35-40 story office building proposed for norfolk

[vdogg]

I don't know - tomj said the city was pushing for the snyder lot as a location for the wachovia center. that sounds to me like there is nothing else in the works there.

[Padman]

I guess that the Wachovia project was the prime candidate for the site, but now it's still open for something in the future. Let's hope the City keeps options open for something really significant. In the meanwhile, the Wachovia project could add a few more floors and really become the most significant office building in the area. I don't think it quite achieves that status at just 22 storeys. On flat terrain, height really says a lot.

[vdogg]

Was this the tower we were all speaking of?

lilbear brought this up in the other thread, and the more i research this the more i'm inclined to agree. Even the orientation on the lot seems about right. The architect list the location of this building as St. Pauls Blvd and the size of the building as 524,000 sq ft which is definitely a 30-40 story range size. So this poses some questions. Was this planned while the whole Hilton thing was going on and once that deal fell through these developers dropped their own plans and joined that project? What else might have been planned for that lot and are they still pursuing this or are we done for a few years? It's not office but it is mixed use and the similarities between what is proposed here and what was talked about at the beginning of this thread are uncanny. Thoughts?

[rusthebuss]

I only count 23 stories on that. I think that was one of the renderings for the Hilton before it was a Westin

[vdogg]

I only count 23 stories on that. I think that was one of the renderings for the Hilton before it was a Westin

[vdogg]

Depending on the way you count it, it is either 23 or 36. If you count each section, its 23. The problem with that is that each section is the same height as the bottom 2 floors, which is unlikely. The bottom entrance floors are almost always the tallest. If you look at the left side of the rendering, once you get past the two lower floors it breaks up to 2 windows per section. I counted the lower floors as one each and then each window (2 per section) above that as a floor. Ok, i'm getting a little too technical with this.

[mistermetaj]

I think originally a Westin was going to be built in that spot, but when the Hilton fell through, they just moved the Westin Hotel concept over to the Hilton plot of land. That is a great thing because the original Hilton's architecture was bland and this architecture is bland, but the Westin going up now is certainly a gem.

[Sky06]

I think originally a Westin was going to be built in that spot, but when the Hilton fell through, they just moved the Westin Hotel concept over to the Hilton plot of land. That is a great thing because the original Hilton's architecture was bland and this architecture is bland, but the Westin going up now is certainly a gem.

[lil-bear]

That rendering on the architect's website is the Snyder lot and not the Main & Granby lot.

If you look at the picture from the website, on the left you can see the side of the building ia the glass building across Plume Street from the Synder lot.

The building across Granby Street from the hotel site is an old bank building with columns.

This IS a concept for the Snyder lot!

[lammius]

Interesting how this proposal for the Snyder Lot matches the massing of the concept in the RFP, almost to a T. I wonder if the architects submitted a proposal because they had reason to believe the city was communicating fairly concrete expectations in the RFP...

This is the concept in the RFP, which vdogg posted long ago:

This is a great location for an office tower. I hope that once the market absorbs Wachovia we'll soon hear clamoring for another new office tower. Once the LRT opens, this will be a prime spot.

[urbanlife]

yeah, I was about to say the same thing, that is the snyder lot because you can tell the zoning in it. My guess is this was their proposal that they submitted for that lot, the city was unhappy with what they got in return for it, thus s why we havent seen or heard anything about it yet, so with the whole hilton thing falling apart, they must of talked them into relocating to a project that would be much more of a done deal.

Besides, at the present moment, that is a crappy place for a hotel, the new westin location is a much better choice.

I have always felt that the snyder lot deserved to have a signature tower. The plaza on the other hand should be a mixed use project that has office and retail space at the southern end and a mixture of income housing throughout. Turn that area into Norfolk's new urban area that just about every other city in the US is doing. I always thought that would happen at Fort Norfolk, but considering there are several owners over there that are not pushing for redevelopment, that creates a problem. Plus the plaza would be better at connecting to the city.

You know that is one thing I hope to get to do at one point in my life, is get to design some architecture for norfolk and virginia beach.