Two towers at 275' is a heck of a lot better than what was proposed there previously (the Golub tower would have been somewhere around 325'). I'm happy with this.

Hopefully, all goes well and it gets built this time around!

Sorry, guys, totally disagree. 275' is NOT a tower. Period. Dear Lord, why can't something tall ever get built in Phoenix??? 40 years ya'll. And still not a new tallest. Sad. I'd sacrifice five 250' "towers" for a single 600'. It's embarrassing. No other metro remotely Phoenix's size has this issue. Piss on it...

Central Station will be around 550'. Calm yourself.

I'm very calm but thanks for checking. Is CS gonna happen or still in proposal? Nothing taller than Chase has ever materialized so forgive the skepticism.

No other metro this size has a major airport so close to downtown. And only Los Angeles has the spread of Phoenix. Building out is easier than building up. Phoenix is unique because it has the airport and the sprawl.

But that's been said a thousand times. Maybe it's really stubbornness, the recession killing plans and the heat.

Central station is still alive? Thought that proposal died. I'm all in for it, if it still has life.:)

Am I wrong, or, didn't you live in Tucson at some point?

Yeah, that's not calm.

There's not going to be a 600+ building here that's not an office and office towers don't get built that often. Miami hasn't had a new office tower built in 7 years, San Diego since 2006. Seattle has 2 new office towers and one of them is 2/3 empty..in Seattle. All the construction in the U.S. over this period is all condo or apartments. Big office projects are not getting built in most cities.

It was discussed a while back that the city is going to RFP the site after the last proposal fell through. Davis Experience has a good chance of getting the RFP. They are the one that proposed a 500' and 400' tower. Although the plans will change, there is a good chance of something similar if they win the RFP.

Take what you're offered.

Exactly. Outside of NYC, Chicago or Miami, there are very few other cities in the U.S. that have residential towers over 600'. Phoenix has too much office vacancy for anything that tall and that's about to increase with the departure of Chase to Discovery.

It seriously gets old lamenting the lack of 600' buildings downtown.

The market is not there for the margins these structures require, even if the airport wasn't an issue.

I *really* don't really feel like rehashing this conversation.

Well San Diego airport is pretty much in their downtown. If you've ever flown PHX to SD, you fly within feet of highrise buildings.

But the market ain't there for office buildings and a lot of companies have workers working from home now and in sorts of remote decentralized locations. If we get a new tallest ever, it'll probably be a mixed use building of some sort. But good Lord, can't we just get 400' on something??

Will we get a new tall tower?

1. Wait for it to come on it’s own through natural growth


Or:

2. Start your own succefull company become a city benefactor and build a gleaming new hq tower downtown

Or

3. Start a development company and acquire the financing for a spec office/condo tower and then build it without going bankrupt

We are getting a couple 350' towers - Link and Barrister - and now it sounds like Colliers could be in that range. I also believe Creative House would be close to that. Central Station has already been mentioned and could possibly be in the 500' range. So, we're getting there.

I think what is being missed here is if Phoenix builds all these towers (somewhere around 15 are now proposed/rumored/under construction) we could have one of the denser Downtowns in the country. It wouldn't be tall, but we are talking about a lot of buildings between 240' to 350'. This is a really good thing. It's what we need. Taller will come later. Just get the density first. That's what gets the people here.

Also, I have to ask. Downtown growth was nearly stagnant 5 years ago. So, why is this even a topic?

Agree 100%. I’ll take as many 20-30 story buildings with ground floor retail as we can get.

At some point supply of land becomes scare, prices go up, and the only way to justify buying the land for your development is to increase density. Since land will be in shorter supply, only way to increase density is to build up.

Now do other cities get the outlier projects that aren’t completely land value driven, of course. Will Phoenix? Maybe. But I’d rather bet on economics than rely on luck. Economics tells us we’ll grow up even more, after we grow to the 20-30 range.

Remember a few years ago we were here talking about 4-5 story apartments. Looks where we are now. Where will we be in 5 years? If this economic cycle continues, nobody will recognize Phoenix.

New York has Laguardia fairly close to Manhattan. Boston has Logan. San Diego has Lindbergh Field. Washington has Reagan National.

This is the #1 reason why Phoenix doesn't have a tall downtown. There is no need for it [yet] due to things like cheap land everywhere.

Besides a downtown with one huge building looks terrible -- I'm looking at you OKC.

This!

Yes, I was born in Tucson and lived there many years. Lived in Houston, Northern Virginia, Minneapolis, and Phoenix. I have many reference points and only Tucson is less-accomplished overall than Phoenix in the area of hi-rise density/height to population ratio.