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River Tower (Completed)


vdogg

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It's bad to say but I've pretty much stopped caring about this tower now. The excitement is gone, I really thought this was going to be a step up for the area.  A 50 ft reduction would have brought it to 276. They actually cut it far more than 5 stories worth of height and now it'll be shorter than the Dominion Enterprises (Trader) building and the Hilton. Pathetic. So tired of developers coming up with these grand plans only for things to get squashed at the last second. There is no reason a city our size can't be putting forth taller towers by now. We sprout 20-story buildings like weeds in this area. <_<

On 6/2/2018 at 2:21 PM, BFG said:

(SIGH)

I hope the building still looks sleek and doesn’t become short and stubby, since they’re losing 5 floors but keeping the same number of units. 

Also hope that the next building proposed for downtown has at least 35-40 stories, so that when changes are proposed, it will be more like 28-35. <_<

No way it looks sleek with these dimensions. It will in fact be short and stubby, which is typical for this area.

"Project officials said after bringing in a design firm and general contractor, the partners suggested ways to make the building more efficient. Those included decreasing the height and increasing the base, a spokesman said, adjustments that will allow the company to maintain the same square footage and about the same number of units."

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Looks like Eric Hartley finally got this nailed down even though we kinda knew. He wrote me last month saying he hadn't forgotten was wtg on Volder.  

Agree 100% with Vdogg. These guys marketed this specifically and expressly as the tallest purely residential tower in HR, and second tallest bldg in Norfolk. Said this generation of retirees like modern high rise living. Marketed and developed to appeal to those folks. Selling out supposedly 2 years ago. So what happened!?! The truth will never be told, but it likely has to do with cold hard cash and the clearly over-optimistic/definitely over-sold crap they were spewing couldn't hold water in reality. 

Like I said a while ago, there's a special place in Hell for liars and the damned lies they tell.

Edited by baobabs727
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On 6/3/2018 at 7:56 PM, zeppelin14 said:

On a positive note, maybe this will FINALLY kick start development at Fort Norfolk.

Agreed. Since SPQ may be up in the air, any type of development to connect or expand development is a good thing. Take the good with the bad, I guess. 

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On 6/4/2018 at 9:03 AM, carolinaboy said:

22 is better than 0. Let's hope it just gets built. I'm fine with it.

Exactly. I know the buzzkill of going from a tower that could actually help transform the skyline to one that is going to simply add into the mix is a bit disappointing. But 22 stories isn't exactly a mid-rise suburban apartment complex either. It's still going to bring residents to the Fort Norfolk area and give that location a shot in the arm. It's going to bring quite a few retirees with a good deal of disposable income to the area with decent light rail access to downtown.

To me, the disappointment here is like walking away from a football game disappointed that your team won by 14 instead of by more.

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Decent points, but this thing is now only going to be 40 ft taller than the existing bldg.  Instead of almost 100 ft taller.  And the existing bldg is stubby and forgettable. Additionally, they have not released  a new rendering.  Still using the old one at 27, and so architecture-wise, there is no way to know if it will even resemble the orig. design at all. In fact, their new literature is emphasizing "brick and glass." Lord please let there be more glass than brick, not just a brick-laden duplicate of bldg. #1...with glass accents.

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8 hours ago, baobabs727 said:

Decent points, but this thing is now only going to be 40 ft taller than the existing bldg.  Instead of almost 100 ft taller.  And the existing bldg is stubby and forgettable. Additionally, they have not released  a new rendering.  Still using the old one at 27, and so architecture-wise, there is no way to know if it will even resemble the orig. design at all. In fact, their new literature is emphasizing "brick and glass." Lord please let there be more glass than brick, not just a brick-laden duplicate of bldg. #1...with glass accents.

You and I both know this is just going to be a stubby brick replica of the first, I don’t know why you’re trying to convince yourself that it’s not . :lol: I get what others are saying too, and if this were a rare occurrence I’d be inclined to agree, but this happens with literally every single building that is proposed for downtown Norfolk. Every. Single. One. I can’t think of one time that I’ve been living here that one of these buildings turned out grander than originally proposed. Even the Hilton used to be a taller sleeker Westin. At one time it was supposed to be the second tallest at 26 floors, then when it changed back to Hilton it changed back to 23. Then when they actually built the thing it was topped out at 21 stories with zero explanation as to what happened to the missing floors. We deserve and can do better. I’m tired of settling for mediocrity and I’m tired of developers selling this area short. I hold out hope that one day one of these developers will bring their A game to Norfolk, but that remains to be seen...

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1 hour ago, vdogg said:

You and I both know this is just going to be a stubby brick replica of the first, I don’t know why you’re trying to convince yourself that it’s not . :lol: I get what others are saying too, and if this were a rare occurrence I’d be inclined to agree, but this happens with literally every single building that is proposed for downtown Norfolk. Every. Single. One. I can’t think of one time that I’ve been living here that one of these buildings turned out grander than originally proposed. Even the Hilton used to be a taller sleeker Westin. At one time it was supposed to be the second tallest at 26 floors, then when it changed back to Hilton it changed back to 23. The when they actually built the thing it was topped out at 21 stories with zero explanation as to what happened to the missing floors. We deserve and can do better. I’m tired of settling for mediocrity and I’m tired of developers selling this area short. I hold out hope that one day one of these developers will bring their A game to Norfolk, but that remains to be seen...

I agree 100%. I'm happy about development, but the generic architecture kills a bit of the momentum and energy that's coming to Norfolk. The new Harvey Lindsay tower has potential to look really nice, if the developers actually try to think outside the box. I was hoping for a change in the status quo, so it's frustrating to see the good ol' boy network still hold up a lot of potential progress. Crossing my fingers that the design doesn't change drastically.

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Eh, architecture is subjective. What some find bland, others consider homely and contextual. This building brings density, which is what  Norfolk needs. Expanded base? Bring it on. 

I'm more concerned about the restaurants and retail, if any, that come with this bulding. This building was never a significant enough design that I cared if it was tall. We haven't had a modern design significant enough to care since Granby Tower.

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5 hours ago, vdogg said:

You and I both know this is just going to be a stubby brick replica of the first, I don’t know why you’re trying to convince yourself that it’s not . :lol: I get what others are saying too, and if this were a rare occurrence I’d be inclined to agree, but this happens with literally every single building that is proposed for downtown Norfolk. Every. Single. One. I can’t think of one time that I’ve been living here that one of these buildings turned out grander than originally proposed. Even the Hilton used to be a taller sleeker Westin. At one time it was supposed to be the second tallest at 26 floors, then when it changed back to Hilton it changed back to 23. The when they actually built the thing it was topped out at 21 stories with zero explanation as to what happened to the missing floors. We deserve and can do better. I’m tired of settling for mediocrity and I’m tired of developers selling this area short. I hold out hope that one day one of these developers will bring their A game to Norfolk, but that remains to be seen...

What you say isn't false..... But grandiose plans leading to bland finality happens everywhere. That isn't a Norfolk thing. That's a developer thing.

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On ‎6‎/‎2‎/‎2018 at 10:18 PM, vdogg said:

"Project officials said after bringing in a design firm and general contractor, the partners suggested ways to make the building more efficient. Those included decreasing the height and increasing the base, a spokesman said, adjustments that will allow the company to maintain the same square footage and about the same number of units."

I am curious about this statement.  If they just recently brought in a design firm, who provided all those fancy renderings we saw three years ago?

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16 hours ago, virginia pe said:

I am curious about this statement.  If they just recently brought in a design firm, who provided all those fancy renderings we saw three years ago?

The original firm was “Three (or 3, can’t remember) living architecture”.  As late as December 2017 they were posting news about this tower on their FB page. The original rendering is also on their website and Facebook page. It’ll be interesting to see if they now have a new design firm. If not, then this statement is somewhat misleading as to the true cause of the reduction. I imagine perhaps they ran into financing issues with the original design and they went back to the design firm and said “make this cheaper”. Of course that’s not something they’d admit publicly, so they wrap it up in flowery language about “increased efficiency”. :rolleyes:

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2 hours ago, vdogg said:

The original firm was “Three (or 3, can’t remember) living architecture”.  As late as December 2017 they were posting news about this tower on their FB page. The original rendering is also on their website and Facebook page. It’ll be interesting to see if they now have a new design firm. If not, then this statement is somewhat misleading as to the true cause of the reduction. I imagine perhaps they ran into financing issues with the original design and they went back to the design firm and said “make this cheaper”. Of course that’s not something they’d admit publicly, so they wrap it up in flowery language about “increased efficiency”. :rolleyes:

And "financing issues" could mean "alright, now let's increase our profit margins by reducing the costs" Increased efficiency = More efficient use of cash. 

It's still a good net development for Norfolk. Just developers being developers. Over promise. Under deliver.

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9 hours ago, wrldcoupe4 said:

Construction costs have increased quite a bit over the last couple years. Could be that they couldn’t make the original vision pencil for financing because of that. 

This would seem to be the obvious answer.  The Pilot's article last year said it was a $100 million tower, and now the new article has the shorter tower as being a $120 million project.  Although a Virginia Business article published two days after the Pilot article last year said the original tower was to be a $165 million project.  Either way, construction costs are the likely culprit and are keeping other potential developments from even being announced.  More people need to tell their kids to consider a trade school when they start looking at colleges.

Harbor’s Edge Norfolk retirement community to add another tower  - Virginia Business article (shared earlier in the thread)

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  • 1 month later...

Well here it is...

1_app.pdf

Well, we gained 2 floors. Now 24 stories. Rounds out at about 270 ft. Taller than 250, but I wish we could still at least get 300. That said, design is NOT BAD. Still can't hold a candle to the previous design, but not nearly as bad as I was expecting. All things being equal, I can live with this.

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I don't hate it, but I don't love it. At least it's more glass than brick, but yeah, that's a letdown from the original. Hopefully it'll look better upon construction.

Hopefully they don't mess with the Gateway Tower design too much (they will).

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