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17-story tower planned for Downtown


Blazer85

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This is actually the same Melaver development we heard about a while back, but apparently there has been a bit of an upgrade. Originally planned to be only 14-stories, it's now been upgraded to 17-stories (which would make this the tallest new construction in downtown Birmingham in nearly two decades). The first floor would be the lobby/retail space. The next 8-floors would be office space. And the top 8-floors would make up a 200-unit 4-star hotel. I really hope this thing comes into being. The first phase (ie, rennovating the current Federal Reserve Building is well under way. This 17-story tower will be coming in the second phase.

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This is actually the same Melaver development we heard about a while back, but apparently there has been a bit of an upgrade. Originally planned to be only 14-stories, it's now been upgraded to 17-stories (which would make this the tallest new construction in downtown Birmingham in nearly two decades). The first floor would be the lobby/retail space. The next 8-floors would be office space. And the top 8-floors would make up a 200-unit 4-star hotel. I really hope this thing comes into being. The first phase (ie, rennovating the current Federal Reserve Building is well under way. This 17-story tower will be coming in the second phase.
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  • 1 month later...

Interesting, but awesome news. I wonder what keeps making them bump it up. They had claimed to have some difficulties finding a tenant for the office portion... but yet, even though apparently they've landed some deal with a hotel, they increased the height yet again.

We're actually going to get a new high-rise! Yay! Assuming it doesn't go to the same graveyard as so many others. It won't stand out necessarily, but I guess it's safe to say that it'll at the very least contribute to the density of that area.

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I posted this on another thread before I realized this one was here:

I looked at the Lexington Collection website, and their properties don't look very impressive to me. I would prefer an Omni for the Federal Reserve site.

By the way, you can go to the Melaver website and see a photo image of how they envision the new structure fitting into the block. Here's the link:

http://www.melaver.com/Development/D...ent3.asp?id=29

Hold your mouse over the image to see a larger version.

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Also -- as for the potential tenant of the office building -- I saw in the paper the other day that SONAT needs new space. Currently they apparently lease 11 floors in the former AmSouth building. I had thought of two obvious alternatives -- either the Colonial Properties Building or the new Melaver one. Does anyone know if Colonial is moving out of their building downtown to move to Brookwood? If so, would that mean that their downtown building needs a new occupant? In the alternative, maybe the Melaver building would fit the bill.

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  • 3 months later...

BTW, another thing I failed to realize about this project was that, once completed, this will become downtown's ONLY 4-star hotel. I'm sure there are others in the metro area, but this will be the first one that's actually downtown. They did anticipate the tower being complete by 2008/2009... and given that, you'd think they would either have started or be starting soon.

Initially, this was to only be a $40-million project (prior to the decision to upgrade the proposal). An article as recent as February, however, now places the figure to be at $70-million.

Here's the latest rendering... it's the second tall structure from the right in this picture...

20067191227520.FedRenderingWebRoll.jpg

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  • 2 weeks later...

An article in today's Birmingham News mentions the Federal Reserve Tower now being planned for 19-stories tall. This thing went from 14-stories to 15-stories to 17-stories to 18-stories to now 19-stories. Why not 20-stories? It'd be nice to have a new 20+ story building, but I wouldn't complain if it were just 19-stories.

Here's the article... it mentions the Fed. Reserve project on the 2nd page of the article: http://www.al.com/business/birminghamnews/....xml&coll=2

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