Had some free time, thought I'd put this together:

 

ah what could have been....  When was the Hotel for St. Clair/East 6th proposed?  I don't recall that one.

I know the Hilton had plans for downtown and when the city upset them, they decided never to build a hilton in downtown cleveland.  I know they were looking at East 9 and Lakeside and IIRC East 6 and St. Clair.

Impressive.

Is 515 really cancelled or just on hold until financing opens up again? I dont really believe that demand wouldnt be there given the success of other downtown apartments and condos.

Impressive.

Is 515 really cancelled or just on hold until financing opens up again? I dont really believe that demand wouldnt be there given the success of other downtown apartments and condos.

 

The project is complete.  The project was build to accommodate a housing tower above, but no concrete plans have materialized.

Impressive.

Is 515 really cancelled or just on hold until financing opens up again? I dont really believe that demand wouldnt be there given the success of other downtown apartments and condos.

 

The project is complete. The project was build to accommodate a housing tower above, but no concrete plans have materialized.

 

Thats a bummer, i thought the condo tower was going to be built at some point, just not right now.

Wow...would be visually impressive to get at least a couple of these someday. Pretty tired of looking at the same scene.

The Progressive Center kinda looks like the new Trump Tower in Chicago.

Are any of these still a possibility?

The Progressive Center kinda looks like the new Trump Tower in Chicago.

 

Welllll, not exactly - I took an image of another tower designed by Frank Gehry and Photoshopped it onto the skyline just to get a basic idea of how it would have looked. *This* was the plan for the Progressive Center (and it looks nothing like Trump Chicago):

 

"Are any of these still a possibility?

 

In this economy, who knows? There's some momentum happening with East 4th Street and Euclid, so possibly the 515 Euclid building could end up being built, and while it's on hold - the Flats East Bank office tower had two significant tenants signed up. But again, in this economy... :-|

You know I've seen pictures of the progressive center before, but never paid attention to where it was. I'm not sure how big a bummer it is that there's not a tower in that spot.

Where exactly would that have been built?

I've always hated THAT progressive tower, in THAT location.  But there should have been A progressive tower, in a more appropriate location.

Where exactly would that have been built?

 

See the low-rise building on the lower right of that image? That's City Hall. Imagine if you were in a helicopter, hovering over the Convention Center and looking north toward Lake Erie.

 

I'm split - part of me thinks that had the Progressive tower been built there, there would be spin-off development that would connect to the lakefront. It would also have been Frank Gehry's first significant high-rise development (and look at how his museum design turned out for Bilbao - huge amount of tourism just to see some wackadoodle building).

 

On the other hand, it might have ended up being a corporate fortress, with cost overruns that brought financial hardship to the city, so who knows.

Interesting structure... I like the 'bird cage'-like features higher up. Now this may seem like a stupid idea.....But for those who would like to see some additional skyline additions.....wouldn't it be kind of fun to somehow, project an image of this building and maybe others, live, into the skyline at night... Much like Disney World generates images of ghosts at The Haunted Mansion, or how N.Y. projects those light streams up into the sky at ground zero. Just a cool thing to do with lighting and projection. Like Disney uses a real image of a manican to produce the ghost, this could be done using a model skyscraper--then magnified. Poof! There is your instant skyline additions, without worrying about possible vacancies and white elephants!  all simply for amusement and image. Kind of like the laser lights.  And you can shut off the lights in the morning!

Well, the WTC is easy to pull off as they were just two exceptionally tall square towers.  As far as Disney goes we'd need to first construct the largest mirrors man kind likely has ever imagined minus maybe those Russian solar reflectors they never got to work.

Interesting structure... I like the 'bird cage'-like features higher up. Now this may seem like a stupid idea.....But for those who would like to see some additional skyline additions.....wouldn't it be kind of fun to somehow, project an image of this building and maybe others, live, into the skyline at night... Much like Disney World generates images of ghosts at The Haunted Mansion, or how N.Y. projects those light streams up into the sky at ground zero. Just a cool thing to do with lighting and projection. Like Disney uses a real image of a manican to produce the ghost, this could be done using a model skyscraper--then magnified. Poof! There is your instant skyline additions, without worrying about possible vacancies and white elephants!  all simply for amusement and image. Kind of like the laser lights.  And you can shut off the lights in the morning!

 

Whatever you're smoking...

Interesting structure... I like the 'bird cage'-like features higher up. Now this may seem like a stupid idea.....But for those who would like to see some additional skyline additions.....wouldn't it be kind of fun to somehow, project an image of this building and maybe others, live, into the skyline at night... Much like Disney World generates images of ghosts at The Haunted Mansion, or how N.Y. projects those light streams up into the sky at ground zero. Just a cool thing to do with lighting and projection. Like Disney uses a real image of a manican to produce the ghost, this could be done using a model skyscraper--then magnified. Poof! There is your instant skyline additions, without worrying about possible vacancies and white elephants!  all simply for amusement and image. Kind of like the laser lights.  And you can shut off the lights in the morning!

These will easily come back once gas is back in the $4-$5 range.

Ohhhh what could have been. mayday, do you have any renderings of the Ameritrust Center?

 

The Ameritrust  Tower would have been so bad ass... d@mn bank mergers...

^It would be interesting to see how things would have turned out, had it been built. For example:

 

1. The project included a 480+ Hyatt hotel (located mostly in the base). As we all know, Hyatt opened a location in the Arcade; so if Ameritrust went through, what would have happened to the Arcade?

 

2. Obviously - what effect would Ameritrust have had on downtown office space?

all very true... certainly you work under the impression that ameritrust doesn't get bought by society... which in turn keeps the effect on office space minimal.  But even if it got built and then ameritrust disappeared, my guess is it could have been absorbed.  We all know how skyscrapers stroke the ego.  That thing goes up and the average person sees downtown as progressive and growing, which in turn more than likely attracts more businesses downtown.  Hmmm.  Guess we'll never know.  If nothing else, sure would have looked cool though.  :)

Maybe I'm weird, but I really don't like the look of that design. Particularly the top. I can't explain why I don't like it, I just don't.

that's how I feel about the regressive tower.  :)

Maybe I'm weird, but I really don't like the look of that design. Particularly the top. I can't explain why I don't like it, I just don't.

I was bummed when this thing didn't get built but looking at it now, not so much. Yes, hate the top too.

Photoshop can be so much fun.  I think it's a little short but cool to see the building somewhat resemble it at night.  The curved glass part needs to be darkened with lights added.  Maybe I'll play with it some more another time.

 

awesome.  :)

I like the building... But what actually IS all the material on the top? It would be good if it offered some sort of function like solar power... It would be nice to see a new addition to the skyline that is above 20... Too many of our 'taller' buildings seem the same or similar heights.

Firenze98, your rendering has Ameritrust's curved side facing the wrong way. Viewed from that angle you wouldn't see the curved facade at all.

 

Here's an aerial of the site:

 

And a better view of the western facade (not nearly as interesting as the north or east, imho) - this would be the approximate view from the arch at the Lausche State Office building:

Is the building to the northwest of the proposed Ameritrust Tower the mandatory parking structure that must be attached to EVERY new building built nowadays?

^I would presume that was the case.

^I would presume that was the case.

 

The building would have been built in a main transportation hub as most busses and trains go right through the heart of public square, half a block away from the front door. Why the need to attach a garage that big instead of pushing emploeeys of the building to use public transit?! Im sure thats a question for another thread and i obviously it wasnt built but i just find that to be pretty ridiculous.

I don't know how tall that parking garage is, but it doesn't seem that ridiculous in size to me. I'd rather see a parking deck there than the surface lot that occupies the space today.

I guess this would be the place to ask- has anyone seen the plans for the Davenport Bluffs development in the 90s?  This is something I've wanted to see but haven't been able to find.

I don't have any but from what I recall, they were something along the lines of Battery Park. IIRC, James Kassouf (the owner) wanted to put in a Microtel right along the lines you'd see at any interstate exit hotel cluster, parking lot and all.

Parking decks are better than surface lots any day...at least they take up less space and can be disguised as part of the building.

Firenze98, your rendering has Ameritrust's curved side facing the wrong way. Viewed from that angle you wouldn't see the curved facade at all.

 

Here's an aerial of the site:

 

And a better view of the western facade (not nearly as interesting as the north or east, imho) - this would be the approximate view from the arch at the Lausche State Office building:

 

Very true.  I didn't have an elevation of the western facade so I had to make do with what I had :)

the buildings size is out of proportion with the other towers.  thin it out a bit.

yep.  I thought the same thing after I posted it.

If only.....

I was bored and hadn't played around with Sketch-up in a while, so he's my attempt at the Ameritrust and Progressive Life towers, dropped into Google Earth.  Not as advanced as some, but I figured it was worth a shot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Holy eff - I didnt realize how much bigger the Ameritrust Tower was than Key. The Key Tower looks like a little baby compared to Ameritrust's.

On 1/27/2010 at 4:42 PM, urbanomics said:

I was bored and hadn't played around with Sketch-up in a while, so he's my attempt at the Ameritrust and Progressive Life towers, dropped into Google Earth.  Not as advanced as some, but I figured it was worth a shot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Interesting revisiting these renderings in the abandoned projects thread - anyone know how accurate they are? I thought the Ameritrust Tower was about 200 feet higher than Key but this looks double that discrepancy. 

Not sure where else to post/ask this: I’m aware of Progressive’s proposed hq tower downtown that obviously didn’t happen and their subsequent developments along 271; where were they located prior to the hq proposal?

3 minutes ago, CleCaneFan said:

Not sure where else to post/ask this: I’m aware of Progressive’s proposed hq tower downtown that obviously didn’t happen and their subsequent developments along 271; where were they located prior to the hq proposal?

Same place they are now on Wilson Mills Road.  They have expanded into many other buildings on the east side (primarily Mayfield Village) since then but still maintain the original building they moved to in the 70s and expanded greatly over the years.  I remember interviewing in the old building when it was a pretty small foot print. 

Thank you

The building on Wilson Mills must be the original. The huge campus is a mile or so away off of SOM Center Rd.