THE Orlando Photo Thread

[sunshine]

[John Hargrove]

Hey all. I've been a regular over at SkyScraperCity. I live in downtown at 55 West and I take pictures of development in downtown on a regular basis (once a week, or every other week.)

I plan to start sharing them here as well. Enjoy!

55W Retail

Amway center

DPAC

They've permanently closed the city hall parking lot. It's fenced off on all sides with 8ft tall chainlink.

FUMCO Redevelopment

FUMCO has risen above the street level and has one level complete. I believe it will top out at 3 levels (can anyone confirm that?)

[bic]

Thanks for the photos! These types of updates are much appreciated around here.

[uncreativeusername]

Welcome to the forum! Yes, these posts are definitely appreciated - hope to see more of them.

[John Hargrove]

Just spotted this on my way to hit Jimmy Johns for dinner:

That's on the north side of Pine St, next to the vacant lot on Orange & Pine.

That makes the 7th new planned business within a block of 55 West to be opened by 2011. Great news. Still an enormous amount of empty space to fill, but things are definitely looking up. To recap, the list is:

• Blend -- Night Club/Restaurant in 55 West
• Heat -- Night Club/Restaurant in 55 West
• Baby Grands -- Dueling Piano Bar in CSM.
• Some Sports Bar -- On the 2nd floor and pedestrian bridge in CSM. This is a mystery. I've heard it discussed by staff, and it's been mentioned in the Sentinel, but I'm skeptical until I see signage or something.
• Mojo -- New Orleans bar and grill on Church & Garland
• Deja Vu -- The club from above. Pine & Orange.
• 7-11 -- The 55W staff say this is confirmed, and the retail space which was previously being used for construction materials storage has been cleaned and emptied. No sign of life in there yet though.

I'd like to help maintain the projects database if possible. There's a lot going on downtown and I love contributing.

[tc01]

Thank you for the picture and news update.

[prahaboheme]

castorx, happy to have you in the forum!

[John Hargrove]

Amway Center

DPAC

FUMCO

[John Hargrove]

FYI, my web server is down while I'm working on it.

Pics will be back in a bit.

[tc01]

Crossroads thank you so much, I am glad you are on urbanplanet.

What are they doing under I-4?

[John Hargrove]

They're building a pedestrian lingering area to connect Amway Center to the Church St stuff east of I-4.

Here's a document describing that project:

http://downtownorlando.com/sites/default/files/Interstate%204%20Underpass.pdf

[tc01]

Is it a little late to start the improvement? They should have stared earlier, unless they build it fast before the Magic's game.

[John Hargrove]

Is it a little late to start the improvement? They should have stared earlier, unless they build it fast before the Magic's game.

They could probably hammer it out rather quickly. It's largely landscaping and cement/brick work. The last couple of weeks they've been closing Church Street from Garland to Hughey. I think the basic outline of what they want to do is:

• Remove the underpass embankment on the south side of Church St. and make the sidewalk wider on that side. They've started work on this already, but no removal has happened yet.
• Re-brick the existing underpass area.
• Remove existing vegetation containment structures.
• Install a bunch of neat tree-like street lamps.
• Install a speaker system and digital signage. Pretty sure they already ran the cabling for this. They've uprooted that whole stretch and installed some kind of conduit from the new arena to that area ... not sure what else that could have been.

I'm not sure if it will be ready at opening, but it probably won't be far behind.

[prahaboheme]

In general they've been moving at a rapid pace with this arena construction. I have no doubt they've have the underpass completed prior to the NBA season.

[uncreativeusername]

A picture like that makes me think that a new tallest realistically could eventually end up on the east west (whoops) side of I-4.

Edited July 18, 2010 by uncreativeusername

[Jernigan]

What?

[prahaboheme]

Does the West side of I-4 / Parramore have different height restrictions than the East side?

[bic]

I love that shot looking down Church Street. That corridor is really going to blossom when the NBA season picks up again.

My only beef is that the right side of that picture looks so much better than the left. 55 West is such an eyesore and that parking garage could use a good pressure washing.

[cwetteland]

I love that shot looking down Church Street. That corridor is really going to blossom when the NBA season picks up again.

My only beef is that the right side of that picture looks so much better than the left. 55 West is such an eyesore and that parking garage could use a good pressure washing.

It goes without saying that office buildings have a cleaner look than residents; with their messy balconies and such. But if all you had is office building you have a much emptier downtown at night. I'll take messy balconies and people.

[John Hargrove]

Does the West side of I-4 / Parramore have different height restrictions than the East side?

It's certainly further away from the approach. I have some flight experience ... while the executive airport is close to downtown, the only actual approach that comes anywhere near those buildings is the main approach to runway 7. Runway 7 having a heading of 70' would have an approach from the SW ... so, if you draw a line from the executive airport with a heading of 250', that's the approach path.

The holding pattern isn't even near downtown. Very far off to the southwest.

The only thing that MIGHT be problematic is an approach from the west, which would have to enter pattern around the north (i think.)

Even so, those planes aren't going to be below 1500 feet until they're on final approach, at which point they should already be on the 70' approach.

The approach plates might help explain this better:

http://204.108.4.16/d-tpp/1007/00305IL7.PDF

[bic]

It goes without saying that office buildings have a cleaner look than residents; with their messy balconies and such. But if all you had is office building you have a much emptier downtown at night. I'll take messy balconies and people.

I don't have a problem with the balconies-- I live in a city with more balconies per high-rise than any other city in the country (save maybe Honolulu) so I'm used to them. I just think 55 West is a fugly design. I said this before it got built and I maintain that it's an eyesore.

Edited July 19, 2010 by bic

[John Hargrove]

I don't have a problem with the balconies-- I live in a city with more balconies per high-rise than any other city in the country (save maybe Honolulu). I just think 55 West is a fugly design. I said this before it got built and I maintain that it's an eyesore.

I actually agree with that. And I live in 55 West. Not a big fan of the monolithic footprint or the squared-crescent shape ... If someone told you this building was built in 1975, you probably wouldn't second guess them.

Alas, the location is what sold me. Being able to get to I-4 in less than 2 minutes is pretty awesome. The only downer (location wise) is that the Publix is so far away.

[John Hargrove]

Here's a graphic I made using Google Maps and the approach plate PDF I linked:

The red marker is approximately when planes will be below 500 ft during approach, the yellow marker is approximately when theyll be under 1500 ft. This is very rough, but it's close enough.

They could probably go higher in downtown ... and could even shift that approach slightly southward if they wanted to .. depending on where the MCO approach/hold is. West of I-4 certainly looks wide open for a new tallest, though.

[prahaboheme]

Thanks for that -- very interesting.

With the cheap land in Parramore and this renewed interest, I could see some office highrise proposals in Parramore's future. For now, a few successful midrise offices in Parramore to start things off, perhaps creating a nice canon effect down Church Street. Eight to ten story buildings with the occasional highrise on Church Street would do wonders to downtown. Then, highrises in and around the federal courthouse district on Division Ave, and suddenly, you have an entirely new office district.

Parramore is easily the future of downtown expansion -- more so than Uptown, IMO.

[jack]

Does the West side of I-4 / Parramore have different height restrictions than the East side?

Yes. The highest intensity is along the highway. Everything else is low rise with the exception of Church and Central. I think the limit may be 80 feet or the height of City View.