January 20, 20178 yr I've seen package delivery rooms behind the front desk in many projects here in NYC. Most people I know (myself included) get things delivered to their office if they live in a building without a front desk or doorman so that they don't have to worry about it being left in a lobby. In many buildings this is what winds up happening unfortunately. Boxes just get left underneath the mailbox area and that's that. It was a problem when I lived in OTR with boxes stacking up in the lobby which was extremely annoying but there wasn't an alternative. In highrises that don't have specific mailrooms dedicated to this it becomes a problem.
January 20, 20178 yr Funny, I was looking at the auditor's aireal photos, and looking through downtown, there isn't a ton of surface parking, but dang that area around the 8th and Sycamore is bad with the Dennison block and the block south of that. Then the other real bad part is the area south of Alumni Lofts... I would love to fill in at least the block south of Dennison (Since Joseph isn't going to do squat on their lot anyways), and those two big blocks south of Alumni Lofts in the next 3 years... Would make everything so much better and cohesive, IMO that's what will make the East End of Downtown really feel a lot more complete. There are about 80 individual surface parking lots on the 64 downtown blocks. Many of them are going-on 50 years old. I photographed all of them in 2005 and very little has changed since then other than some artworks murals.
January 22, 20178 yr I withhold judgement on whether or not i like it or if it comes out looking like a giant shipping container till they're finished, but that flip flop color is very cool in person. I went past in the car on Saturday while passing thru town and when making the turn from 7th south to Main the change is impressive. Even my jaded urban 11 year old who tolerates my crazy excursions to abandoned warehouses and such wanted me to circle the block two more times. It really goes from a mustard yellow to an orange to an almost olive green to the brick red. The cladding really fits into my desired Blade Runner-ish view of the future and with the other industrial brick buildings in the immediate neighborhood but how it works as a whole is yet to be determined. Not sure why i expected brick cladding when saw that last rendered version, maybe just based on the pinkish color.
January 26, 20178 yr Has it topped off yet or is there 1 or 2 more stories that need to be added? Building has been topped off. Probably penthouse construction still but your looking at the final height.
January 27, 20178 yr I am really digging the muted iridescences of the panel they are using. It will change colors before your eyes as you walk and depending on how the light is hitting it.
January 30, 20178 yr I have a question for the architects on this forum. Many of the older parking garages around the city are suffering from years of exposure to the weather, crumbling concrete, exposed rebar, etc. Now that we are building these structures that are parking garage base with apartments on top, is there anything that can be done to keep garage portion intact? Are these buildings just doomed to 50 year life at most?
January 30, 20178 yr Are these buildings just doomed to 50 year life at most? Probably. Epoxy-coated rebar helps some, but water, salt, and freeze/thaw wreak havoc on any exposed non-heated building. Parking garages stay cold and wet much longer than other buildings or surface pavement because they're so massive and shaded. Could you build a parking garage to last longer? Of course, but it would cost more money, and they're fantastically expensive already. That's the real problem. The advantage of having occupied space above the garage is that there's no uncovered top deck that needs salting and is always getting rained on. Having screens that prevent wind-blown rain and snow from coming in helps, but that exacerbates the cold and dampness. I would say that having a partially heated garage that stays above freezing would help, but then you either need to insulate the walls and put in windows, at which point you run afoul of the car exhaust. Maybe if you built a garage over a volcano...
January 30, 20178 yr I would say that their lives could be extended much longer than 50 years. Garages in the past have become functionally obsolete (example is pogue garage). Pogue’s life could have been extended but it wasn’t worth the investment. If you have a garage with 150 apartments on top it definitely makes financial sense to keep the garage is good shape to extend its life and the 150 apartments on top.
January 31, 20178 yr glad to see the above answer - parking garages will tend to be demolished due to functional obsolescence or lack of financial viability before they have (with proper maintenance) deteriorated to the point that they would raise safety concerns. a concrete building in Arizona could last a thousand years... Unfortunately, a given with concrete is that it cracks- and cracks allow water a place to hang out and freeze and expand and make more cracks... So - here, the name of the game is keeping water away, or getting it away quickly. garages with overbuilds, as are becoming more common in Cincinnati hopefully provide an incentive for building owners to keep up with regular maintenance. Unfortunately, as i'm sure has been discussed in other threads, parking structures are usually unable to be converted to other uses (unless they are intentionally planned to do so - speed ramps)... due to the high cost to construct/the return they generate, they are engineered to only support cars and people, which is considered to be a lower live load than an office, and i'm pretty sure the live load for residential is higher too... + because of the cost the floor to floor heights are usually too low to be retrofitted anyway... a more interesting question to me, revolves around the role of the car in 50+ years.
January 31, 20178 yr One interesting challenge with these garages is the separation of ownership between the garage (3CDC) and the apartments... that could create a challenge in the future if one entity is unwilling to pay for preventative maintenance. I wonder how the contract is structured to avoid that obvious potential conflict.
January 31, 20178 yr Could you do very minimal radiant heating in the concrete that could be turned on when temperatures get below freezing? Or would that be way too expensive to justify the cost?
January 31, 20178 yr ^ There are snow melt systems in use around the world, though they are quite expensive. I read a story once about Holland, Michigan, a town that has some heated streets and sidewalks. I worked on a project once where a client was interested in a system like this but it was prohibitively expensive, by a lot, especially in Cincinnati where it only snows a couple times a year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowmelt_system
February 16, 20178 yr Contrary to the opinions expressed here so far, I have to say I hope the metal siding looks better when the building's completed than it appears now. IMO, the clapboard-looking texture, that shows slight imperfections here and there, seems an odd (and maybe even unattractive) choice considering the style and shape of the building. And the mostly green or brown colors it takes on (I rarely see it turn red) can be kind of nauseating in a late 1960s-early 1970s way. Having said that, I've learned that structures can sometimes almost miraculously and beautifully transform at the very end, fulfilling their potential. Plus, there are times when the siding doesn't look too bad, so I hope this is just an "awkward" stage of development.
February 16, 20178 yr So far I think I like the cladding but feel like it might have been better spanning the vertical direction instead of the horizontal. That would've helped the building feel taller instead of wider, though I'm not sure how that would have effected the iridescent look.
February 16, 20178 yr I disagree, I think vertical would look like a pole barn, horizontal is more traditional.
February 17, 20178 yr Is this color-changing paint? Like what was popular on cars in the late 90's/early 2000's?
July 11, 20177 yr Yeah it definitely changes colors between green and red depending on how the light is hitting it. Anytime you walk or drive by it on a sunny day you'll see it gradually changing.
July 12, 20177 yr This color changing paint is freaking amazing ... I loved it from the start, but when I was on 71 driving south last night, the sun caught the red color side and it just looked so cool how the sun bounced off! It's one of those buildings you look at, but try to avoid having a wreck ... I thinks it's cool from a design standpoint if you can get people to "stare" at your building when it's just a plain rectangle.
July 12, 20177 yr Are those all individual air conditioners for each unit up on the roof? Yup. Gotta have as little shared infrastructure as possible.
July 12, 20177 yr Are those all individual air conditioners for each unit up on the roof? Yup. Gotta have as little shared infrastructure as possible. Because if you share it, you can't bill the tenants as easily for it, nor will they be able to have control of the temperature for their unit. Yes, it is less efficient, but if you want to have a class A building, you better have individual amenities, if you want a class C building then it can be shared.
July 12, 20177 yr You can still have individual units with a shared cooling tower. The issue with completely individual units like these is that they're not usually able to pump refrigerant more than 30'-40' vertically. When it's more than that you need special compressors or totally separate refrigerant pumps or both, and that's more to break down, more energy use, etc. That may be one reason you see so many PTAC's in NYC high rises, aside from limited roof space. Yes they're cheaper, but they really limit your facade designs because of the huge grilles they need. They're not very efficient either, but you do have the benefit of room-by-room control/zoning, which is more difficult and expensive to achieve with a residential split system.
July 12, 20177 yr They are a pain in the ass to take care of. Tenants do not care to maintain them and let the filters get clogged which hurts the efficiency of the individual units too. They get a lot more wear and tear than traditional residential units. Personally, I hate dealing with them at our properties because they are always breaking down for one reason or another, tenant related.
August 30, 20177 yr 8th & Sycamore no more; get a look inside Encore The latest luxury apartment tower coming to downtown Cincinnati, a project that has been known as Eighth and Sycamore, is nearing completion. I got an exclusive sneak peek at the apartments and details on the latest collaboration between its developers, NorthPointe Group and North American Properties. The new, $52 million, 17-story tower will be called Encore Urban Living. The name reflects the fact that the same design and development team worked on the adjacent Seven at Broadway apartments, including architect John Senhauser Architects and general contractor Al Neyer. More below: https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2017/08/30/8th-sycamore-no-more-get-a-look-inside-encore.html "You don't just walk into a bar and mix it up by calling a girl fat" - buildingcincinnati speaking about new forumers
August 30, 20177 yr I'm surprised they did not include an ampersand in the name. I suppose that trend may be finally ending! Or maybe Encore @ 8 sounded like some band schedule... “All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking.” -Friedrich Nietzsche
August 30, 20177 yr There is already a similar "Encore" tower in Nashville: http://www.encoresobro.com/
August 30, 20177 yr This and Seven at Broadway have been two great residential additions to a part of downtown that needed them. Even better that Encore will have retail on their street level corners. Now if we could only get something put on those two ugly surface lots across the street.
August 31, 20177 yr Almost every weekday, I either park in this development's garage or get off the bus right across the street. Just this week, I finally noticed the changing colors of the exterior as you walk by. I had always seen it as "brown." I thought I had come across some amazing, not well known discovery. Should've know to check UO first, haha. Appreciate everyone's insight here. I think the exterior adds something truly unique now, it's a nice touch. Hoping we can fill in the other surface lots soon. Walking past them every day makes downtown feel so suburban at times. I put up some photos and a video of the building on my site here: http://queencitydiscovery.blogspot.com/2017/08/the-building-that-changes-color.html
August 31, 20177 yr Almost every weekday, I either park in this development's garage or get off the bus right across the street. Just this week, I finally noticed the changing colors of the exterior as you walk by. I had always seen it as "brown." I thought I had come across some amazing, not well known discovery. Should've know to check UO first, haha. Appreciate everyone's insight here. I think the exterior adds something truly unique now, it's a nice touch. Hoping we can fill in the other surface lots soon. Walking past them every day makes downtown feel so suburban at times. I put up some photos and a video of the building on my site here: http://queencitydiscovery.blogspot.com/2017/08/the-building-that-changes-color.html Nice photos, in the morning from my place in Mount Adams its the bright green color and by afternoon its the brick brown color just based on sun light levels. I appreciate a different material with some dimension, but i was really hoping for brick exterior something similar to Riverfront Park Place in Louisville https://www.emporis.com/buildings/100877/waterfront-park-place-louisville-ky-usa
August 31, 20177 yr I'm surprised they did not include an ampersand in the name. I suppose that trend may be finally ending! Or maybe Encore @ 8 sounded like some band schedule... FYI...this is an ampersand: :evil: This turned out very handsome. I like what it has added to the skyline.
August 31, 20177 yr I'm surprised they did not include an ampersand in the name. I suppose that trend may be finally ending! Or maybe Encore @ 8 sounded like some band schedule... FYI...this is an ampersand: :evil: This turned out very handsome. I like what it has added to the skyline. Devil horns? :-P Yes! You are right, the ampersand is the "&" and not the "at" sign. Long day yesterday had me staring at the wrong side of the keyboard. “All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking.” -Friedrich Nietzsche
August 31, 20177 yr Nice photos, in the morning from my place in Mount Adams its the bright green color and by afternoon its the brick brown color just based on sun light levels. I appreciate a different material with some dimension, but i was really hoping for brick exterior something similar to Riverfront Park Place in Louisville https://www.emporis.com/buildings/100877/waterfront-park-place-louisville-ky-usa Thanks! I agree, Riverfront Park Place looks very nice.
October 4, 20177 yr So it's three colors. A brick red, the light green, then a more deep red/purple. I like it. Definitely unique and adds interest to a type of building which is usually pretty bland.
October 4, 20177 yr I don't like the cladding on the garage, but overall, this is a really nice project. Now we just need about 8 more of these in the CBD!
October 4, 20177 yr So it's three colors. A brick red, the light green, then a more deep red/purple. I like it. Definitely unique and adds interest to a type of building which is usually pretty bland. It looks Mustard Yellow at times too, and even orange and Olive Drab green. Pretty cool in person too.
October 4, 20177 yr Cool! I'm a big fan of cladding that takes on different personalities depending on time of day, lighting quality, angle viewed, etc. one of the prime examples is 100 11th Ave in Manhattan by Jean Nouvel. the glass is all the same color but the panes are angled differently to reflect different elements such as the sky, the city, the water, etc. Sometimes it all looks the same, sometimes it's wildly varied. Not quite as dramatic as this example, but still really cool nonetheless.
October 4, 20177 yr In Manhattan the light kicks off neighboring buildings in a way that doesn't happen elsewhere because there are so many tall buildings of different styles in a small area. Every once in awhile you get a hint of it in a mid-sized city but it's never as rich.
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