saw last month was around 15 cranes in the downtown area (at least 1 has gone done and 1 has gone up since then). However, a six story building will merit a crane here which may not be that interesting. By my top of the head calculation there are about 7 projects ongoing with 20-40 stories.
* Insignia Condos
* Amazon Rufus 2.0
* 815 Pine
* 2030 8th Ave
* Stadium Place
* 225 Cedar
* 8th and Seneca
Ben
I'd actually argue that 3-10 story infill can be FAR more interesting aesthetically than any high-rise ever would. Just look at your average European city, or even Boston, Chicago, NYC, Philly, etc, to see how low-rise and mid-rise urban infill can truly make a city feel great. The high-rises are neat to look at, but primarily from a distance. It's the smaller stuff and the sheer quantity and style differences of it all that fascinates me more than anything when I go to a big city!
I strongly doubt many of the cities you listed have their development as concentrated as Philly. In my opinion, the only city with more concentrated development is DC. Philly is basically building everything in Center City and Ucity. That is necessary to move the needle.
Minneapolis is similar, but it's probably not on the radar here for "most active cities", however the current and impending changes will almost undoubtedly change the landscape somewhat drastically (last count I put together was something like 15,000 units in the pipeline, 50% in the downtown core, and another 25%-30% in nearby areas like the University of MN and Nordeast Mpls literally just across the river. It ends up amounting to about 100 new mid/high-rises in the city that's 56 sq miles). It helps too that it started with a smaller base than most of these huge cities.
Last edited by Min-Chi-Cbus; 03-14-2014 at 09:25 AM..
No, Philly's development is actually kind of scattered. Half of the projects now UC are in University City. The tallest is at Cira Center across the river and not in Center City. Many of the proposals are scattered, as well.
I only toot SF's horn when it needs tooting and this is one area where the city can't be beat. There are two adjacent ~4-6 block areas next to the financial district that contain virtually all of the city's high rise construction.
One one corner of the financial district you have TB Tower (61 floors and 1,070 ft), 350 Mission (33 stories, 454 ft), and 181 Fremont (54 floors and 802 ft), with 3 towers proposed for 1st and Mission one block away.
1.5 blocks away is where 535 Mission (27 stories, 380 ft) is topped off. 1 block away from this at 2nd and Howard is where Tishman's 4th tower they have UC in just a year (one is now complete, 3 UC)...222 Second (370 ft and 26 floors).
1 block away from TB Tower/181 Fremont is where 299 Fremont is going up (32 stories). Catty corner to that is Tishman's 2nd major resi project in the area, 2 Architectonica towers now rising above street level (38 and 43 stories). 1 block from both that and 299 Fremont is where 399 Fremont (42 stories) is rising. Across the street is where Equity Residential is about to start another 40 floor building, and catty corner is where Emerald Fund has topped off the 50 story One Rincon Hill North Tower.
And I forgot to mention 45 Lansing earlier! 45 floors, on floor 4 above street level now. This is 1 block away from 3 other towers rising to 40 or greater floors now.
What's happening in SF is Vancouver style development, only taller with more office mixed in. There are so many towers going up in less than a half square mile. There is no more concentration than that. When you drive into the city on the Bay Bridge, you easily see 25-30 cranes in your face. Some of these are building mid-rise resi and office/hospital in Mission Bay to the "left" of you (where a big building just burned down). Some are the resi high rises in SOMA/S FiDi. Some are mid-rises in the middle of the city all the way back to Mid-Market. Some are random.
There are other major projects rising, too, in the city.
2 Liebher Luffing cranes are up for SFMOMA expansion (~150 ft, ~$600M), which is a half block from 222 Second. There are a ton of mid-rise market and below market housing projects going up. One block/corner on Mission has 3 12-20 story buildings rising right now, with a 15 floor hotel going up a block away on Mission as well. Scattered throughout the city are infill projects.
There are also tons of crawler cranes in the middle of the city for the $1.7B Transbay Terminal going up right now, too.
All in all, anyone who has visited SF in the past few months is blown away by all the crap going up. Those of us who love seeing buildings going up walk around with erections all day. Nothing is more concentrated in this country right now.
But Miami would be 2nd most concentrated, followed by Seattle and Austin (Austin by sheer nature of its smaller size).
Great post, as usual.
Yes as one drives in via the bay bridge, the City appears to be a gigantic construction zone, cranes everywhere.
Yesterday, Oakland broke ground on a huge $1.5 billion project called Brooklyn Basin, which will add 4-6 mid to highrise towers, office, retail and 3,100 housing units to the waterfront. It's very exciting after years of fighting NIMBYs and then seeking funding-Thank you China LOL
Yes as one drives in via the bay bridge, the City appears to be a gigantic construction zone, cranes everywhere.
Yesterday, Oakland broke ground on a huge $1.5 billion project called Brooklyn Basin, which will add 4-6 mid to highrise towers, office, retail and 3,100 housing units to the waterfront. It's very exciting after years of fighting NIMBYs and then seeking funding-Thank you China LOL
Yes, but phased. It's backed by Chinese money. SF has several 500+ unit projects UC, and a few that fall into a "master-plan" that includes thousands of units at buildout, but multiple developers and built as the market demands.
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