skycity

I think there may be a national perception that Richmond is smaller than it actually is. Major league sports and hub airports seem to help perception. Getting the Super Bowl or a political convention seems to help with national prominence in places like Charlotte and Jacksonville. Austin is a city that seems to be a big small town. Tech industry has made it "big" but it wants to stay small and quirky. I'm wondering if the internet hub development could move Richmond closer to where Austin is in terms of prominence?

It will be interesting to see how this space takes shape when the second tower is built. It appears that the two towers will enclose this space, almost creating an above-street-level courtyard. I'm wondering if a pedestrian bridge above the street will connect these spaces?

Another great recent nighttime drone flight:

This clip reminds me of the "Flying Scene" from the movie, "Superman." One thing I'm noticing is that our streets downtown seem darker than in other cities. Perhaps its the tree cover, but it seems like increasing the light would make downtown Richmond feel more vibrant.

A great, recent nighttime drone flight over downtown Richmond. There are especially good views of the new Dominion tower:

Henrico County to become a major internet hub. If anyone knows more about this and the implications for Richmond I would be interested: https://www.henricocitizen.com/articles/henrico-poised-to-become-global-internet-hub/

Will the second tower be a slightly shorter near twin (as shown in renderings) or a similar complimenting tower? I almost think a similar but not exact twin would be preferable, aesthetically. (Think One and Two Liberty Places in Philadelphia).

A global biotechnology company chose to locate in Richmond over North Carolina: https://augustafreepress.com/global-biotechnology-company-to-locate-in-city-of-richmond/ https://www.richmond.com/business/local/france-based-cancer-diagnostics-company-leasing-lab-space-in-virginia/article_2dc03d0c-26a5-50dd-aba7-63ef4bd7d5b9.html

Beautiful recent drone footage: https://youtu.be/4U5NZ5bu_e4

These kinds of open, lattice-work crowns are a trademark of Pickard Chilton buildings. Their office buildings seem to find beauty and refinement in their rational curtain walls and these crowns seem to be their way of disguising mechanical equipment. One of the earliest and most extreme examples is 1180 Peachtree in Atlanta in which the building "falsely" continues in a giant swoop for a considerable distance after the top floor. Look through images of their work, and you'll see similar crowns: https://www.pickardchilton.com I'm wondering if they intend to glass-in some more of the back of the crown on our building?

If you move around this building it looks completely different from every angle.

It is possible to make beautiful and well designed university dorms. Steven Holl's contribution at MIT is one example: https://www.archdaily.com/65172/simmons-hall-at-mit-steven-holl I think it is definitely possible for new and old buildings to compliment one another, creating a greater composition- like Boston's John Hancock tower next to Richardson's church. Tredegar is much more successful because the scale is the same. This is completely out of scale. It looks like they grudgingly built around an old building because they were told to.

Thank you for the great video above. One of the things that really bothers me about this building, beyond the cheap looking materials and "craftsmanship," is the way the new building relates to the old. It could not be a more disrespectful relationship. The new building towers over and overwhelms the "Public Baths" facade. The jarring contrast between the glassy facade and the old stone greatly detracts from the old facade. The building sprawls out over an entire block like an updated version of Soviet-era housing dressed in contemporary garb. How much better it would have been if they had cradled the old facade in something of a similar height with complimenting materials and then allowed a tower to rise behind or on one or the other side of the block.

When you're in the Belle Isle, Brown's Island area the curve of the curtain wall does look beautiful. It picks up the light in different ways throughout the day and in changing conditions. I think it's a beautiful addition and with the second tower there should be a powerful dialogue between the two. I'm surprised they don't have any plans to add a skybridge between the two buildings.

The problem with the view from I-95 is the tower's proximity to the Federal Reserve. It sits a considerable distance back making it appear shorter than it is from that angel.

Very sad to see "throwaway" buildings occupying such a prominent place in the city. The development on Browns Island in the background of this photograph is another great example of missed opportunity. They "value engineered" the decorative roof off the residential "tower" (seen to the left just behind the smoke stack). Even at that, both of those buildings are worthless, architecturally. The fake, tacked-on columns are hideous- all in the name of being "contextual." While buildings of the past, built with good materials and craftsmanship endure, I can't imagine anyone will care to save these buildings if humans are still here 50 years from now. Even the Robert A.M Stern-designed US Courthouse on Broad St. seems to be compromised. Up close the fake-stone cladding looks cheap. There are strange gaps that don't line up in the facade which look sloppy and quickly betray the material's "fake-ness". One building that seems to be standing out as the exception is the Pickard Chilton-designed glass curtain wall of the new Dominion Tower. Based on their other buildings, I think the crown will be elegant. The whole point of a glass curtain wall may be efficiency and economy, but here it seems to be done right. It would be nice if the city had more stringent architectural standards for these developments rather than letting everything go to the lowest common denominator. When you look at what we're building, compared to 50-100 years ago, I think it speaks volumes about the decline of our culture. What does it say about a society when it worships short term profit at the expense of the future and no longer wants to invest in quality?

Bold projections for Richmond's growth from this new article: https://businessfacilities.com/2018/07/business-facilities-2018-metro-rankings-report/

At 417 feet, this tower is going to be roughly the height of Suntrust (400 ft). Judging by the perspective in the eastward-looking view, it's quite a bit closer than Suntrust and appears to be about the same height. So that might give you an idea of how much taller it's going to get. I would think it would appear about equal to the Federal Reserve in that view?

Thank you for posting the article. My question is: Why does it need to turn a profit? It's an investment. It's about quality of life. Filling up my gas tank and then sitting for hours on I-95 sure has an impact on my personal bottom line, but somehow that's OK. In addition, the article talks about how much tourism and other economic activity was generated. This is clearly something the government needs to invest in for the benefit of society because we would all end up making out better economically in the end because of it. The article seems to make it clear that overall it has worked out quite well for Spain. Why does some private interest always have to make a killing off of everything at the expense of the rest of us? (health care comes to mind). I bet the Erie Canal took a while to pay back its investment, but it sure led to profound and explosive development that never would have been possible without it. Think New York City, Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse with all of their industrial power. Plus, Amtrak is already losing money. We might just as well invest and replace it with something that will lead to real economic development.

If we really wanted it to happen it would be feasible. Why not lay a whole new set of tracts? There sure are enough people looking for jobs at the moment. I'm sure the amount of money that is wasted each year on taxpayer subsidies for Big Oil and other corporate interests would pay for real high speed rail that would profoundly benefit all citizens. Why do we allow corporate interests to constantly trump the public good in this country? It's time for the people to stand up and take the country back.

So even after we get the 135 mile per hour "high speed" rail it's still going to take 2 hours to get to Washington? Why do we settle for that when we could have 200 mph trains like they have in Japan, Germany and France?? At some point this county is going to wake up and realize that the rest of the world is passing us by...

For some reason Richmond seems to be under the national radar. Before I moved here five years ago I had no idea Richmond was as big as it is. Richmond needs to find something to give it some national-international identity. The Richmond metro is growing fast, but I think it would grow faster if people knew what the area has to offer. In this regard, the area must start going for big league cultural and quality of life attractions. I think this is happening to some extent with what the Virginia Museum has done with their expansion but Richmond Symphony, theater and sports have to be there also. When it comes to issues of identity, I really think we could get there through more daring architecture. The "batman" building gives Nashville a special identity. Milwaukee has that interesting art museum on the lakefront. Just look at Bilbao, a place I had NEVER heard of until they built that museum. I'm sure hosting a Superbowl helped Jacksonville and the Kentucky Derby raises Louisville's profile. Austin gets shown on that MTV reality show that I can't think of the name of because I never watch it. Even though I am not in to NASCAR, getting the Hall of Fame here would have been great for the area. I agree that we may not want to grow at the rate of Charlotte or Las Vegas. However, Richmond's national-international profile should be raised. How about a bold new concert hall for the Richmond Symphony? I mean REALLY bold....maybe rising up from the riverfront. We need to find something that would make National Geographic Magazine want to come to do an article. Why not get the Weather Channel or CNN to put us on their weather maps more often? Why not invest in light rail and new urbanism like Portland, OR? It all would add up to greater national identity which would translate into more growth. Maybe we should also work to find the next hot thing. With Charlotte it was banking. Could we invest in VCU or UR and be a major nanotechnology center, for example?

Regarding the above rich.com article (the one about the growing number of drivers on local roads): Why do they always low ball Richmond's metro population? I have noticed this in several articles in local media. As of 2006 the census said that Richmond's Metropolitan Statistical Area population was 1,194,008. I don't know what official ranking they are finding that lists Richmond's area at around 800,000. I assume they are just looking up the populations of Richmond, Chesterfield and Henrico and calling that the "Richmond area." I guess it could also be the "urbanized area" list, but this still does not seem like the best measure of an area's population. My understanding is that when speaking of metro area population, you go by the census's MSA numbers.

This link has the latest metro population numbers: http://content.hamptonroads.com/story_wide...&ran=194125 It looks like we're set to roll by Louisville in the next few years. Raleigh will probably roll past us at some point if everything keeps going at the same pace. However, I wonder if Richmond's growth will increase as Washington slows a bit in the future? Any way you look at it 8.8% is not bad at all when it comes to growth. I wish Richmond would take on a bigger national profile. We lack the kind of attention that a place like Jacksonville got with the Superbowl. Richmond needs to find a way to get on the National radar.

You are right that Columbus is larger, but it is better to compare metro area populations. City populations are not really a good way of getting the true numbers because they are effected by land size. For example, Boston or San Francisco would look much smaller than San Antonio. That being said, your point still holds true: 2006 metro area population Columbus: 1,777,539 (between 2000 and 2006 grew at 7.0%) Norfolk: 1,649,457 (between 2000 and 2006 grew at 4.6%) Richmond: 1,194,008 (between 2000 and 2006 grew at 8.8%) Richmond is now 43rd largest US metro. Columbus is 32nd largest. When it comes to Fortune 500's I think we are way ahead of many cities. We have many more headquarters than Baltimore or Portland, OR last time I checked.