BROADWEST (former West End Summit), 36 story Conrad Hilton Hotel/condo tower, 22 story/510,000 sq. ft. office tower, 4 story/125,000 sq. ft. retail/office, 1 acre plaza, 2,500 car garage, $490 million

[titanhog]

4 hours ago, smeagolsfree said:

Palmers big ole hole just got bigger.

It just went from Lake Palmer to The Palmer Sea. 

[Craiger]

Hi all! Lurker here. Any update on this project? I think someone said a few months ago that concrete would start in Feb? 

[tokiorose]

Hi all! Lurker here. Any update on this project? I think someone said a few months ago that concrete would start in Feb? 

Still February according to my source.

Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk

[e-dub]

Welcome, @Craiger!

[markhollin]

Welcome to the forum, Craiger.  : ) 

The digging appears to be nearly finished.  Will post some pics in a couple of days. 

[Mr_Bond]

Welcome to the forum, @Craiger!

[markhollin]

Amazing tonnage of rock has been blasted and cleared in last 6 weeks.

Looking SE from 17th Ave. North, 1/2 block north of West End Ave:
 

Looking east from 17th Ave. North, 1/2 block north of West End Ave:

:


Looking NE from 17th Ave. North, 1/2 block north of West End Ave:

[wmaddbb2018]

These people aren't playing around.

[LA_TN]

[e-dub]

MAN, am I looking forward to this one rising!

[Mr_Bond]

Based on the pics, am I right in assuming that they've gone down as far as they want and are ready to start going up?

[MLBrumby]

It would seem so, as the floor is being leveled now. Looks like there's still a lot of rock to clear out, but looks like the hard part is done. Is the fill being used at the airport? 

Something else I've wondered about. In the 3rd and 4th pics, there is a section that has not been excavated, and results in a portion of rock that juts into the hole. I've noticed on several tower construction sites, that this happens. But I can't imagine why they leave that little bit. Are there utilities under there? Or is that an access point (a pad) for construction equipment to sit on? Why?

Edited January 16, 2019 by MLBrumby

[LA_TN]

It appears all excavation is complete, with the exception of a few minor needs. Just need to carry the rock away 

The little cutout, next to West End, could be the utilities vault. Just a guess. Or underground garage access. Too many possibilities

[bigeasy]

Do lots of cities have to deal with this much rock when excavating sites? It has to be costly since they can't just dig. Every time I see these pics I am just amazed as it appears Nashville is just one big rock.

[wmaddbb2018]

43 minutes ago, bigeasy said:

Do lots of cities have to deal with this much rock when excavating sites? It has to be costly since they can't just dig. Every time I see these pics I am just amazed as it appears Nashville is just one big rock.

Welcome to Earth, third rock from the sun  

[NashRugger]

1 hour ago, bigeasy said:

Do lots of cities have to deal with this much rock when excavating sites? It has to be costly since they can't just dig. Every time I see these pics I am just amazed as it appears Nashville is just one big rock.

Long story short: Nashville itself, sits in the northwest corner of the Nashville Basin (or Central Basin) that is a geologic dome of rock that is more easily eroded than the surrounding bedrock, thus the Highland Rim. The heart of the basin, generally Murfreesboro because of how flat a majority of the city is, has areas where bedrock is closer to the surface and then some areas where it's at least 30ft down. Thus with Nashville being closer to the edge, the bedrock is generally going to be closer to the surface and less porous than the middle of the basin.

Edited January 17, 2019 by NashRugger

[Armacing]

2 hours ago, NashRugger said:

Long story short: Nashville itself, sits in the northwest corner of the Nashville Basin (or Central Basin) that is a geologic dome of rock that is more easily eroded than the surrounding bedrock, thus the Highland Rim.

Now if we could just get down to the igneous plume that caused the dome to uplift, that is where they keep the diamonds.

[Mr_Bond]

6 hours ago, bigeasy said:

Do lots of cities have to deal with this much rock when excavating sites? It has to be costly since they can't just dig. Every time I see these pics I am just amazed as it appears Nashville is just one big rock.

The plus side is that you have a firm foundation for tall buildings, as long as there isn't a cave underneath.

[ZestyEd]

5 hours ago, NashRugger said:

Long story short: Nashville itself, sits in the northwest corner of the Nashville Basin (or Central Basin) that is a geologic dome of rock that is more easily eroded than the surrounding bedrock, thus the Highland Rim. The heart of the basin, generally Murfreesboro because of how flat a majority of the city is, has areas where bedrock is closer to the surface and then some areas where it's at least 30ft down. Thus with Nashville being closer to the edge, the bedrock is generally going to be closer to the surface and less porous than the middle of the basin.

For the visual learners !!

[Hey_Hey]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the benefit is that skyscrapers in Nashville (as well as Manhattan) don't have to pour really deep caissons like they would in most places since the bedrock is so close to the surface. There may be some added cost of excavation, but there is also some cost savings related to the lack of deep caissons. 

[FrankNash]

NBJ is saying 4 tower cranes for this project.  They are meant to go up very soon.

[MLBrumby]

Would that be peak number of cranes in the modern era. I know MCC had a lot going on, but it was pretty much the main thing going for a while. Now, there's already 5+B (4), Joseph (1), Eakin (2), Gulch Union (1), Endeavor (1), GHyatt (1), Kennect (1), Virgin (1), Vandy (2), Graduate (1), what else?   If the four go up in the next couple of months, there would be 19+ tower cranes in downtown/midtown, not including the booms for LC Sobro, TN Library,  and others like Stockyards. Anyone have any update on Stockyards? 

[titanhog]

We've had some big projects with a lot of infill...but we're now in the middle of some really huge projects (and more to come, hopefully)...that feels like it's taking us to another level.  When you start having projects that include more than one structure being constructed at a time (5 + B, Nashville Yards, Broadwest, Eakin - Trolley Barns area, Deja Vu site, Tennessean site, etc...then add the possibility of 2nd Ave Partners 40 story building, Paramount, KVB circle project(s)...not to mentions others that will probably announce soon...it just feels like we may shoot right through any slowdown.  (fingers crossed)

[MLBrumby]

I used to think of Nashville's peers being Birmingham, Louisville, Memphis, Jax and Raleigh. Now, it's more like Charlotte, Indianapolis, Sacramento, San Antonio, Cincinnati, & Pittsburgh. As far as tourism, I think Nashville even exceeds those cities. To be sure, it's in a unique niche shared by only a few midsize metros. 

[smeagolsfree]

13 hours ago, MLBrumby said:

I used to think of Nashville's peers being Birmingham, Louisville, Memphis, Jax and Raleigh. Now, it's more like Charlotte, Indianapolis, Sacramento, San Antonio, Cincinnati, & Pittsburgh. As far as tourism, I think Nashville even exceeds those cities. To be sure, it's in a unique niche shared by only a few midsize metros. 

We have stepped put game up here. In some respects we are competing with the bigboys for jobs. NYC, LA, Dallas, etc. Convention tourism is on a different level too. Again going up against some of the large tier 1a and 1b not to mention the tier 2 cities.

As far as the list above, we have left Birmingham, Louisville, Jax in the dust. We are right there with Austin, Charlotte, and I think now we have the edge on cities like Indy, Cincy, St Louis and others.

Its sort of like the old Virginia Slims commercial. "You've come a long way baby" and we have done a lot of it in the past 6 years. I think our new peers are Charlotte, Austin, Portland, Denver, and there may be a couple of more in there, but we have jumped the line and will be ahead of places like Indy in population sooner rather than later.