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Will Nashville ever get a super tall skyscraper?


MagicPotato

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Yes. It's about a decade away. But it will happen and I expect it will be office. Office rental rates are already at a level that would justify an office building that tall. Land downtown is getting harder to find and as such will necessitate going higher. Finally, the sustained demand will need to be there. Such buildings are usually anchored by large corporations. As such, there are a few home based companies that might be candidates as anchors.

Pinnacle Financial; Caterpillar; UBS; Deloitte; a half dozen law firms; one of the large banks based outside Nashville; relocation; local or growing tech firm from outside TN

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Lets not get tall and super tall confussed. A whole different set of criteria involved there.

There is actually a thread by this name that is old, probably a couple of them, truth be told.

Welcome to the forum MagicP.

We may see a 700 footer announced in the next couple of years. 50 50 shot, but probably not taller unless we get a major corp relocation.

Me and ML on the same wavelength here however the 700 footer may be residential.

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I have to somewhat disagree. I feel that a 700’ even 800’ is possible (no more than that though) without corporations relocating involved. There are numerous buildings and skyscrapers in Austin that are that height and fully hotels or condos or apartments, or even mixed use. I really really doubt Nashville won’t get something like that in the next three years with the way things are going. It’s really unlikely because the housing market is still very strong and the growth hasn’t died down. I also think a corporate relocation will happen in the next ten years or so, but not preferably Amazon in my opinion (though with trump’s taxing on east coast states recently I’m not too sure Nashville won’t get it)

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I have to somewhat disagree. I feel that a 700’ even 800’ is possible (no more than that though) without corporations relocating involved. There are numerous buildings and skyscrapers in Austin that are that height and fully hotels or condos or apartments, or even mixed use. I really really doubt Nashville won’t get something like that in the next three years with the way things are going. It’s really unlikely because the housing market is still very strong and the growth hasn’t died down. I also think a corporate relocation will happen in the next ten years or so, but not preferably Amazon in my opinion (though with trump’s taxing on east coast states recently I’m not too sure Nashville won’t get it)


Austin does not have a single 700’ tall building.


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  • 1 month later...

On a side note...the ultimate in skyscraper nerdism....

I found a tool on Google Earth I hadn't seen before under the ruler tab. The 3D path option will allow for measurement of vertical structures, so I tested it on a couple of buildings to see how accurate it is. Here...

 

40682716821_ac3f4d4ff4_z.jpg

The L&C Tower is accurate to within 2 feet. I have no doubt the 409 ft. height listing is totally true. That was publicly listed from day one as we had bragging rights over Atlanta, Memphis and Birmingham as to the tallest building.

So I measured another.

40682717091_06dcae6b37_z.jpg

Again, very accurate. The 617' height for AT&T is a height I feel confident it is absolutely accurate. So with confidence that the tool was fairly accurate , I decided to settle a couple of disputes about building heights.

First the height of the 5th/3rd Building in which the listed height of 490' came into question when we saw how much the 505CST (524') towered over it. So, after several consistent measurements I came to this determination...

40682717221_fa3a850c32_z.jpg

So, according to Google Earth the 5th/3rd is somewhat shorter than listed as many suspected.

So next I addressed the other debate.

40682716991_39bf2e1b8c_z.jpg

Yes, the Pinnacle Tower seems to be taller than originally listed while the Bridgestone is 20' shorter. The Bridgestone Tower had it's 'fins' installed at the time of the picture.

Anyway, for what it's worth.

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Thank you for clearing that up, PHofKS. I had always been skeptical of the 490' listing for 5/3. But I would have never thought that Pinnacle, Bridgestone and 5/3 would all be within 15 feet of each other. 

Another question- how much elevation change is present in downtown Nashville? I take that into consideration when some buildings look taller than others despite nearly equivalent listings.

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40 minutes ago, PHofKS said:

On a side note...the ultimate in skyscraper nerdism....

I found a tool on Google Earth I hadn't seen before under the ruler tab. The 3D path option will allow for measurement of vertical structures, so I tested it on a couple of buildings to see how accurate it is. Here...

 

 

The L&C Tower is accurate to within 2 feet. I have no doubt the 409 ft. height listing is totally true. That was publicly listed from day one as we had bragging rights over Atlanta, Memphis and Birmingham as to the tallest building.

So I measured another.

 

Again, very accurate. The 617' height for AT&T is a height I feel confident it is absolutely accurate. So with confidence that the tool was fairly accurate , I decided to settle a couple of disputes about building heights.

First the height of the 5th/3rd Building in which the listed height of 490' came into question when we saw how much the 505CST (524') towered over it. So, after several consistent measurements I came to this determination...

 

So, according to Google Earth the 5th/3rd is somewhat shorter than listed as many suspected.

So next I addressed the other debate.

 

Yes, the Pinnacle Tower seems to be taller than originally listed while the Bridgestone is 20' shorter. The Bridgestone Tower had it's 'fins' installed at the time of the picture.

Anyway, for what it's worth.

Ok...now you need to do JWM!! :tw_glasses:...and 505

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1 hour ago, L'burgnative said:

Snodgrass is listed at 452'; If Fifth/Third is actually 446' is Snodgrass actually taller?

Could be. I'm not claiming this new way of measuring the height of a building is the definitive last word, but I'm persuaded that the Google tool does present some compelling data.  And I feel that it is as or even more accurate than relying on some of the almost anecdotal numbers used to describe the height of a building.

I have always seen heights of buildings numbers that seem totally wacky and have learned not to take them at face value unless I see the plans or have trust in the source. The 16 story HCA Parallon HQ in the north Gulch Capitol View project was listed as a 240 ft building when first proposed. However, when I saw the PDF plans and it definitively showed a height from sidewalk to top of equipment roof 257 ft, I wondered if the shorter height listing was an attempt to present the tower as staying under a certain limit. Who knows. I see other buildings that are apparently understated in their dimensions in a likely attempt to maybe not alarm locals that they are building a (omg!!!:shok:)... 'FORTY STORY' building into the sky in their quaint neighborhood.  They are listed as 38 stories instead which sounds so much less apocalyptic.

My engineering spider instincts tell me to trust but verify on these matters. Your eyes don't always lie, so until I get a reliably measured answer, I will accept that the 5th/3rd is significantly shorter than advertised.

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Would be awesome if some developer couldn't get the height variance he wanted, so he agreed to scale back...then just went ahead and kept adding stories during construction until the city caught on and told him to cease and desist.  Maybe by then, he's added 10-20 stories. :D

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Sneaky! :ph34r:  That might be the only way anything really tall gets past Nash-towns fear of height.  Here's another sneaky way I've thought about, but don't know for sure if it could work. Nashville is hung up on floor-count and in most cases no more than 30. So depending on the definition of a "floor" in the zoning, If you made each floor something like a split level house where two levels are connected by another level, what if a building were done like that but within each "floor".  Sort of like each floor has 2-3 levels. 

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There’s just so much available land in the core to build on, a super tall wouldn’t make sense at the moment. Give it a few years when some of these projected projects become reality and you could see the market for super-talls change, though. 

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On 3/8/2018 at 12:11 AM, PHofKS said:

When Google Earth updates it's images in a few years. I am amazed at how much information is coded into those maps and how much clarity is produced!!

Pete, when you have time would you be willing to start a list of Nashville google-measured buildings?  As you said, we’ll have to wait for updated pics for certain buildings but maybe we could have a pinned list of “Official UP Nashville Heights”.   I believe what you have done so far is already more accurate than other sites’ listings.  A little detective work goes a long way.  It might be useful to list each buildings foundation elevation as well.   I’d be happy to collaborate with you on putting it together.  

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from afar I think Nashville's best chance for a building to top the AT&T Building would be a mixed used tower office and residential or some other combination.  Your tallest building in Nashville would place 4th tallest in Charlotte for example and soon 5th once the new Legacy Bank of America tower is done.  We have huge office users here in Charlotte thus creating the demand for tall office buildings.   They the 2 major banks( Bank of America and Wells Fargo) and  Duke Energy have millions of square feet leased.   Of the 6  tallest building over 500 feet completed in Charlotte all but one are anchored by a bank (only 1 residential tower and 1 under construction also anchor by a bank)   We just had announced a 31 story tower mixed of office space and apartments.  Those type buildings are more complicated but an office tower topped by apartments could give you the additional height yall desire. 

So who in your market is a huge office space user?   That tenant is somewhere in your market and everyone of our tallest high rises are tenants that have been in the market for decades.  The move downtown by Bridgestone was an example of an existing tenant in the market who moved downtown and built a great building.  The state government is unlikely to anchor a supertall building as here in NC in Raleigh they prefer cheaper office space and of course the politics and optics of it all.   Some of your banks are really growing and maybe they would be interested in a signature tower.   

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1 hour ago, KJHburg said:

from afar I think Nashville's best chance for a building to top the AT&T Building would be a mixed used tower office and residential or some other combination.  Your tallest building in Nashville would place 4th tallest in Charlotte for example and soon 5th once the new Legacy Bank of America tower is done.  We have huge office users here in Charlotte thus creating the demand for tall office buildings.   They the 2 major banks( Bank of America and Wells Fargo) and  Duke Energy have millions of square feet leased.   Of the 6  tallest building over 500 feet completed in Charlotte all but one are anchored by a bank (only 1 residential tower and 1 under construction also anchor by a bank)   We just had announced a 31 story tower mixed of office space and apartments.  Those type buildings are more complicated but an office tower topped by apartments could give you the additional height yall desire. 

So who in your market is a huge office space user?   That tenant is somewhere in your market and everyone of our tallest high rises are tenants that have been in the market for decades.  The move downtown by Bridgestone was an example of an existing tenant in the market who moved downtown and built a great building.  The state government is unlikely to anchor a supertall building as here in NC in Raleigh they prefer cheaper office space and of course the politics and optics of it all.   Some of your banks are really growing and maybe they would be interested in a signature tower.   

Honestly,  Bridgestone should have built much taller.  Not sure what they were thinking.  They were already at overflow before they built.

Nissan built a suburban campus down in Williamson County (the rich county) instead of coming downtown.

Pinnacle Bank could someday build a tall structure...but that's down the road.  Don't ever see us being a big banking center like you guys.

Lots of healthcare HQs...but they seem to go for the campus-style more than a tall tower.

Music industry would never need that much space unless all of the labels and publishers banded together to build a "music" tower...which then could be a new tallest.

Probably gonna need another big HQ relocation to get any office height.

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