colemangaines

I'm not sure about other processes/systems but helicopters are often an option for HVAC systems. The blowers, chillers, and RTUs are delivered as complete units, and the big ones used for high rises are sometimes above the weight rating for a crane or can't be navigated into tight urban spaces. Loading up from the street sounds pretty insane though, I wish I could've been there to see it. If I remember correctly, the big chiller unit for 505 was also placed there by helicopter.

Nice find! Sort of looks like a more modern version of the MetLife building.

Looks like the Division Street canyon is literally a canyon now https://www.wsmv.com/2024/01/30/road-collapses-near-downtown-nashville/

Can't wait to dive into this!

Off the top of my head: - The Smokeless Tobacco building has one at the intersection of Harrison Street and 10th Ave N. - The Omohundro Water Treatment Plant, on the south bank of the Cumberland right by the Shelby Bottoms train trestle. Might be hard to photograph but you can see it from the boat ramp on the opposite side of the river.

After watching the video Ron posted somewhere (can't remember which topic) about the most stagnant skylines in the US, I wanted to do some research into which skylines have been the most dynamic and growing. So for the 50 largest metros in the US, I calculated what percentage of the buildings were completed in the last ten years. Some notes about the methodology: - I only included the metro's primary skyline. So I counted Dallas's skyline but not Fort Worth, San Francisco but not Oakland, etc. - To keep this from taking too much of my time, I exclusively used data from Wikipedia. I'm sure there are inaccuracies somewhere, someplace in the data, but I'm not going to invest the time to independently verify over two thousand data points. - Each city's percentage is calculated using their Wikipedia page's cutoff height. For example, NYC only lists buildings over 650 ft, and even then it's one of the longest lists. If every city used 650 ft, most of them would have zero buildings listed. It balances out anyway since the cutoff height is applied to both the numerator and denominator of the percentage, even though it varies greatly from city to city. I included the cutoff heights for reference. - I omitted Fresno, CA because I couldn't find a list for it and Washington, DC since it doesn't have a traditional skyline. - A few cities' lists included buildings that are under construction but already at/near full height, so I did the same for Nashville. Thoughts: - First off, I can't believe Nashville tops the list by such a wide margin. We all know there's a lot going on, but the fact that over two thirds of our skyline is a decade old or younger is mind boggling. - I had no idea NYC was doing so well; they've had 48 buildings >650 ft go up in the last ten years. - The aggregate percentage for the cities on this list is 20.9%. Only 16 cities are above this average. It still seems impressive to me, though, that American cities as a whole grew their skylines by ~20% in a decade. I think that speaks to the larger trend of urban renewal and revitalization of downtown areas. Let me know your thoughts!

Predictions: I think if interest rates do end up coming down in 2024, we could see an uptick in land deals as developers start to ramp up. There's a lot of huge, well-located parcels in or near downtown that would be a no brainer for a large developer if the macro environment was more favorable. Spots like the former Station Disctrict site, the 7.5 acres on 16th and Church owned by dialysis clinic, the federal office building on 8th and Broadway, some of the lots around KVB/Peabody to 5th/6th, etc. Wish list: I'm hoping the next round of proposals are of a higher calibre than what we've had in the last few years. Not trying to complain or sound ungrateful - we've had amazing growth for over a decade now, but so many of the high rises that came up were in the 300-400ft range. Hopefully between the growth we've continued to sustain, our comparitively strong performance in office, hotel, and residential occupancies downtown since the pandemic, and maybe some favorable amendments to the Bonus Height Program this summer, we could see a new class of 500+ft proposals over the next couple years.

That is gorgeous. It looks like a Zaha Hadid version of the Barbican Estate. I hope the final product stays true to the renderings.

Sears Roebuck circa 1960 on Lafayette Street, currently home to the Nashville Rescue Mission.

As of the 2020 census there's around 23,000 people living in downtown and midtown, around 3 sq. miles. It was 11,000 in that same area in 2010, and it's only going up. Just because you and your loved ones don't have a significant connection to Nashville doesn't mean there aren't plenty of people that do. I agree with you for the most part - I tried to make a distinction between me personally "needing" and "wanting" to park downtown mainly because the bus is often really inconvenient. It's embarassing that a city/metro of our size has a bus system more fitting for somewhere like Clarksville. Why do you assume I haven't travelled? I've been all over the United States and Europe, and I lived in South Korea for a while right out of college where it was pretty easy to get around without owning a car. I'm aware of how badly we're behind in terms of mass transit, but my main takeaway from other places that I've visited is we need a dense, walkable urban environment to foster good transit. That's why I agree with you on how rail doesn't work in ATL: You're trying to shove mass transit onto a suburban built environment, and the fundamentals of travel time/connections will never make sense.

I do this around once a month, as do many of my friends and neighbors. Just because this doesn't make sense to your perspective/lifestyle doesn't mean nobody does it. Downtown absolutely isn't for tourists for the most part. That's how we treat it, and that's what's most visible, but there are tons of people who live in/near downtown that use the area for their everyday needs. Also this is more of an ideological difference, but I don't think it's a city government's prerogative to make parking more convenient. Parking garages/lots are expensive and use a ton of land, so it's hugely cost-inefficient for the government to focus on parking as opposed to better transit options. Every now and then I'll choose to park downtown, but between the bus, scooters, e-bikes, and Ubers, I've not needed to park downtown in years.

2022 Google Streetview for comparison:

It's really frustrating to hear this guy frame an amenity like TPAC as "costing" tax revenue because something more profitable isn't going in there. Meanwhile he left out the new Titans stadium, which is costing the taxpayer actual money, where you could make the same argument and say that the stadium site could instead bring in much more tax revenue if used for 600ft+ mixed use skyscrapers. Edit: Just remembered the state allocated money for the new TPAC facility so that part of the comparison is unfair on my part.

It looks like the Rays have committed to building a new stadium near Tropicana Field in downtown St. Pete. It'll still suffer from the same accessability issues from people visiting from the other side of the bay, but if St. Petersburg's downtown continues to develop as it has, and if they can pull off this "Gas Plant district" project, it could find success that Tropicana couldn't. https://www.tampabay.com/sports/rays/2023/09/18/stadium-gas-plant-district-2028-tropicana-field-stuart-sternberg/

I'm willing to bet our HPR process has skewed the data a decent amount. I don't know their data methodology but I'm guessing each HPR lot was counted as 1 lot, even though many of them have 2 detached SFHs on them, since the lot itself isn't split when the HPR is established.

Thanks @markhollin! And thanks @MidTenn1 for the use of your render! A few people have reached out to say they loved having that visualization to give context.

The Federal deficit started increasing in 2016, and peaked in 2020. Where are you getting "the past two years" from? Government spending increased dramatically because there was a global catastrophe, and now we're seeing the aftershocks. No need to make this a left vs. right issue.

I guess Hilton's new thing is the "peeling Post-It" look

For a second there I thought I was on the Nashville Pubic Art page

I'm not trying to spread any doomsday narrative - if my post came off that way, it wasn't my intention. You're absolutely right that every situation is different. The article says that it may be market conditions in San Francisco, the hotel's occupancy rate, rising property crime, or a number of other things. But I do think properties were overvalued when debt was cheap for the last few years. And as a result of that along with rising rates, some owners/investors will have to pivot their strategy. Once again nothing doomsday level, but I'm interested to see how the market shifts. Personally I hope we see more movement towards centrally located multifamily housing developments instead of offices. For my own personal speculation: I really do believe Nashville would fare better than most cities if the market shifts. I think our hotel and multifamily housing demand is still looking great, if anything maybe we'll shift from "overheated" to "normal" demand.

The owner of two hotels in downtown San Francisco has stopped making loan payments and turned over the keys to the loan owner, JP Morgan Chase. https://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/2023/06/05/park-hotels-cmbs-hilton-union-square-moscone-pk.html?ana=RSS&s=article_search This is significant because the properties' combined 2016 valuations was $1.56 billion, and the outstanding loan balance is $725 million. The owner had previously tried to sell the properties but was unable to finalize a deal. In my opinion it looks like property values have decreased so much since the 2016 valuation that the owner is currently underwater on the loan. I'm sure San Francisco's market conditions exacerbate the issue, but I wouldn't be surprised if we see similar stories come up in the CRE market around the country in the next year.

Hieronymus Bosch is back from the dead and has found real estate renderings much more lucrative than painting.

When it comes to job growth/wage gains, I wonder if the data is granular enough to tell if its organic growth or from migration. Anecdotally I feel like most of the high earners I know came here with their high paying jobs from a high COL area, while locals have largely had pretty average wage growth over the years, or even negative real growth with cost of living going up.

That's the site of the former Nashville Sounds (minor league baseball) stadium, Herschel Greer Stadium. Closed in 2014, while the new stadium by Bicentennial opened in 2015. The site is included in a future redevelopment of Fort Negley Park, which is currently in the planning stage. The Southend comparison is nice, I really enjoyed that area when I was last over there. If only we could be so lucky as to emulate the light rail running north into downtown...

The plans show the lowest parking floor going down to 31 feet below platform way, which shouldn't be too much lower than the surface elevation of lower 10th Ave. I'd post a pic but it seems like UP is having a hard time right now.