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Best underdog City skyline


I-275westcoastflorida

Best underdog City skyline  

122 members have voted

  1. 1. Best underdog City skyline

    • Mobile,AL
      11
    • Birmingham,AL
      53
    • Baton Rouge,LA
      6
    • St.Petersburg,FL
      17
    • Savannah,GA
      5
    • Corpus Christi,TX
      6
    • Other please list
      24


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Birmingham, my home town. It gets no play. It happens to be extremely dense. If it were not for the height restrictions and the silly FAA, it could have a couple of 40 or 50 story buildings and rival some cties of 2M+ IMO.

A2

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As far as the "underdog" goes, I'm choosing other and putting my home city on there. It gets little respect as far as small-midsize cities go, although it seems almost every year Southern Business & Development magazine has it listed as one of its Top 10 Southern Mid-Markets. Not to mention, the suburban areas of Shreveport are some of the fastest growing cities in the state of Louisiana. The skyline is gorgeous, the downtown area has been revived and is gorgeous, and crime has even dropped considerably.

MY Shreveport:

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Underdog skyline means a small-medium sized city thats skyline isnt very big for the population or could be better than its current.

Am I understanding this correctly ? Everybody automatically jumps to Birmingham as the polls best Skyline. That's true, I am not disputing that. As I interpret this question...."Underdog Skyline not big for population or could do better". That should not be Birmingham, because they DO have the Best Skyline. So how could B'ham still do better if they are already the best on this list ?

Baton Rouge's Skyline does not match it's population would be the choice. Nobody thinks much of it's Skyline, with their pop. is the TRUE UNDERDOG Champ. Since the tallest State Capitol in the U.S. is located in BR, nobody seems to want to build anything taller. And being only 75 miles from New Orleans also has something to do with it's Skyline. Also Baton Rouge is one of the few cities to have their tallest high-rise hotel NOT to be part of the Skyline, since it is 4 miles to the east of the CBD.

***But wait **** Baton Rouge is about to break-through in 2006' , (three high-rise projects of 30-stories,20 & 19-stories)+ several mid-rises too.come-back in 09' and the Skyline will have changed dramatically. Then some other city can take the "Underdog" title away gladly.

Thank you...I thought I was the only one to read this question right. I would say St Pete. A decent size town, from a fairly large metro and not nuch of a skyline. If Raleigh was on there it would grt my vote for the smallest skyline Vs. population but that is about to change within 2 years. Also Raleigh's tallest building at 46 floors will be located 5 miles from DT.

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Thank you...I thought I was the only one to read this question right. I would say St Pete. A decent size town, from a fairly large metro and not nuch of a skyline. If Raleigh was on there it would grt my vote for the smallest skyline Vs. population but that is about to change within 2 years. Also Raleigh's tallest building at 46 floors will be located 5 miles from DT.

A 46-floor building outside of downtown in a city the size of Raleigh? That's very interesting. Just curious, what is the driving force behind the placement of this building in relation to downtown?

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A "Thank You" back at you Eastwestrob... I was begining to wonder myself.

Is that 46-story bldg. in Raleigh a propsed Hotel near Crabtree ? That is crazy, I would definetly want my tallest high-rise in the CBD. It just makes the most sense. But it is always nice to have smaller-multiple Skylines outside of Downtown I guess. ex. Houston, Atlanta. Just think if their multiple Skylines were all combined together ?

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A "Thank You" back at you Eastwestrob... I was begining to wonder myself.

Is that 46-story bldg. in Raleigh a propsed Hotel near Crabtree ? That is crazy, I would definetly want my tallest high-rise in the CBD. It just makes the most sense. But it is always nice to have smaller-multiple Skylines outside of Downtown I guess. ex. Houston, Atlanta. Just think if their multiple Skylines were all combined together ?

You are welcome richyb83...The tower is known as Soliel I. It is at the corner of Hwy 70 W. and Hwy 50 (Creedmore Rd). Sunday was quit an event as they imploded the 12 floor Sheriton Hotel to make way for this new tower. Soliel's website still says 42 floors but I have heard from reliable sorces that it will actually be 46 floors. About 2 weeks ago another anouncement brought us Soliel II which will stand beside it at 18 floors proposed. There is even another proposal for the Creedmore Towers next to that but not sure of the details on those. The area from Crabtree to Horth Hills is considered our Midtown and will start to rise really fast now. Horth Hills has gone thru quit a transformation the last few years and there are several midrise towers proposed there. Soliel I is a part hotel and part condo. The hotel part will be a Westin. I can say that at first I was really leary of the tallest being outside the core but seeing rapid height Proposals throughout the city has changed my mind. The core itself will be recieving a new tallest too with the new RBC headquarters but will not surpass Soliel I. By fall we should hear of another proposal from the Developers of Reynolds & Reynolds with something at least 30 floors and last year even mentioned up to 37 floors. I personally think this will be Raleigh's Tallest once announced.We will wait and see on this one. The same Developers are bringing a new tower online this year called Quarum at 17 floors and has already topped out.Site 1 in the core will bring us a 20 and a 12 floor already approved with retail and condo's. Next to that a new 17 floor Marriott will be attached to the already under construction 500,000Sf Convention Center. There is even the mystery tower that for the life of me I can't remember the name that will be bottom floor retail and 20-25 floors of condo's above. Then there are several proposed midrise condos scattered around Dt.I hope this gives you a better idea of the crazy growth and changes that Raleigh is going thru. These are the biggest and best times to watch Raleigh grow yet. There should be close to 12 tower cranes throughout the city over the next 2 years with these projects and who knows what else will be announced during that time period. :yahoo::yahoo::yahoo:

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Birmingham (metro pop. 1.1 million) is in a different league. It should be compared to Richmond, Louisville and other similarly sized cities.

True but if you do throw Louisville and Richmond in, Birmingham would be behind both cities. Birmingham is kind of like Memphis in that it isn't an expansive skyline but is compact and impressive for its footprint. What both B'ham and Memphis have that other cities don't is old architecture that has stood the test of time.

Still, a couple 500-600 footers would build it up nicely. :)

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What Birmingham has that is more extensive than even the largest of metro's, including Atlanta, is a fantastic Grid layout. Birmingham's Downtown is actually Very large and not compact at all. The cluster of highrises that is commonly refered to as the CBD is just one minor part. There is midtown,Southside and North Birmingham that combine to make the footprint quite large. UAB is also another large institution that has invested literally hundreds of millions of dollars in developing the Southside of the city.

Birmingham, IMO, could very well have the most potential for a dynamic skyline of ANY city close to its size.

One only needs to take a trip on top of Red Mountain to Vulcan Park to see the vast expanse of the downtowns footprint.

http://www.vulcanpark.org/index.html

It is miles of development from the Airport to Sloss. Then back down to the CBD to Southside. It is huge ! Birmingham is much different than most cities that tend to be linear in nature. While 20th Street is the main drag of high-rises, the entire city has developed much more like a northern city with Avenues and Streets that create a very Northern feel (ie Boston or NYC) and creates much more breadth to the overall downtown.

A2

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I would have said little rock too.....but I'm not quite clear on what is meant by "underdog."

.....the size of the underdog city's skyline is not representative of the city's population. baton rouge, raleigh, orlando, and memphis have underdog skylines IMO. The opposite of these underdog cities would be charlotte or little rock.

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.....the size of the underdog city's skyline is not representative of the city's population. baton rouge, raleigh, orlando, and memphis have underdog skylines IMO. The opposite of these underdog cities would be charlotte or little rock.

Duh, that's right, I wasn't thinking. I get these "which city's skyline..." polls all confused. Little Rock is impressive for a city of its size, but that's the main reason it's the opposite of this poll.

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cities like baton rouge are semi-underdogs. Memphis and Orlando and Raleigh are huge underdogs in this catagory. But I think my hometown of Pensacola, FL is a good candidate for an underdog skyline. The city MSA is almost 500,000, which is comprable to Mobile, but has a much smaller skyline. There are however a great mix of really historic buildings. The Seville tower was the tallest building in FL when built.

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cities like baton rouge are semi-underdogs. Memphis and Orlando and Raleigh are huge underdogs in this catagory. But I think my hometown of Pensacola, FL is a good candidate for an underdog skyline. The city MSA is almost 500,000, which is comprable to Mobile, but has a much smaller skyline. There are however a great mix of really historic buildings. The Seville tower was the tallest building in FL when built.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I'd say Norfolk has a pretty sparse skyline for a city & metro its size.

This is the best skyline this area of 1.7 mil can muster...

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True, but you also have to put in account that there are about 7 cities in this region and they all compete against eachother. Theres no way they would let Norfolk itself become a big powerhouse. But Norfolk is doing some great infilling right now and with projects such as Traders and Harborview(i think) there skyline is going to be drasticly improving. Also too mention that Portsmouth has a nice lil skyline along with Va Beach.

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True, but you also have to put in account that there are about 7 cities in this region and they all compete against eachother. Theres no way they would let Norfolk itself become a big powerhouse. But Norfolk is doing some great infilling right now and with projects such as Traders and Harborview(i think) there skyline is going to be drasticly improving. Also too mention that Portsmouth has a nice lil skyline along with Va Beach.

^All reasons it's an underdog.

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  • 2 months later...

I'd say the skyline of my current residence is a major underdog, and also an underachiever. At over 200,000, Durham is bigger than Little Rock, Shreveport and Winston-Salem (a major overachiever), but has a very weak (albeit unique) skyline.

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I place Huntsville 1st and Knoxville a close second. Huntsville's skyline is very underdeveloped for a city with a metro approaching 400,000. Knoxville has many mid and low rises, but is certainly lacking in highrises for a metro of 655,000. It's skyline should resemble that of Nashville's by now.

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