Bled_man

WOW!! This is great news for 3rd Ward!! It is going to dramatically change both the skyline and the streetlife if everything goes as planned right now. I also believe that this almost guarantees the land swap being approved and the minor league stadium being built. As an aside, I can say that there is some movement on the first ward park and parking deck. Thats all I can say right now though .

Using steel frame construction over PT concrete would not speed up the opening very much if at all really. True, the actual frame goes up quicker, but there is a lot of work that has to be done after the frame is up before you can move in, including pouring concrete for the floor system. Also, when steel framing is used, shear studs are typically field welded to the beams prior to pouring the concrete, which is a huge time consumer because most beams would have 20-40 studs each.

Here is the link to a pdf showing this advertisement. Again, it doesn't really mean anything, but it is a pretty good looking rendering of the Vue. The pdf is 2 pages and the ad is on the 2nd page. Link

I would say that there are 6 levels below the mechanical level, making 7 total below the office and 1 service at the top. One of those levels may be a service level as well, with a shorter floor to floor height. It's a possibility at least .

I'm only guessing, but I think they are going to strive for Platinum status. If you look at the size of this project comapred to Wachovia's current project and then compare price tags, it seems that this is going to be an expensive job for its size ($450 million according to the observer). Maybe we'll know more after the press conference. I really love this design and I hope it stays like the rendering shows. Edit: That is $450 mil for the office tower only compared to $800 million for the entire Wachovia job. That seems really expensive.

This is great news . I only hope that the building looks like the rendering because that will help break up some of the architectural monotony of the BofA campus. Maybe we will also see a Saks in the Ritz and some retail in the office tower as well. Again, great news !!

Not sure if this really means anything or not, but I get a structural engineering magazine at work and Autodesk has an ad in this month's magazine with a rendering of the Vue. It talks about the consulting engineering firm that is doing the design for the Vue and how they switched to some Autodesk product. Like I said, don't know if it means anything but it is pretty interesting. The magazine is Structural engineer by the way.