Dallas Fort Worth Urban Forum

I was looking at this building from Heritage Village yesterday and from that side it looks very nice, I like the way this is turning out. Unique one for sure.

rono3849 wrote:Deep.Ellum.Overhang.jpgdeep.ellum.overhanging.jpg

As Epic tower #2 nears completion, the dramatic overhang gets more attention from passersby in Deep Ellum & on I-345.

This is the most Robocop OCP building that's ever been built in Dallas. I like it.

Any updates on when Komodo might open up?

Stuck in traffic, decided to take a pic

Love this photo. Nice angle and great presence. Enjoying the southern and eastern sweep of activity. Long time coming.

As an aside, here is a story about a William Sydney Pittman building in Waco when Paul Quinn College was there. They are trying to save it and repurpose it. There is an embedded video.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/wacotrib.c ... b.amp.html

Crane is down, hope we get a fresh set of pics soon. Great looking building.

An empty one at that.

cowboyeagle05 wrote:An empty one at that.

I'll bet that the location will become a magnet for new businesses looking for Downtown adjacent offices. I think this will not be empty for long.

As the Epic II Tower completes construction, the building certainly is an attention getter from the Freeway below. I do hope it spurs more building on Downtown Dallas' Eastern flank.

Dallas is quickly becoming a top 5-10 city skyline in the United States...Top 20 in the world IMHO

^ Only top 5-10? We're slipping!!

https://www.keranews.org/texas-news/201 ... st-skyline

^Once Hillwood builds their Field Street tower, we can easily fall out of the top 20!

texasstar wrote:

Great picture. I really wish developers here would at least attempt "green walls" on some of their buildings. There are lots of vines that grow well here and require very little water. That would be a great "green" way to make those garages an attractive part of the building.

texasstar wrote:

Lots of empty space in both towers. Wonder how long it will take before they'll be able to lease them? With a Recession looming, it could be quite awhile.

Urbancowboy wrote:Dallas is quickly becoming a top 5-10 city skyline in the United States...Top 20 in the world IMHO

In 1990 that was still true. Not anymore.
The Metroplex is likely out of the top ten in the Western Hemisphere now:

Greater NYC area
Chicago by itself
Toronto-Mississauga, Ontario lakefront
South Florida beachfront
Houston
Philadelphia-Camden
Los Angeles DT and Wilshire corridor
San Francisco-Oakland
Panama City, Panama*
Atlanta area

Outside the Western Hemisphere top ten there are:
Monterrey-San Pedro Garza Garcia, NL, MX (tallest buildings are 1002',958',916',764' and 675')
Mexico City, MX is shorter but might edge out Monterrey and DFW for the eleventh largest skyline in the Americas if São Paulo, Brazil, doesn't.

Atlanta, Seattle, Calgary and Vancouver-Surrey-Burnaby each have more 400' towers than Dallas-Ft. Worth do, now, and both Montreal and Boston areas will soon catch up to us in 400' towers too -- they're building at a fast rate because of higher demand amid higher citywide housing costs.

There are two or three cities in Australia with bigger skylines than Dallas' for that same reason.

Eurasia is too long to try to rank but there are a couple of dozen more cities that would be ahead of the Metroplex these days.
* https://www.emporis.com/statistics/tall ... ity-panama

I45Tex wrote:

Urbancowboy wrote:Dallas is quickly becoming a top 5-10 city skyline in the United States...Top 20 in the world IMHO

In 1990 that was still true. Not anymore.
The Metroplex is likely out of the top ten in the Western Hemisphere now:

Greater NYC area
Chicago by itself
Toronto-Mississauga, Ontario lakefront
South Florida beachfront
Houston
Philadelphia-Camden
Los Angeles DT and Wilshire corridor
San Francisco-Oakland
Panama City, Panama*
Atlanta area

Outside the Western Hemisphere top ten there are:
Monterrey-San Pedro Garza Garcia, NL, MX (tallest buildings are 1002',958',916',764' and 675')
Mexico City, MX is shorter but might edge out Monterrey and DFW for the eleventh largest skyline in the Americas if São Paulo, Brazil, doesn't.

Atlanta, Seattle, Calgary and Vancouver-Surrey-Burnaby each have more 400' towers than Dallas-Ft. Worth do, now, and both Montreal and Boston areas will soon catch up to us in 400' towers too -- they're building at a fast rate because of higher demand amid higher citywide housing costs.

There are two or three cities in Australia with bigger skylines than Dallas' for that same reason.

Eurasia is too long to try to rank but there are a couple of dozen more cities that would be ahead of the Metroplex these days.
* https://www.emporis.com/statistics/tall ... ity-panama

I believe the poster was commenting on the skyline's visual appeal rather than height (please correct me if I'm wrong Urbancowboy).

But sadly in that subjective ranking too I think Dallas is falling. Everything we've built in the past 30 years is so pedestrian.

Dallas's skyline has had a few distinct eras: the Adolphus/Magnolia era, the Mercantile/Republic era, and the BoA/Reunion Tower era. They've all been great but we're still squarely in that third phase until we build new icons that take over dominance. I'm truthfully not interested in us doing so until we properly fill out the core with density, but it does bum me out that the midrises we've put up in the meantime have so strictly adhered to utilitarian cheapness as priority one with one or two tiny design flourishes to soften the look. I get the reason for doing so, but every midrise I see built today feels like it will be tomorrow's eyesore.
Even the brutalism we used to dabble in--whose utilitarian~ness is its whole thing--has a more lasting appeal than I can imagine the current dominant aesthetic having.

I'd probably be less bothered if the myriad trees and vines climbing these buildings were promises fulfilled rather than a tired way to dress up conceptual renderings of ugly buildings.
I agree with you vman, get some vines on that garage!
It would be a small change, but I think greening our skyline as much as possible would indeed get our daytime skyline to be one of the best in the world. It would be tough considering how many of our buildings are glass boxes, but for example imagine how great the Flora&Olive tower would look covered in vines and how much it would enhance the general feeling of being in the arts district.

Good post. Agreed. There's a hotel in Singapore called Oasia that I'd like to see reworked and riffed on over here in a more Dallas buff-yellow brick or terra cotta color:

https://inhabitat.com/this-plant-covere ... rchitects/

It's basically a reworking, in turn, of SOM's Jeddah bank tower (1979-1984), with vined screens instead of blank walls:
https://www.chegg.com/flashcards/variab ... ba026/deck

It appears yet another Las Vegas import, La Neta, has signed a lease next to Harper’s.

https://shopcompanies.com/sites/default ... 1655743289

https://www.lanetacocina.com/

Found an official height for Epic II:

364'
https://oeaaa.faa.gov/oeaaa/external/pu ... =496809845