October 1, 201014 yr Quite impressive. "You don't just walk into a bar and mix it up by calling a girl fat" - buildingcincinnati speaking about new forumers
October 5, 201014 yr They are building out the curbs surrounding QCS. From 4th, down Sycamore, and around 3rd. Guessing the sidewalks will be poured soon. "It's just fate, as usual, keeping its bargain and screwing us in the fine print..." - John Crichton
October 6, 201014 yr Alright - does it not look like something is going on at the base of the west side of the tiara? I not sure how much it will cover, but it looks vaguely like the base of the rendering.
October 6, 201014 yr I was out of town for a while and looking forward to checking out QCS from the cut in the hill coming from the airport. I was disappointed. The tiara just sort of blends into the sky from that vantage point and the building looks sawed off at the top. They really need to do something to give the tiara have more weight.
October 6, 201014 yr I was out of town for a while and looking forward to checking out QCS from the cut in the hill coming from the airport. I was disappointed. The tiara just sort of blends into the sky from that vantage point and the building looks sawed off at the top. They really need to do something to give the tiara have more weight. Â I have a friend who works for Turner Construction, the company that built the tower- I'll ask him if there are any internal talks regarding the tiara- although in our talk the other day- he implied its basically done.Â
October 7, 201014 yr Really great audio/visual piece with Mario San Marco- very nice photos Very nice. Quite impressive. Â Thank you gentlemen, glad you enjoyed it. Â I was out of town for a while and looking forward to checking out QCS from the cut in the hill coming from the airport. I was disappointed. The tiara just sort of blends into the sky from that vantage point and the building looks sawed off at the top. They really need to do something to give the tiara have more weight. Â I have a friend who works for Turner Construction, the company that built the tower- I'll ask him if there are any internal talks regarding the tiara- although in our talk the other day- he implied its basically done. Â When I was up there, they seemed to say it would stay open and they had no plans to add anything to it except signage. However, they did mention that the thing would be lit up quite impressively. Their words though, not mine. I'm still bummed there's no observation deck. Â
October 11, 201014 yr If the tiara is supposed to be so damn prominent, why in the hell would they construct an invisible crown? The tiara is a massive blunder and an outright embarrassment to Cincinnati. They need to stop cutting corners and get creative up there.
October 11, 201014 yr They completely botched the tiara. I thought it was going to be more like the Bank of America building in Atlanta. That is the way to do an open crown.  http://assets.bizjournals.com/story_image/205423-600-0-3.jpg  The good thing is that it could easily be fixed by simply filling in the gaps with more steel, the bad thing is that it will probably never happen.
October 11, 201014 yr I am trying to reserve judgement until everything is done, but I think ultimately the thread count on the tiara will be a little low.
October 12, 201014 yr Several of you guys should get together and contact WS and air your complaints and suggestions..I have done this by myself but with no positive results.
October 12, 201014 yr If you guys think complaining to W&S is going to change something, you're crazy. They love their building and unless one of you comes up with a million dollar donation to change the tiara, its going to remain the way it is.
October 12, 201014 yr My favorite shots of QCS are from the side...like this beauty from soapboxmedia.com  http://soapboxmedia.com/features/1005soapboxupdatesavethedate.aspx  We'll see what the tiara looks like at night with lighting...
October 12, 201014 yr The tiara still looks terrible from that angle. It doesn't blend in with building at all.
October 12, 201014 yr The tiara still looks terrible from that angle. It doesn't blend in with building at all.  Agreed. From East/West it resembles the Amnesty International logo sans barbed wire.   Well, not so much but...
October 13, 201014 yr Below is my recent letter to John Barrow:  With all due respect to your courage in building the magnificent QCS in difficult economic times, I am compelled to say the following: The tiara looks very much like a bird cage without the bird. Have you seen the building from Devou Park in Ky? You should ,you know, because the tiara is barely visible. The tiara should be filled in with some kind of sheet metal with a non-white color. Also, an observation deck should have been planned before construction began. But why not make one or two rooms near the top into an observation deck?!! The expense would be worth it, and Cincinnatians and out-of -towners would be eternally grateful. The tower does much for the Cincinnati skyline, and you are to be congratulated for building such a beautiful building>  Regards, Jack Geis
October 13, 201014 yr The problem with an observation deck is that it needs to be served by dedicated elevators, which adds up to a lot of extra expense and several hundred fewer square feet of rentable space on each floor. You'd also need dedicated ticketing/support spaces down in the lobby, in addition to giving up an entire floor of your most expensive space to a function that has no chance of making a profit. It's not really worth doing unless you're talking about a new world's-tallest building in a major city with lots of tourists. Â Granted, the Carew Tower observatory is served by the same elevators used by office tenants, but such an arrangement would be unthinkable in a new building with modern-day security concerns in mind, and the Carew Tower observatory doesn't even come close to meeting today's egress and accessibility codes.
October 13, 201014 yr you'll find more happiness if you convince yourselves that it is cool  I agree! It's a blissful moment when you realize we are stuck with this and you can't do anything about it. I still say hold judgement til it's finished......Light it up!!!
October 13, 201014 yr "A surgeon can always bury his mistakes. The best an architect can do is plant some ivy." -- Frank Lloyd Wright
October 13, 201014 yr ^ That's it...cover the tiara in ivy!!! Â lol. Â "Green roofs" are all the rage these days, after all.
October 13, 201014 yr With all the condensation being put off by the rooftop cooling towers up there, I wouldn't be surprised if the tiara starts growing some mossy fuzz anyway. Â
October 13, 201014 yr With all the condensation being put off by the rooftop cooling towers up there, I wouldn't be surprised if the tiara starts growing some mossy fuzz anyway.  I doubt that's going to happen, and do we know if they're even water-cooled units at all? They could just be regular fan coils which don't emit any water vapor at all. If they did that might actually be kind of neat looking, especially on cold still days. That does raise an issue of condensation and moisture in general though. Cincinnati seems to have a lot of particulate pollution, whether artificial or natural. Anyone who parks their car outside overnight knows this. When this dust collects on the tubular sections of the crown and then gets washed down by morning dew or light rains it creates unsightly streaks of dirt on the underside. The white color of the crown greatly exacerbates this problem, and that also contributes to its invisibility in our usually hazy skies. The simplest solution would be to paint it a different color, but the question is what would that be? Blues and grays that match the rest of the building could be even worse at blending with the sky, and red or black don't seem appropriate either. Maybe a highly reflective silver? I don't really know.Â
October 13, 201014 yr My favorite shots of QCS are from the side...like this beauty from soapboxmedia.com  http://soapboxmedia.com/features/1005soapboxupdatesavethedate.aspx  We'll see what the tiara looks like at night with lighting... The tiara still looks terrible from that angle. It doesn't blend in with building at all. The tiara still looks terrible from that angle. It doesn't blend in with building at all.  Agreed. From East/West it resembles the Amnesty International logo sans barbed wire.   Well, not so much but...  I was thinking it looks more like a zippo lighter. I still say glass it in but I'm not complaining.
October 13, 201014 yr Check out the night lights: The top of the tower still looks very unfinished. Hopefully, the Great American Insurance logo and tiara lights correct this.
October 14, 201014 yr Check out the night lights: The top of the tower still looks very unfinished. Hopefully, the Great American Insurance logo and tiara lights correct this. Â Damn you...you beat me to it... Â Â Â Guys they may light the tiara like this?
October 14, 201014 yr Did they get the wrong lamps on the right side (west)? Or is it the glare from Atrium making it look less bright? Or maybe the fixtures are just aimed wrong..
October 14, 201014 yr Uplighting looks good. Any chance for LEDs on the tiara? Â And about glassing in the tiara for a better day time look: I always envisioned the tiara looking like it does in this rendering of by RM Design Studio: Â
October 15, 201014 yr When we were leading people from around the world down to the Montgomery Inn Boathouse for dinner one night (conference, we were the hosts, and they stayed at the Hilton), people were remarking that the tiara was ... ugly. The building they said looked nice, but they thought it was still incomplete!
October 15, 201014 yr I love the angle in the first picture Sherman. Great shots! Â That last photo shows what's wrong with the tiara at present.
October 16, 201014 yr You can see it. It's just that the clouds there is almost the same color as it. I can see it from Sharonville. And from there it's clearly the tallest downtown.
October 16, 201014 yr When we were leading people from around the world down to the Montgomery Inn Boathouse for dinner one night (conference, we were the hosts, and they stayed at the Hilton), people were remarking that the tiara was ... ugly. The building they said looked nice, but they thought it was still incomplete! Â The invisible tiara makes me imagine what the building would look like if it continued to narrow with Art Deco-y rectangular angles until it came to a point of some kind. Perhaps (definitely?) better than with the tiara.
October 16, 201014 yr I think at this point the best bet will be to get them to repaint it- instead of white, a very shiny metallic reflective paint. There's obviously no way they will fill it in with glass or add more beams (personally I think that would have been the best design option), but at least by repainting it it could become more noticeable.  sigh.  oh, and GREAT pictures!
October 17, 201014 yr ^ I know a lot of people in this forum have complained about the side angle (picture 1 above) but i actually think overall, the building looks best from the side. From the font its this large massive rectangle with some tapering at the top.. from the side it has more definition and style.
October 17, 201014 yr You can see it. It's just that the clouds there is almost the same color as it. I can see it from Sharonville. And from there it's clearly the tallest downtown.  That was sarcasm. It can be seen from many places that are far from DT. Carew and QCS are visible from Hebron, KY as well as the Licking River bridge. The latter of the two provides a perspective that makes QCS look ridiculously out of scale not because of it's height but it's girth. Really should have been 25% thinner and 10 stories taller...and I don't say that because I have a height fetish - I don't. Let your eyes scan from "Central Trust" to QCS and you wonder why the review board green-lighted such a fatty.
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