I’m kind of torn between high rise views and low rise people watching. To be honest I would have preferred a larger unit in the Tower closer to where everything happens. When I signed at the Tower, think I had the first available appointment, I didn’t have the option of lower levels so I opted for the view in exchange for additional space I wasn’t sure I’d need. 

We were #13 on the list in the very beginning when they had the lil' tent set up outside the trailer.. back then we were signed on to buy a west-facing 24th floor "C" unit (I think.. or was it "A1"? .. the smallest 2 bed/2bth, whichever that is) but after thinking about it, it was a little too much at the time.. When they cracked open the bottom half of the building, we went back and were able to get ourselves an 8th floor spot facing east -- and although I've always wanted to live on a high floor since I was a kid -- having the Blackstone out my window is a good compromise ... So in that regard, I'm hoping we have the best of both worlds..

And, Dave, if you're just too high up and need to get your fix of peoplewatching, you're welcome to hang out on our balcony .. perhaps we can do a trade when they set the Jul 4 fireworks off..

What floor will you be on anyway?


LObs

Dec 11? That's just lazy

I have never seen the numbers for EatZis but everytime I've been, it's always full of people.. And although Brinker may own it, you don't really get that dopey suburban standardized feel -- After all, there's only four locations.. (Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, Rockville MD) .. And if you've ever been, it's actually a really cool place.. they have an awesome selection and I've always loved the food I've had there... It doubles as both a restaurant for random people just hanging out in the area and a market for those who live near it .. It really would be just what downtown needs.

One thing we have to consider also is the space constraints on the street level of that bldg... the skeleton of the original angled base is still somewhat "in the way" of creating a full open-market feel... I'm not sure how much of a pain those will be to work around... (although it's neat they left 'em in)

LOb

I doubt you will ever see a new Eatzis anywhere in texas.

Why's that? They done with expandin'?

..i noticed last night they already have 3rd/main to 4th/main roped off for the cause..

alas -- how does a tree that sits in the street for a month possibly cost $100,000... $3300 per day?? Do they bring in Pat Morita and have it go through some sort of hourly bonzai clipping ritual?

Anyone ever notice that big ol' colorful sign nailed to the fence every year that mentions all those corporate sponsors .. Haltom's, KXAS, SSq, DWFI, etc etc..
So many companies want to be a part of it, that tree ain't goin anywhere anytime soon..

Pup, maybe when the Trinity River Vision is completed, there will be a condo building called The Cats at LaGrave.

Yes, Schaumburg ( ) already has it on the drawing board.. It calls for a 55 story monstrosity on NW 6th Street and will be in the shape of twenty oversized manx cats all piled on top of each other... Dedicated down to the very detail, these boutique cat-dominiums will feature doorbells for each unit and will emit a "reeeoww!" when rung.

Hmm... found this on a British site... (£3 = $5.56 .... how many bulbs you think BP has? 500? )

-------------

Unbreakable

A new shatterproof light bulb is on the way


Light bulbs which have been sealed in a special coating could put an end to clearing up tiny shards of glass. British company Fotolec has discovered that if bulbs are covered in a small amount of a strong fluoropolymer they become unbreakable. It's claimed that the coated bulbs could even survive being hurled at the wall. The shatterproof bulbs will set you back about £3 a piece.

Jonnyrules -- I just noticed the shot you took from TCU ..
man, that really puts the darkness into perspective.. in that shot FW almost looks like it's the downtown of one of those lil' dinky cities.. (Abiline, Lubbock, Waco)

The Prentiss folks [Burnett Plaza] should understand their lightbulb legacy and keep 'em going -- there has to be a solution to their worries.. I'm not a light engineer by any means but wouldn't the problem of maintenance and storm damage be eliminated by having the lights linked in a continual string in clear tubes almost like those Christmas lights you see in tubes -- only more of an industrial size? :]

Personally, I'd take a condo facing the greenspace of Burnett Park over a condo in the Tower facing asphalt rooftops any day.

Eh, I dunno, call me a Manhattanite but there is something quite majestic about a 30th floor view of the great city of Fort Worth... It really is a stunning sight.. And if I have to face west I'd at least like to see the sunset as opposed to that dopey briefcase guy sillouhette out my window .. (And at $250/foot it turns out the price comparison of an NPA unit vs. a 30th floor place in the Tower is about the same).. I'll take the higher view.. --- from which you can see the greenspaces of Heritage Park, Trinity Park, Forest Park, Rockwood Park, Saunders Park, Riverside Park, Gateway Park

But I wasn't trying to indicate any rivalry between park views vs. city views.. The can both be equally as great in this town, it just comes down to personal taste.. My point was, NPA shouldn't have to try so hard with the super-fancy amenities to be an appealling property.

Heh.. I even tried to censor myself and I still end up offending..
..and to think, the word FUDGE is actually offensive to someone!

Anyway, my apologies.. I guess I'm just passionate about the skyline

YES! I hope more developers have this "better than the Tower" attitude-and act on it. Competition and demand could lead us to even bigger and better condo towers, and that's a win-win situation for downtown.

Weeeelll, although fresh competition makes all the projects strive to be something better, striving to become "more luxurious and pretentious than the Tower" wouldn't necessarily make for a better residential building. I think we should just be happy that the NPA will be spared by turning into apartments in general, as opposed to having this whole "we have Corinthian Leather yes we do! We have platinum doorknobs, how bout you?!"

I completely understand what they're trying to do and what their demographic is (that elusive youthful Fort Worth urbanite with $400,000 to throw down, apparently) but, really, you don't have to start comparing yourself to a 37 story tower in order to get attention... The NPA is a beautiful and classic building on its own -- they don't have to spend so much energy trying to steal the Tower's spotlight.. there's plenty of attention left for them all

Do you think when Cravens finally puts his stethoscopes down and gets the Flatiron open, he'll have to start making comparisons to the Tower in order to get recognition ? Great buildings should generate greatness on their own.. (and downtown FW has plenty more of 'em!)

LOb

Greets!

Our lil pup, Garrett has been trained to poop in a box! Purina actually has a setup (box/litter) similar to cat litter but for dogs.. the "litter" is actually little compressed pieces of paper in the shape of little breakable crayons.. it's wierd but he uses it! And lemme tell you -- when it's 2am and it's raining outside, there is nothing more rewarding than to hear him piddling around in "the box" while we remain in bed half-asleep! .. (And I'm sure the fine folks at Burnett Plaza are relieved there's one less dog to go poopy on their lawn) ..



The Tower says they'll have a poop patch on the 5th floor deck, which will be cool for ol' Garrett but not all that necessary .. maybe he can go on the grass for old time's sake though....

To the original poster, though, if you're still watching.. when I lived in Sanger Lofts, they allow dogs of all sizes .. (my old neighbor used to have a golden retriever.. and one of my good pals up there now has a lab) .. and so does Sundance West I believe.. they even have a lil poop patch between the two bldgs (right behind the Tower's sales trailer) .. I've also seen large dogs at Hillside.. And as a matter of fact, ol' Arnie Velez of Clearchannel fame has a well-known St. Bernard named Mustafa in the Houston Place Bldg.. So, apparently there are a few places that don't mind the big dogs..

Cheers
lobster

I don't suppose neon is in the cards, aye? And I don't mean neon in the sporadic ho-hum Dallas style -- and I don't mean neon in the in-your-face Las Vegas style.. But you know, I've always thought the FW Medical District with the blue neon roof outlines is kinda classy and subtle.. perhaps if all the bldgs downtown just outlined their rooftops in neon like Harris does it'd give downtown a new nighttime dimension .. it'd almost look 3d flying overhead

(...and then they could update that FW Omni heilcopter intro for once and for all!.. zoom! zooooom!)

cheers
lobs

All I ask of Schaumburg is -- make all the fun european-styled 2 and 3 story buildings you want .. paint their exteriors with faux cracked bricks and faded vaudeville posters in foreign languages much like the inside of a Don Pablos, even -- just please please please don't F up the skyline with a 23 story hollywood archaeology prop.............. (pretty please?)

lobs

Boy, did I arrive at just the right time or what?

A rather reliable source has been saying that a "Cheesecake Factory" is slated .. I'm not necessarily sworn to secrecy on this, but in my ongoing quest for fun (but factual) rumors and such, I must respect the source and stop at that ..

Of course, there'll be room for lots of stuff at the base of that bldg.. I'm REAAALLY pulling for an EatZi's but that won't happen until they believe in Fort Worth

My new bride n' I are getting a unit on 8 so when we move in (us low floor folk are of the first group to get in) perhaps we can have a little Forum suareé .. how rowdy are you guys anyway?

Here's some shots from the tour Tony Landrum himself gave us (I optimized 'em here for the cause of space.. if you want to see more and in hi-res, I'll toss 'em up at downtownfortworth.com/tower.asp ) ..


Tony Landrum and.. (ack.. don't recall his name but he was on the original design team in the 1970s.. twas a treat hearing him reminisce about his building memoirs)


..plus Wendy Davis.. all standing on the newly cemented ground floor (amazing how they cemented over the old open-aired area that the bridge level crossed over..we were standing on what used to be a drop to the lower level)


view out of our unifinished 8th floor pad .. (yay, blackstone! boo, 600 Houston garage!)


an exclusive peek inside our condo .. (all other prospective tenants only get to see the model.. was pretty cool to get a walk-through with the owner ) .. somewhat small but I think we'll dig it


esteemed councilwoman Wendy Davis on a 23rd floor balcony.. notice the set up in SSQ below for some ESPN2 fight that evening


as a bonus, we were taken to the very unfinished double-heighted 36th floor ..


three units total on the 36th floor.. you get a 21 foot ceiling, and it's only $1,600,000 .. let's get two!



there you have it... ok, i just put up larger ones and others at downtownfortworth.com/tower.asp just for you fine folk... the size of the pics mess with my site's headers but if you can see beyond that, they're good times..

cheers
lob

Greets again ..

John, as i have been back from my honeymoon for months now, I will keep with my promise I made to you on the corner of Throck & 3rd and post some Tower pics.. (I'll find an appropriate relevant post to do that at) But first! Great shots you have of the RS construction .. to complement those, I have some great (approved) shots of the interior of the new RS campus since its opening incase y'all fine folks were interested:

dining hall:


seventh floor of the "East Fork" building (what's under those funky overhangs you see from the outside)


EF 3rd floor coffee lounge


not meaning to have a shameless plug, but to not flood your posts with huge pictures, the rest can be seen at downtownfortworth.com/story-movingin.asp

cheers!
lobsta

Greets, all .. been watchin' for a long time, big downtown nut as John well knows .. finally had time to sign up and toss out a post so here goes! ..

Anyway, I did attend the lil' Neil P. party last week and if you will, here are my unabated impressions:

First things first, I don't know why, but I really dislike how these announcement events are often held at the FWC.. It's such an oldschool place, to announce something as cool as the NPA becoming high-end residences seemed out of place *there* .. Although there was a pretty golden view of the building in its entirety out the 12th floor ballroom windows.. But I digress, wouldn't the lobby of the NPA itself be the place to do this? Or maybe the Cotton Showroom Penthouse (if the landing gear company has indeed been fully evicted?) .. Eh, I just don't like the FWC .. call me biased.

Onward.. I met Matt Herring the moment I walked into the ballroom.. He's a cool guy, though he reminded me somewhat of our own lil' local version of Richard Branson -- beard and all -- take that for what you will .. We chatted up a bit and he's exciting about the building's possibilities, which is good to see.. The wierd thing was, it seemed the people he was with (all wearing Amicus badges) almost outnumbered the guests! In that way, it felt almost like a Scientology meeting.

Open semi-bar, cheese trays and beef puffs were decent.. (ok, ok, two points for FWC.. but that's all!) .. Presentation begins.. A Canadian gentleman hosts the evening and after a few minutes of rather interesting building history (I did not know the NPA was built in Anderson's HONOR) he explains that for only $10,000 you can reserve your place in line when they start their waiting list in January or so. Ok, here's my problem with that. The Tower tried the same thing in the beginning but it proved unnecessary because even several weeks after they opened up the sales office, units were still available. Of course, the Tower has six times the number of units, but still.. There is no need to throw down $10k even if it's just an "in-line refundable deposit" this far in advance.. (and if anyone remembers the "buy your unfinished space now!" stunt they tried to pull with Landmark Tower in 1998, you'll know that sometimes it's good to wait to see a finished product ) ..

They handed out a most impressive piece of printed material.. This is no Kinko's job.. pretty professional 28 page full-color spiral-bound book on ALL the individual floorplans as well as the whole floor plans 1 through 10 (penthouse level left out, even though they say it will be one huge unit.. would be awesome -- would also be like $1.5 million I'm guessing), but all the jargon (Boutique Condominium, Inside: Your Sanctuary, etc) did come off a *little* pretentious.. But hey, sometimes good projects warrant that kind of attitude. We'll see..

You know, it is fun to go to these little announcement parties (I always try to attend as many as I hear about) because there is such excitement and energy in the air by the people doing these projects.. (and there's free snacks) .. but at this one, with all the constant "we will be better than the Tower" talk circulating, this one kinda left me with a wierd aftertaste.. Don't get me wrong.. this project will be AWESOME .. and it's one of my favorite buildings down here.. but rival the Tower? Show me the hot tub and we'll talk..

I give the announcement party a C+ but the concept (if they stick to it) an A. Can't wait. I did a little non-biased write up on ol' downtownfortworth.com about it with some pics (by permission of coz) but I don't dive in-depth like I did just now..

Cheers!
lobs