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NASCAR Hall of Fame


cityboi

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I got a response from the mayor on the LEED issue. Sounds like energy efficient materials will actually be used, and the issue really was whether or not to spend the money for certification. Anyway, heres what he had to say:

"Although we won't be taking every step to obtain the LEED certification, we will accomplish most of the items to almost be LEED certified. It will be very energy efficient and we will be using many recycled materials and other steps outlined to be LEED. So, I am comfortable that it will be an environmentally responsible building, as it is incorporating a green build design."

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An article in todays Charlotte Observer talked about the foundation work beginning on the Tower Portion. The article can be found here. A few interesting points, it was mentioned that this building was "green" in the article, of course not LEED certified as discussed in our forums. Good to know they are making the effort to at least involve "green" processes. Foundation work is expected to take 10 weeks, then we should begin seeing this tower joining the many others going up in our city. The tower is going to open 1 yr before the museum.

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That is why certification exists! How do you know something is green unless it is proven to be. There is a term 'greenwashing' that refers to companies doing minimal things that have the perception of being green, but they really are not green when put in context or verified.

Our own Duke Energy refers to coal and nuclear as 'green' because coal gets scrubbed a bit more than it used to and nuclear doesn't emit CO2. That is greenwashing at its most obvious.

The Mint museum in the Wachovia complex will not be LEED certified, but they will do some 'sustainable' features. That could mean they are building the building with something other than mud, because then it will last longer and be 'sustainable'. My guess is that the Mint project will do their green projects more ethical than, say, Duke Energy, but still, it is not likely to be substantially different than it would have been otherwise.

It costs money for a driver's license, but it is the only way you can prove that you meet the minimum requirements to drive. LEED is the current standard for proving that your project is using 21st Century standards for energy efficiency, non-toxic materials, and minimally destructive practices. Anything short of that is not good enough. I'm not asking for Platinum here. I'm talking about the minimum LEED standard, which is simple certification.

We have buildings standards so that the building doesn't burn down easily, people don't trip on stairs, and the building actually stays up. It is time to use the standards that say you can be there without being exposed to cancer-causing toxins, that say it won't cause as much pollutants to be poured into the air by the power plants, and that the chair you are sitting on didn't come from clear cutting rainforest (seriously, that still happens).

With childrens toys now being recalled left and right because of lead paint that was secretly used in manufacturing to save costs, it is time to stop assuming that people are doing the right thing. Certification costs money because it takes some work to prove that something is what it says it is, and in this analogy, that something DOESN'T have toxins. Ask those parents that have had kids chewing on lead painted Thomas trains whether they would have paid less than 1% more in order for it to be certified to be free of toxins.

The City of Charlotte's 'leaders' voted 'No', that our city would NOT pay less than 1% more to certify that our new $125M+ project that will greet millions of tourists is free of toxic chemicals and wasteful designs. That pretty much says it all.

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  • 1 month later...

This thread is for discussing the actual Hall of Fame project, not every new project within 1/2 a mile of it.

2nd Ward has a lot going on now, and some of it was initiated by the Hall of Fame, but everything has its place:

The discussion (and its various tangents) of the new sites opened up by the reconfiguration of the Belk Interchange is moved here:

http://www.urbanplanet.org/forums/Brevard-...ite-t42128.html

Discussion of the Nascar Office Tower goes here:

http://www.urbanplanet.org/forums/NASCAR-Tower-t22763.html

Discussion of the Brevard Street Design project goes here:

http://www.urbanplanet.org/forums/Brevard-...cts-t32210.html

Discussion about The Park goes here:

http://www.urbanplanet.org/forums/Park-t3831.html

Discussion about The Tower goes here:

http://www.urbanplanet.org/forums/Smith-Cu...ock-t15635.html

Discussion about the changes to the street grid goes here:

http://www.urbanplanet.org/forums/Uptown-C...reet-t9403.html

Discussion of Brooklyn Village and the Chetrit projects around the old Adam's Mark goes here:

http://www.urbanplanet.org/forums/Ward-Projects-t12387.html

Does that help?

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  • 2 weeks later...

I was driving to center city from S. End on S. Blvd and was amazed to find the tower about 2 stories up past street level! It struck me like a baseball thrown in the groin at how much progress has been made. Again, the tower at this point is steel construction, so it should be shooting up quicker than some of the concrete sites like Wachovia and 210 Trade. You can see the steel above grade on the 3rd View of the Site Cam

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  • 2 months later...

Today's CBJ goes over some of the details of the marketing plan that the HOF is doing to attract corporate sponsors. Seems like just about everything, including the kitchen sink, is up for grabs. One thing that I don't recall seeing before is that they put a date on an opening- March 31, 2010.

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  • 2 months later...

The exterior design of the building has now reached 100% and the twisting metal "swoop" with the cutouts has survived. What is still to be decided is if the dynamic lighting of the cutouts can be done before the building opens or sometime afterwords. It all depends on when funding is found to do that. They will be going forward with a UMUD-O rezoning request to allow some exterior banners and moving some street trees and putting them in the plaza area.

The HVAC for the Hall of Fame and the new Banquet Hall will be supplied from the existing 15 y/o chiller/boiler in the Convention Center. The city is looking at replacing that chiller/boiler with a more effiecent model and paying for it through sponserships. Stay tuned...

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I'm glad the cutouts were retained. As discussed 50 pages ago, those really make quite a difference from the renderings without them. I think the lights add an extra touch, but they seem inevitable, even if they aren't done right away.

I'm glad they are able to share HVAC equipment with the convention center, and that they'll work this opportunity to make the new combined HVAC system more efficient. I'm not sure what they mean by sponsorships (I'm imagining "Today's Air Conditioning is brought to you by Trane -- If you wanted to sweat in August, we would have built this place in Daytona."

I suppose it could be just where they let Trane (or whoever) put up their ads at the Hall of Fame in exchange for merchandise rather than money.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I go by the office tower several times a week and am loving the canitlevered pieces. Today for the first time I noticed the window grid is not plumb with the cantilevered structure. I think it leans outward, ala Hearst tower, ever so slightly. Maybe that is why it is such a vexing piece of structure. Between that and the bow, I think they have a very smart looking tower and am now more anxious to see the sublte brilliance of the HOF itself.

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I go by the office tower several times a week and am loving the canitlevered pieces. Today for the first time I noticed the window grid is not plumb with the cantilevered structure. I think it leans outward, ala Hearst tower, ever so slightly. Maybe that is why it is such a vexing piece of structure. Between that and the bow, I think they have a very smart looking tower and am now more anxious to see the sublte brilliance of the HOF itself.

If its subtle, I would think they failed in their task. NASCAR is anything but ;)

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  • 2 weeks later...

Looking at it from the Royal Court webcam which has pretty poor resolution when zoomed in, this building still looks like it will have 19 occupiable floor....the steel extending upwards above 19 seems to be of a narrower gauge, so I'm guessing that it will be just to support the facade and roof around and over the mechanicals on the "20th" floor.

Building permits confirm that it will only be 20 floors which includes the mechanical level.

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Walking down Stonewall this evening, I realized that you can tell that the floorplates of the Nascar tower are getting larger as you get to higher floors. In the picture in the previous post you can pick this out by looking on the right side of the building, comparing how much steel floor is protuding from the curtain wall.

The more this building progress the more I like it, although I'm still waiting to see how the glass will look. The first panel of glass has been installed on the Caldwell St. side of the building, but it was getting to dark when I was by to really get a good look at it. Regardless of glass color, the way the glass portion of the building sticks out from the rest will be quite striking. :thumbsup:

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