Jump to content

Westin Aloft and residences

vdogg

By vdogg
in Virginia Beach

Recommended Posts


  • Replies 278
  • Created
  • Last Reply
HarryVB Whistle-Stop

HarryVB

Posted
Posted

So does this have anything to do with the Westin Aloft Hotel and apartments?. When are they breaking ground?. When I seen the new fence up and trailer I was thinking it was starting contruction. I guess I was wrong. What the hell are they waiting for?.. Its really sad how Virginia Beach and the developers around here take their freaking time to do anything. I went up to dc this past weekend. You should see all the development projects going up there.. Buildings going everywhere.. Virginia Beach missed out on soo many great projects which could have made us at national level.. Citywalk project for one. The dome site project aka. Indoor rec facility. wave pool, indoor skydiving, and such.. Hell lightrail should have been approved in 1999. we would have some major projects done by now.. I mean town center would have been done anyways, following other projects.. Now norfolk is on track now..and leaving va bach behind again.. That is one thing about norfolk. they jump right into the works when they see something beneifical for their city. Va Beach just sits back and watches the cities growing around them. Not doing anything. sitting on their asses.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
varider Town

varider

Posted
Posted

According to the city of Virginia Beach construction on the 15 Floor Westin Aloft will begin in the 4th Quarter of 2009. About 6-8 months away. Be patient. Town Center is growing at a fine rate. By 2011 they will have 22 story Gateway Tower completed and 15 story Westin Aloft, with a plethora of retail space.. At that point they should begin on the block 11 tower or whatever its called. Approx. 30 floors. I'd say Va Beach Town Center will be awesome in ten years. We just have to be patient. The density will be amazing. Complemented by light rail..

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Telmnstr Burg

Telmnstr

Posted
Posted

According to the city of Virginia Beach construction on the 15 Floor Westin Aloft will begin in the 4th Quarter of 2009. About 6-8 months away. Be patient. Town Center is growing at a fine rate. By 2011 they will have 22 story Gateway Tower completed and 15 story Westin Aloft, with a plethora of retail space.. At that point they should begin on the block 11 tower or whatever its called. Approx. 30 floors. I'd say Va Beach Town Center will be awesome in ten years. We just have to be patient. The density will be amazing. Complemented by light rail..

Va Beach Town Center is going to be bigger than Norfolk in like... 5 years.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
varider Town

varider

Posted
Posted

Va Beach Town Center is going to be bigger than Norfolk in like... 5 years.

What do you mean bigger? I don't think TC will be bigger than norfolk in any category in 5 years..

Not in office space, jobs, hotel rooms, population.. So what will be bigger? Bigger restaraunts?

Unless some developer comes in with a super sized mixed use proposal I don't see it happening

Link to comment
Share on other sites
urbanlife Town

urbanlife

Posted
Posted

feel free to thank me later for preventing this from turning into a full fledged argument.

To answer the question, no VB will not have a downtown larger than downtown Norfolk...thanks to google earth, I measured all this out...but there is one exception to this rule that would be a yes to VB one day having a bigger downtown.

This is based off current maps and plans that both cities are doing, in Norfolk's case, some things were excluded for one reason or another...Atlantic City is not apart of downtown, its water divide and the fact that most of that land is privately owned and has no plans of changing its current state, I see it pointless to include.

So, let the measuring begin.

The current VB town center itself is 62.06 acres, that includes the boundary from Indy to the theater's strip mall, and from VB Blvd to the tracks.

The current downtown Norfolk is 215.4 acres, that includes Brambleton to Waterside, and Boush to St Paul Blvd.

VBTC with the Pembroke Mall is 123.68 acres.

Downtown Norfolk (with stated boundaries) with W Freemason is 290.18 acres.

VBTC, KMart, Pembroke Mall, Pembroke Office Park, HQ site, and the Flea Market site is 242.15 acres.

Downtown Norfolk, W Freemason, St Paul Quadrant ,Harbor Park, and North of Brambleton to the Museum and the Concert Hall is 584.75 acres.

Thus, by this calculation, Norfolk will be the bigger downtown, no matter what....though, there is one exception to this that I mentioned earlier, which is the Pembroke Vision. Based off the boundary that was released by the city, if this was all developed into being an boundary for the downtown it would be 1355 acres, which would make it much larger than downtown Norfolk...though with this calculation, I have to admit that I would omit areas like Atlantic City that did not work within the urban context of the downtown....so it would probably be a much smaller size than this number.

So, the question is answered and I just saved us from arguing for days about something not worth arguing over.

Oh and just to brag alittle bit, the area for downtown Portland which I am counting as the 405 loop to the river is 874 acres....actually, this is kind of fun figuring out the sizes of downtowns with this tool...feel free to ask requests!

Link to comment
Share on other sites
urbanlife Town

urbanlife

Posted
Posted

Except that the Museum and Harrison Opera House is in Ghent, not downtown...just sayin'. :)

technically that is correct, but I was adding the future growth of downtown to include north of Brambleton because that would be an easy direction for new development. Which Chrysler is just a block north of Brambleton and the Opera House is just across VB Blvd, so it makes sense for including those areas into the possible downtown boundary...I think they are currently included in the Ghent boundary because Brambleton is seen as an imaginary line that downtown hasnt really crossed yet....here in Portland, we called that street Burnside, but now just north of Burnside is one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the city that is basically seen as an extension of downtown. So that is why I included it into the boundary...I actually almost included the low income housing development north of Brambleton as well because that area could possibly follow in the same footsteps as St Paul Quadrant, but that is too much of a maybe right now.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
urbanlife Town

urbanlife

Posted
Posted

Hey, there is a development at Burnside that was drawn up by Mulvanny G3, the same guys who drew up plans for City Walk (HQ property). It compositionally looked similar to City Walk. Has that construction started in Burnside yet?

Nope, that is dead in the water for now...actually funny story. Mulvanny did not get the bid for the Burnside project, but their proposal looked alot like the City Walk proposal, which I am guessing they recycled some of that idea into it. A small local developer won the competition, then the city picked the runner up because they were a big national developer, Opus. Then of course Opus couldnt deliver because of the housing market crash because their version relied heavily on condos. And now that Opus is out of the picture, the city is now working with the small local developer they passed over. It will be a while before it gets moving because they are redesigning it from the ground up and trying to figure out if the building on the site could be renovated into the masterplan.

I was so hoping City Walk would happen for VB because the design Mulvanny did looked amazing and they are an amazing firm. It would of been nice to see VB take in some architecture from more talented firms. The preforming arts center is a great example of why it is important to seek talented firms, rather than just local (because talented firms will force local firms to step up their game and talent, which is good for everyone).

Link to comment
Share on other sites
HarryVB Whistle-Stop

HarryVB

Posted
Posted

Just to let you guys know. Virginia Beach City walk project is still alive.. The burnside project is abit smaller than the citywalk project. The city walk project is more spread out. Burnside is more compacted in a downtown area.. There are many investers who are investing into the 800 million dollar citywalk project for va beach.. They know the money is here especially with town center.

Here is more information on burnside

Burnside Development Just click on the link

Link to comment
Share on other sites
urbanlife Town

urbanlife

Posted
Posted

that is good to hear about City Walk, though I do remember Mulvanny saying they were no longer apart of it, but the owners of the property bought the plans to the site, so it could be modified by another architect....I could be wrong on this, but it is something I remember someone telling me, I want to say they worked for Mulvanny, but I cant remember for the life of me right now.

Oh and the Burnside project is a multi block redevelopment here in Portland, OR.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
okinawatyphoon Burg

okinawatyphoon

Posted
Posted

The rendering of Town Center in 5 years looks a little....(forgive my bluntness)...silly. Sure, the core of buildings look nice, but look right outside the buildings -- all parking lots and suburban residential areas, and the whole thing looks extremely artificial. Every downtown has to start somewhere, and Town Center is heading in the right direction, but it will take decades to achieve Downtown Norfolk's CURRENT size, culture, opportunities, and character. Just my opinion. :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites
urbanlife Town

urbanlife

Posted
Posted

The rendering of Town Center in 5 years looks a little....(forgive my bluntness)...silly. Sure, the core of buildings look nice, but look right outside the buildings -- all parking lots and suburban residential areas, and the whole thing looks extremely artificial. Every downtown has to start somewhere, and Town Center is heading in the right direction, but it will take decades to achieve Downtown Norfolk's CURRENT size, culture, opportunities, and character. Just my opinion. :)

I did map out the land size of downtown Norfolk and downtown Virginia Beach and you would definitely be correct with this. The amount of land development that would be required to redevelop to match the size of downtown Norfolk will take decades for the city to develop....well maybe decades....I have seen massive projects be built in a matter of years as well....so who really knows.

I can say the current boundaries of the town center are quite small, if the Pembroke Mall were to get redeveloped into a street grid and urban streetscapes, then this would be much different because it would be much more dense, even if it is still a smaller footprint, and better utilized because it would be more of a masterplan development. Plus you throw in some towers taller than Norfolk's and you have a mix that could one day feel larger than Norfolk....but for footprint size, Norfolk's downtown will probably always be bigger...unless downtown VB one day extends to Witchduck, where they build a new stadium at (now that is something I wouldnt hold my breath for).

Though I sense alot of new urban developments for VB with this new mayor pushing for it....provided he can survive re-election with all the NIMBYs in VB.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
  • 1 month later...
  • 3 weeks later...
varider Town

varider

Posted
Posted

This weekend I went to the 30th floor of the Westin with my mom the realtor.. The view was amazing.. They had a whole bunch of renderings of town center and stuff... The lady said there are only a few more vacant condo's... Sorry for the randomness, but when I looked down at TC I saw the ugly site where this building will be built.. It really is a great development if you think about it. The added apartments (hopefully they will be cheaper) will increase the population of TC.. I say it's not long (if it hasn't happened already) until TC has higher population than DN.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
CaveMaN Whistle-Stop

CaveMaN

Posted
Posted

This weekend I went to the 30th floor of the Westin with my mom the realtor.. The view was amazing.. They had a whole bunch of renderings of town center and stuff... The lady said there are only a few more vacant condo's... Sorry for the randomness, but when I looked down at TC I saw the ugly site where this building will be built.. It really is a great development if you think about it. The added apartments (hopefully they will be cheaper) will increase the population of TC.. I say it's not long (if it hasn't happened already) until TC has higher population than DN.
Anyone have any actual figures... I started listing buildings thinking Norfolk had TC beat by a very high # of population, but it may actually be close...

Norfolk has: Harbor Heights, Hague Tower, 388 Boush, freemason area, Harbour Point, and all of Belmont as it finishes.

VB TC has: Cosmo, Westin, and all of the columbus station area apartments, plus if you count CityView in there, which I really don't right now since it's not connected by roadway to TC.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Mobius57 Whistle-Stop

Mobius57

Posted
Posted

I think when light rail is built to VB Tc i will live in TC and use the LR to go back and fourth from downtown to oceanfront!!

ARRRGH I Can't wait!! Just the thought of it makes me excited. No more driving and parking just to chill in 3 of HRs hotspots! It just feels liberating! LR works wonders! Plus walking exersize!!

Link to comment
Share on other sites
  • 3 weeks later...

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Go to topic listing

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.