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44 minutes ago, likeminded said:

Out of curiosity, does anyone know offhand how old Buddy Gadams is?

According to LinkedIn, he got a BBA in finance from James Madison in 1993.  Assuming he graduated at 22 years old, he was born in 1971, which makes him about 46 years old.

This photo is from Inside Business Power List, April 29, 2016.

Buddy Gadams.jpg

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  • 2 months later...

A good pressure wash will take care of that old BofA logo, along with the imprints of all the other old banks (if you look close enough, I think you can make out "Sovran" :P).

IMO the building needs some sort of exterior lighting, either an LED strip along the vertical sides, or even colorful spotlights. It would add a little more flair to the skyline...

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Sounds like it's time for another apartment tower. This part of Norfolk is about to be lit. :shades:

http://pilotonline.com/inside-business/special-reports/power-issue/frank-buddy-gadams-marathon-development-group-no-ib-power-list/article_b132c641-aafa-56e3-9512-3177d51cdb2e.html 

"The former Bank of America building at 321 E. Main St. is a $56MM investment, including rooftop patio, pool and lounge that has morphed into Icon at City Walk.

The property’s sales office recently opened, and  “We’ve never had so many phone calls on a project,” Gadams said.

He said there’s a list of 250 people interested in 275 apartments. Construction crews are currently working 20-hour days in two shifts so tenants can move in by October."

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Cordish was throwing around the idea of a 300 or so unit apartment tower. If ICON is 275 apartments, the Cordish tower would have been (would be) at least as tall.

I think if Gaddams has this much demand for the ICON, and Cordish figures they could do a 300 unit tower, the market may be very ripe for at least one tower. Maybe we get a new tallest at some point in the near future.

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5 hours ago, carolinaboy said:

Cordish was throwing around the idea of a 300 or so unit apartment tower. If ICON is 275 apartments, the Cordish tower would have been (would be) at least as tall.

I think if Gaddams has this much demand for the ICON, and Cordish figures they could do a 300 unit tower, the market may be very ripe for at least one tower. Maybe we get a new tallest at some point in the near future.

I'd still prefer to see the spot next to Waterside Live stay open to the public rather than having a giant tower on it (also hurting the views of ICON and other downtown offices). Though I wouldn't be opposed to another residential tower going up elsewhere in Downtown. I really hope they're able to get the development going by Harbor Park. Mixed use there could be a home run if done correctly, which would include tying together the Harbor Park side and the other side of the highway.

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John Profilet, senior vice president of S.L. Nusbaum Realty Co., said the ADP building sale is something of an anomaly that won’t likely raise the value of other buildings on Main Street. The Hampton Roads office market is relatively flat, he said, with little demand for top-tier office space right now.

So I guess this means if there were to ever be a building boom in downtown, it would be apartments?

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4 minutes ago, BFG said:

 

 

So I guess this means if there were to ever be a building boom in downtown, it would be apartments?

For right now, I would guess that's what that means. But things can change relatively quickly. I don't know if Norfolk is going to have a new high-rise office building proposed in the next 3-5 years. But with vacancy rates being relatively low, it won't take a whole lot to create a demand for brand new space. 

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3 hours ago, HRVT said:

I'd still prefer to see the spot next to Waterside Live stay open to the public rather than having a giant tower on it (also hurting the views of ICON and other downtown offices). Though I wouldn't be opposed to another residential tower going up elsewhere in Downtown. I really hope they're able to get the development going by Harbor Park. Mixed use there could be a home run if done correctly, which would include tying together the Harbor Park side and the other side of the highway.

That behemoth of an annex was built there, so why not build something else there? What's the difference?  A couple dozen view-obliterating floors, of course, but then again, none of those other buildings to which you allude own vista rights to the waterfront. The City is not obligated to protect their views.

What is the purpose or value of an empty plot of land anyway? There's plenty of open space down there already, imho.

Cordish knows where they must build to get the returns they seek. And it's not at Harbor Park.  Not yet anyway.  That area of town needs a whole lot of cleaning up first, both environmentally and  aesthetically. There is also the issue of millions upon millions of dollars needed to relocate subterranean power lines and to pay for other infrastructure requirements. Additionally, some form of pedestrian connectivity is required from the Waterside District along the waterfront to that area.  

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8 hours ago, HRVT said:

For right now, I would guess that's what that means. But things can change relatively quickly. I don't know if Norfolk is going to have a new high-rise office building proposed in the next 3-5 years. But with vacancy rates being relatively low, it won't take a whole lot to create a demand for brand new space. 

I tend not to put a lot of stock in such resolute prognostications. No one knew ADP was even looking until summer of last year then suddenly we had a new Fortune 500 company. Anything can happen.

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1 hour ago, Norva757 said:

I wonder if this will help push for the development of the St Pauls Quadrant

But yeah what would that look like?

Obviously you guys know more about this than me, but it seems like they have taken a lot of opportunities for business structures and turned them into living. If Norfolk plans to expand its business base, it seems to me it would be harder to make deals on the available land that is left. In comes SPQ... From the last plan, that area (though this can change) was not slated to grow DT Norfolk from a business perspective, that's not what i saw. I know many of us was looking for an extension of DT, but it seem like they were making more so another DT community. There isn't much real estate north of Brambleton, not to attract 'businesses" we hope to see make up a bustling Norfolk. Remember, we still have a housing project just North of there. I can see them wanting to deal away with one HP and integrating it into the new area, but I can't see them dumping three and that's what north of brambleton.. (two or three HPs).

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I think you still have a few limited spots left, but they would require demolition (Greyhound station, the hotel across from Scope) or building from the ground up (the parking lot at the corner of City Hall and St. Paul). 

But if the city lost a business tower like they did with BofA, I'd think they will want to be prepared in case another ADP comes calling. Maybe build something like Wells Fargo, businesses on one side, apartments on the other. 

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17 hours ago, vdogg said:

I tend not to put a lot of stock in such resolute prognostications. No one knew ADP was even looking until summer of last year then suddenly we had a new Fortune 500 company. Anything can happen.

Agreed. All I was saying is that with vacancy rates already hovering near favorable range for a new tower, it won't take a whole lot to create the necessary demand for a new tower. I do think we'll see another tower in about 5-10 years in Norfolk. But things like this tend to move quickly, and we would want Norfolk to be ready in case someone comes looking. Norfolk definitely has a lot of momentum going right now.

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On 5/1/2017 at 11:23 PM, zeppelin14 said:

That article mentioned 500 Botetourt. Did Buddy buy that from Cavalier Land? I used to live at 500 Botetourt a few years ago and always thought it needed to be remodeled.

I guess so. A guy I know lives there and confirmed on Facebook that it's being remodeled and converted. 

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On 5/1/2017 at 0:52 PM, BFG said:

I know the drive-thru area was suggested for another tower. Wonder if we could see some action on that in the next 5 or so years?

My guess would be that it would eventually be developed with a much shorter building than the ICON, either office or apartments, hopefully with retail along the streetside. That way it doesn't hurt the ICON too much because it would only hurt the views of the lower units. When living in NYC for a couple of years, I saw this happen in Jersey City a number of times, a developer would build a 50 story building with pristine views of Manhattan, lease the building full, then build a new tower on the western side of the block obstructing the views of the other tower, and now the new tower has the pristine views.

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