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  #41  
Old Posted Sep 14, 2021, 12:03 PM
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Originally Posted by sirkingwilliam View Post
And I answered with yes and then simply asked asked why it wouldn’t be still be alive? Maybe he knew something or heard something we didn’t?
Fair enough.
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  #42  
Old Posted Sep 16, 2021, 6:57 AM
Hindentanic Hindentanic is offline
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I was re-reading the San Antonio Report article by Shari Biediger on the proposed project, "Owner of historic radio and TV station planning partial demolition for new hotel and condo tower" (Aug. 4, 2021), and noted these two sentences:

Renderings do not include the transmission tower, and Saldana did not respond to a request for more information about the project.

But notes from a design review committee meeting in May state that Saldana told commissioners the transmission tower, destroyed and rebuilt following a 1956 airplane collision, could remain "as a memorial."



This inspired a rough brainstorming exercise...


(Mashup of imagery from B&A Architects and Google Earth Pro)

Perhaps that is more for fans of the dystopian, Soviet Chernobyl aesthetic. But, imagine if we seriously use the transmitter tower as a contrast to the bulk of the building and even accentuate the tower as a local technology landmark much like we have already done with quarry and brewery smokestacks, perhaps through artistic lighting not unlike that used on London's historic Alexandra Palace...


(Image from Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios twitter)

...or the mast at San Diego's 2019 Xylogen Qi venue:


(Photo from Vadim Ledvin | Organic Design)



Instead of the current utilitarian blight or the proposed covered driveway, we would have another landmark point on the Riverwalk, which, with access stairs, landscaping, and public space treatment, could be a celebrated entrance and connecting feature from the building to the Riverwalk.


(Imagery from Google Earth)


(Imagery from Google Earth)


(Imagery from Google Earth)


(Imagery from Google Earth)



Perhaps even further imagine the retained tower, fully lit, contrasting and complementing with the revealed brick facade, old-fashioned industrial windows, inspired Art Deco-esque signage with lighting, and protective sidewalk canopy of a historically restored building base with expressive connection to the Riverwalk. It may not even matter what the clunky massing of the newer building above may look like, because the setup is already amazing.


(Photo from WOAI on San Antonio Exress-News)



Or, maybe not...an Engineering and Technology History Wiki (ETHW) page, "WOAI San Antonio Texas," lays out that the 1956 incident was a B-29 crash into a WOAI transmission tower out in Selma, and it is not clear if the reconstruction is necessarily the tower now on Navarro St. It may no longer move the developer to try retaining the tower as some sort of a memorial with its associated maintenance, and they had indeed not shown it on the renderings released so far.

Last edited by Hindentanic; Sep 16, 2021 at 7:20 AM.
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  #43  
Old Posted Sep 16, 2021, 8:06 AM
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^A few things I noticed with that.

First off, the tower in the old photo has 4 legs. The one that exists there today has 3.

Also, it's unlikely that a plane would have been flying that low in downtown in 1956 since there would have been several high rises back then, the nearest one being the old Southwestern Bell Building two blocks away.

I think it's more likely that it was the tower in Selma that was hit, and that makes sense because if you look at a map, the two runways at Randolph Air Base line up pretty much perfectly with the town of Selma, and they're only 3 1/2 miles away. So planes would have been taking off and landing right over Selma, and still do today.
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  #44  
Old Posted Sep 16, 2021, 9:35 AM
Hindentanic Hindentanic is offline
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Yep, that was my conclusion too, and the photographs of the crash scene on the linked ETHW page show that the collision definitely was not in or near downtown. I think the developer's architect got his tower history scrambled between two different towers on two different locations linked only by their association to WOAI, leading him to make a somewhat spurious suggestion to review commissioners of keeping the tower "as a memorial" that has since been dropped as the mix up was later realized.

That's just as well, as a greater issue for me is actually not so much the transmission tower, but that the current proposal treats the Riverwalk side at street level as a valet and access driveway with garage entrance, which seems an urbanistically poor response to the site's opportunities. The B&A architect's brief mentioning of retaining the tower offered a means to imagine a potential alternative, and, although the architect's underlying historical rationale does not work out, something like this alternative was considered a possibility.

Hmmm, the proposed entrance from the driveway would fall behind the transmitter tower...how many hotels can boast an entry vestibule that is a 500-foot-tall, open-air, geometric spire? Just add a few wind chimes.

Last edited by Hindentanic; Sep 16, 2021 at 10:23 AM.
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  #45  
Old Posted Sep 16, 2021, 1:07 PM
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I really hope the HDRC tells them to update the flow to the river as well as having a decent facade facing St Mary's. This tower will definitely stand out and we don't need a terrible north face.
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  #46  
Old Posted Sep 16, 2021, 2:35 PM
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Yeah, that base looks horrible. I say get rid of the old metal tower and make them build a nicer building than they currently plan to. That design looks like any building designed by an accountant in any city.

As I said earlier. (And not even... the 20-year-old building in this photo looks better.)

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...ril_2016_3.JPG
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  #47  
Old Posted Sep 16, 2021, 2:51 PM
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^^^ I would love to see something like that downtown. It's simple yet classy.
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  #48  
Old Posted Sep 16, 2021, 4:30 PM
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That New York building could look very similar to the Soledad project, besides the red look. Very classy.
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  #49  
Old Posted Sep 16, 2021, 8:15 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Hindentanic View Post
I was re-reading the San Antonio Report article by Shari Biediger on the proposed project, "Owner of historic radio and TV station planning partial demolition for new hotel and condo tower" (Aug. 4, 2021), and noted these two sentences:

Renderings do not include the transmission tower, and Saldana did not respond to a request for more information about the project.

But notes from a design review committee meeting in May state that Saldana told commissioners the transmission tower, destroyed and rebuilt following a 1956 airplane collision, could remain "as a memorial."



This inspired a rough brainstorming exercise...


(Mashup of imagery from B&A Architects and Google Earth Pro)

Perhaps that is more for fans of the dystopian, Soviet Chernobyl aesthetic. But, imagine if we seriously use the transmitter tower as a contrast to the bulk of the building and even accentuate the tower as a local technology landmark much like we have already done with quarry and brewery smokestacks, perhaps through artistic lighting not unlike that used on London's historic Alexandra Palace...


(Image from Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios twitter)

...or the mast at San Diego's 2019 Xylogen Qi venue:


(Photo from Vadim Ledvin | Organic Design)



Instead of the current utilitarian blight or the proposed covered driveway, we would have another landmark point on the Riverwalk, which, with access stairs, landscaping, and public space treatment, could be a celebrated entrance and connecting feature from the building to the Riverwalk.


(Imagery from Google Earth)


(Imagery from Google Earth)


(Imagery from Google Earth)


(Imagery from Google Earth)



Perhaps even further imagine the retained tower, fully lit, contrasting and complementing with the revealed brick facade, old-fashioned industrial windows, inspired Art Deco-esque signage with lighting, and protective sidewalk canopy of a historically restored building base with expressive connection to the Riverwalk. It may not even matter what the clunky massing of the newer building above may look like, because the setup is already amazing.


(Photo from WOAI on San Antonio Exress-News)



Or, maybe not...an Engineering and Technology History Wiki (ETHW) page, "WOAI San Antonio Texas," lays out that the 1956 incident was a B-29 crash into a WOAI transmission tower out in Selma, and it is not clear if the reconstruction is necessarily the tower now on Navarro St. It may no longer move the developer to try retaining the tower as some sort of a memorial with its associated maintenance, and they had indeed not shown it on the renderings released so far.

I LOVE ALL YOUR IDEAS!!! Another SA landmark? ABSOLUTELY!!!
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  #50  
Old Posted Sep 16, 2021, 10:12 PM
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I found this also. It even has photos of the crash scene and tons of info. I had never heard of that story before. I can't even imagine that repairing/restoring a tower like that would be possible as it would have been pretty badly mangled. This also notes that the plane did take off from Randolph Air Base. There is some conflicting info about how tall the tower was, but considering the plane took off from Randolph, I would expect it was the taller height, unless the plane was already losing altitude.

https://ethw.org/WOAI_San_Antonio_Texas
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  #51  
Old Posted Jan 31, 2022, 1:48 AM
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Question

Any updates on this one?
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  #52  
Old Posted Jan 31, 2022, 6:00 AM
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Originally Posted by Carlos Reyes View Post
Any updates on this one?
This is my favorite kind of post on this forum. Luckily somebody posts this once every month or so.
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  #53  
Old Posted Jan 31, 2022, 1:43 PM
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This is my favorite kind of post on this forum. Luckily somebody posts this once every month or so.
I'll mark it on my calendar. One month from today.
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  #54  
Old Posted Feb 2, 2022, 1:27 AM
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Originally Posted by Carlos Reyes View Post
Any updates on this one?
I'm pretty sure if anybody had an update they would have posted it already.
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  #55  
Old Posted Feb 28, 2022, 10:30 PM
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Any updates on this one?
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  #56  
Old Posted Feb 28, 2022, 10:58 PM
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Originally Posted by JACKinBeantown View Post
Any updates on this one?
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  #57  
Old Posted Feb 28, 2022, 11:23 PM
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Originally Posted by JACKinBeantown View Post
Any updates on this one?
My guess is, they'll wait to see how well occupied the Floodgate tower will be. Also possibly depend on the Weston Urban project, if and when it starts construction.

I think they are waiting to see the strength of the residential high-rise market before they pull the trigger on this one.

Just my thoughts.
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  #58  
Old Posted Apr 12, 2023, 2:10 PM
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  #59  
Old Posted Apr 12, 2023, 2:22 PM
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  #60  
Old Posted Apr 12, 2023, 2:44 PM
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The proposal really wasn't that great. And whoever buys it really needs to figure out what to do with that antenna.... its got ta go. I'm ok with this sale.
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