The Ellis – 33 Floor Apartment Tower – Lennar does what Levine couldn't.

[JacksonH]

10 hours ago, RANYC said:

Sunbelt cities are hilarious.  

• If one gets an aerial view of Charlotte, you'll see ample land still remaining for densification, even in what we believe are our most urban and dense areas of town.  The idea that builders must now go 30+ stories vertically just to house people is amusing, imo.
• I'm amazed that there's a market for a 30+ story apartment building here. 
• I'd question whether stacking humans in this way is ever really optimal or appropriate.  Extreme vertical living is typically forced or borne out of space constraints, e.g. an extraordinary demand for oceanfront or bayfront or Signature Park views in a fairly restricted space, and so the best way to deliver the hotly-demanded amenity is to stack the market.  No such amenity exists with the Ellis, as far as I can tell.
• I lived in the heart of Manhattan for 14 years, and of the 5 places I occupied in that time, the tallest building was 18 stories.  If I could have lived in a high-quality Manhattan townhome, I most certainly would have chosen it.  Manhattan dynamics are very peculiar, not just for an American city, but by international standards as well.  The idea that Charlotte should now encourage and celebrate these types of projects at this stage in its urbanization/densification is a bit unfounded.
• I think largely single-use high-rise residential projects like this are doomed here in Charlotte for quite a while, post-COVID.  I speculate that the Ellis will be the last one we see for a long while, perhaps a generation.  I'm a bit more sanguine about high-rise mixed-use experiences like that of the FNB tower.
• If I'm proven wrong, I'll be quite ok with that.

That's very insightful and I tend to agree with you.  About a year ago I flew to San Antonio on business.  I had to go through Dallas.  The plane flew right over downtown Dallas.  I was looking out the window and was shocked at how sparse and spread out it looked, right in the very heart of the city.

Now I was just watching this video on how to plan beautiful cities (Dallas fails).  It touches on what you're talking about regarding the highrise towers.  Check out in particular the section from 8:27 to 9:49.

 

[QCxpat]

Today 4:45 p.m.

Edited December 13, 2020 by QCxpat

[videtur quam contuor]

This is the most daring of Charlotte projects.  I respect it for that.

[JacksonH]

18 hours ago, tarhoosier said:

This is the most daring of Charlotte projects.  I respect it for that.

And man, it looks ginormous from those QCxpat pictures!  I haven't seen it in person yet 

Edited December 13, 2020 by JacksonH

[Yo Diaz!]

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[QCxpat]

Today 10:40 a.m.

Edited December 19, 2020 by QCxpat

[Mgelbach]

[SMSRedux]

Shocked by how close to the renderings this turned out, however this may be the result of your spectacular rendering esque photography. Kudos.

[navigator319]

It is pretty ugly, which is a shame, but LMC deserves credit for putting up such an investment that is surrounded on 3.5 sides by in your face blight. 15 years from now it will just be ugly but with LMC rolling in the dough.

[KJHburg]

I dont think this is ugly. We have many boxy very predictable buildings in this city especially in an apartment towers I for one like that is different looking at the top than the bottom.  

Don't worry we won't have any more high rise apartment towers this tall for a while especially uptown.  

I will take this over both Skyhouses stacked on top of each other. 

Edited December 22, 2020 by KJHburg

[j-man]

My only wish is that they continued the bright yellow on the mid rise portion. I hate that developers/architects always have to use like 6 different colors on apartment buildings. And the materials of all those colors look cheap but the high rise portion is pretty nice! 

[CharlotteWkndBuzz]

1 hour ago, KJHburg said:

I dont think this is ugly. We have many boxy very predictable buildings in this city especially in an apartment towers I for one like that is different looking at the top than the bottom.  

Don't worry we won't have any more high rise apartment towers this tall for a while especially uptown.  

I will take this over both Skyhouses stacked on top of each other. 

I agree, I love how this tower is different. Those top units are going to be killer too. Although we are in a little slump bc of Covid, the city should not allow any mid rises like Circa being built uptown anymore in prime real estate locations. No more 5 story apartments uptown with no street level retail. Mint apartments in the same boat but at least they have several retail spots. 

[TheMightyBK]

I think it looks pretty cool, but there's too much white...I wouldn't necessarily want to see more yellow, but some splotches of another color (brown or black, maybe) would accentuate the asymmetry.  I also think it would have looked better on the midrise portion if there was some variation in height.  And the hotel.   Sigh...oh well...

[Rickybobby]

Stunning pictures as usual @Mgelbach

I think this building is far from ugly for its overall ordinary shape. 

[49er]

These photos are amazing! It's not pretty but is definitely interesting to look at. I like the top 6 or 7 floors and all of the retail. The rest of the building looks like cheap painted EIFS.

[RANYC]

Devastating that the hotel portion of this block will be yet another concrete carcass...oh how quickly the promise of new projects can become a tremendous blight

[turbocraig]

This building is an enigma to me.  It's not quite ugly, but not exactly attractive.  It's mildly interesting, but without really having put too much effort into making it truly interesting.  The top 1/4 has some nice finish details, but the remainder looks completely unfinished.  The tower and adjacent mid-rise share no common design threads, despite them being conjoined and developed simultaneously.  It's just an odd concoction without being totally offensive.  To me, this tower will forever look like it's still under construction.  Almost done, but never quite crossing the finish line.  

Edited December 22, 2020 by turbocraig

[Blue_Devil]

42 minutes ago, turbocraig said:

This building is an enigma to me.  It's not quite ugly, but not exactly attractive.  It's mildly interesting, but without really having put too much effort into making it truly interesting.  The top 1/4 has some nice finish details, but the remainder looks completely unfinished.  The tower and adjacent mid-rise share no common design threads, despite them being conjoined and developed simultaneously.  It's just an odd concoction without being totally offensive.  To me, this tower will forever look like it's still under construction.  Almost done, but never quite crossing the finish line.  

I feel like it is the windows missing some sort of bordering. The windows are just inserted into what looks like drywall from a far distance. 

[turbocraig]

47 minutes ago, Blue_Devil said:

I feel like it is the windows missing some sort of bordering. The windows are just inserted into what looks like drywall from a far distance. 

That’s a problem with these EIFS / Hardie / Trex projects. The glazing is all set flush because there’s no meaningful thickness to the veneer to be able to achieve that inset window look.  Just that small but incredibly important detail makes things look cheap because it is. 

[DMann]

Regardless of whether you are a fan of the aesthetics of the building or not, it will potentially supply downtown with an additional 600-800 people.  To me density is people over buildings and the more people downtown the better.  

[Mgelbach]

Sorry to spam this thread with pictures. I went back out today to see how close I could get pictures to the renderings. Almost there

[Urban Cowboy]

[nicholas]

2 hours ago, Mgelbach said:

Sorry to spam this thread with pictures. I went back out today to see how close I could get pictures to the renderings. Almost there

Which one is the rendering?

Edit - think it's the top one because I see people on the balcony, but otherwise it's so close that I honestly can hardly tell.  Great job

Edited December 23, 2020 by nicholas

[King of the Queen City]

4 hours ago, nicholas said:

Which one is the rendering?

Edit - think it's the top one because I see people on the balcony, but otherwise it's so close that I honestly can hardly tell.  Great job

Amazing how similar the two look. Besides the people, the biggest giveaways are that the rendering butchers the top of BOACC and the photo butchers the top of Hearst (which is no fault of the photographer).

[QCxpat]

Today 4:55 p.m.

Edited December 23, 2020 by QCxpat