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Westin at Towncenter Progress

ToweringTurtle

By ToweringTurtle
in Virginia Beach

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vdogg Megalopolis

vdogg

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Does this mean it's too late for another redesign? I really hope not cause i think it was a mistake for them to change the rendering. What's up with the grainy image anyway? Is that an artistic drawing or is it computer generated?

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vdogg Megalopolis

vdogg

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Towncenter is gonna be so white now, lol. I'm gonna need sunglasses to look at it on a clear day :lol:. Well i have hope that with citywalk they'll change the color scheme up a bit. Speaking of which, it looks like they may just stop at the bottom columns in the revamping of columbus tower. I haven't seen any other work done there in a while. If thats the case I think thats a good idea.

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urbanvb City

urbanvb

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Towncenter is gonna be so white now, lol. I'm gonna need sunglasses to look at it on a clear day :lol:. Well i have hope that with citywalk they'll change the color scheme up a bit. Speaking of which, it looks like they may just stop at the bottom columns in the revambing of columbus tower. I have seen anyother work done there in a while. If thats the case I think thats a good idea.

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Divaris said it is not the same white but a complimentary white. Well, we will see I guess. :unsure: Yeah, I think the Columbus tower is done too. What they did looks ok but just not the whole tower ya know?

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urbanvb City

urbanvb

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I noticed in the pdf that the penthouse is actually gonna be a skylounge for all the residents. Hmm... I need to make a few friends in that tower so i can get up there and take pics. :D

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Can you imagine the view from up that high? :o:o

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urbanvb City

urbanvb

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Well, the final cut of the article is now online (at least as of 10:37pm) and again the article did not mention this tower being the tallest in the state. I emailed Jon Glass about this so hopefully he will respond. If this is indeed the state's tallest I think the public would be proud to know this.

Also, notice they say the tower is 2 years ahead as planned. These are exciting days for everyone. :thumbsup:

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ace707 Hamlet

ace707

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Wow, alot has been talked about with this whole Westin project. Ive been late to catching up and I know most of yall have said what you may have wanted to say but if its not too late, Imma throw my 2 cents in...

First the Tower itself... personally, I liked the older design that we've been working with for the last few months. The only thing that I think looks better in the new design is the spire which doesn't make the tower have this "mushroom" looking top although it does look taller than 100 ft which is to me would be cheating since its going beyond our regional standard of 100ft. just to gain height.

Second, the height and number of floors... 508 ft is great, no claims of states' tallest is bad. For some reason, I have a feeling the pilot is aware of a taller building that they can't mention yet but that may not be the case. Plus 37 stories, down from the 38 mark. I don't see any reason why to scale back 1 floor. Maybe 1 floor of either the condos or hotel was shaved off for a better fit of the TC market (maybe the height loss in floors was re-assigned to height increase for the spire?)

Third and most controversial part, the garage... Let me quote Norfolk in their latest edition of Norfolk quarterly on page 12, the article titled "Norfolk Parking: Growing Up with the City". "In some other cities, people walk through a wasteland of parking garages to reach attrations and work." The Westin garage is not only ugly, it is (literally) a waste of land and waters down the image of TC in that area and sure as hell will not complement Dicks across the street.

Although they may not have designed it, CMSS seems to have a large influence in the design of Westin and their originality (or lack thereof) of TC as a whole is making TC seem whiter than the halls of a hostital. :angry:

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vdogg Megalopolis

vdogg

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It's just a parking garage people... yeesh.

What makes you think the Pilot is aware of a taller building?

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Their steadfast refusal to put in print that this will be the states tallest building even though we have had people from this site email them and educate them to the fact (with proof) that it is.

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vdogg Megalopolis

vdogg

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Updated article

The good: "The new tower will launch the third phase of the four-phase Town Center. Plans are under way for the final phase, which will include a second office tower."

The bad: "Growth at Town Center has generated complaints about traffic congestion in Pembroke. Independence Boulevard already is jammed with 10,700 more cars a day than it was designed to handle. The new tower is expected to add another 5,540 cars a day, according to city estimates."

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vdogg Megalopolis

vdogg

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Oh, and i'm not sure that the spire structure is taller per se. Looking at the design it looks like the cap portion that held the spire has shrunk and been transferred to the spire itself. That portion on top is probably still 100ft. I can't imagine them going much past that.

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urbanfan Hamlet

urbanfan

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They can't claim tallest in the state because buildings now have classifications. There are tallest building in reference to inhabitable floors, tallest building structures with spires....... and so on. If anything they can only claim to be the tallest building with a spire because the tower in Richmond is all floors, no spire. It is a pure 449 feet. Unless the inhabitable portion of the tower is more than 449' feet which would mean the spire could only be 60' than they could claim the tallest building in the state because it would be the tallest inhabitable and the tallest with spire. Building classifications came out because in the race to build the tallest building people would just tack on these god awful spires to make them taller. So now we have classifications. Westin building needs to break 449' from ground to top of roof without spire to claim state's tallest. That's why Northern virginia isn't worried about either of these towers because there tower is all floors. at almost 500'. northern virginia will probably take the record from Richmond officially, that is if the tower ever gets built.

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ace707 Hamlet

ace707

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Updated article

The good: "The new tower will launch the third phase of the four-phase Town Center. Plans are under way for the final phase, which will include a second office tower."

The bad: "Growth at Town Center has generated complaints about traffic congestion in Pembroke. Independence Boulevard already is jammed with 10,700 more cars a day than it was designed to handle. The new tower is expected to add another 5,540 cars a day, according to city estimates."

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The good: The second office tower will bring a more business feel to Town Center which is being plagued for being too dependent on retail and restaurants.

The bad: The traffic is one of the main reasons Trader did not want to move to Town Center. Big companies and corporations may be reluctant to move in to fill in that new tower if the city does not have any immediate plans to open more major gateways to TC other than Independence Blvd and Va. Beach Blvd. Take note of Norfolk and give SEVERAL gateways so when traffic builds, there are other ways to get in.

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ace707 Hamlet

ace707

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I don't think the height of the 508ft Westin includes the spire at the top.

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:whistling: Well I doubt that an additional 5 floors from the original plan gives another 108 feet in height too. It may seem confusing figuring out the height of Westin plus spire but I think the ceiling heights in the hotel portion are lower than that of the condos. That's my guess anyway...

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vdogg Megalopolis

vdogg

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:whistling: Well I doubt that an additional 5 floors from the original plan gives another 108 feet in height too. It may seem confusing figuring out the height of Westin plus spire but I think the ceiling heights in the hotel portion are lower than that of the condos. That's my guess anyway...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Well the very original plan, the one with crown instead of spire, put the tower at 32 stories and 400ft or approx. 12.5 per floor. Add 5 more floors and you should have a base structure height of about 462.5 ft. which would put it at the tallest inhabitable building still. Now that only leaves about 45.5ft for spire and i know the spire is taller than that so there is something not adding up here. <_<

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urbanfan Hamlet

urbanfan

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I don't think the height of the 508ft Westin includes the spire at the top.

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It would have to be. Otherwise with the 18 floors of hotels somewhere in the 10' range and 1 floor of retail at 20' that equals 200'. 508-200 = 308' if building is 38 floors, 18 hotel, 1 retail that leaves 19 floors to make up 308'. 308/19 = 16' That's impossible that each residential floor makes up 16'. This 508 ft. includes the spire, much like the AH building taking the title from Dominion locally. AH can't even compete with Dominion, but once that tower is put on it edged out dominion.

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