Taller Buildings - When and where will we see them?

[animatedmartian]

I'd like to see more full, active, occupied tall buildings within the city limits. Is the train station the tallest derelict property?

The current title is held by the Book Tower. After that, it's Executive Plaza and then MCS. Everything else that's vacant is under 15 floors or roughly shorter than Compuware.

[casscorridor]

Detroit doesn't need any more skyscrapers. A few here or there, along the river especially, could be nice, from a skyline standpoint. But what Detroit needs its blocks of 4-7 story structures that really increase density through a larger area. The American model of cities with super tall downtown and low rise neighborhoods is dead. We need to build up cities with dense neighborhoods and multiple centers, connected by efficient rapid transit.

[emu steve]

Detroit doesn't need any more skyscrapers. A few here or there, along the river especially, could be nice, from a skyline standpoint. But what Detroit needs its blocks of 4-7 story structures that really increase density through a larger area. The American model of cities with super tall downtown and low rise neighborhoods is dead. We need to build up cities with dense neighborhoods and multiple centers, connected by efficient rapid transit.

I'm with you on this. The biggest visual problem Detroit has is unoccupied buildings and vacant land just sitting there.

D.C. because of the height limits can't go very high [[think 12 or 13 stories) so they must continue to eat up more and more land as demand increases. That would work for DET.

In a sense they build 'horizontally' not vertically. I think that works very well in D.C. The density in downtown D.C. is amazing. Almost all parking is below ground. Vacant parcels are hard to find.

We have to remember this isn't ego or arch school but basically about a market trying to balance supply and demand of say things like office space.

One huge skyscraper would flood the market with office space the market can't absorb.

[A2Mike]

I'm with you on this. The biggest visual problem Detroit has is unoccupied buildings and vacant land just sitting there.

D.C. because of the height limits can't go very high [[think 12 or 13 stories) so they must continue to eat up more and more land as demand increases. That would work for DET.

In a sense they build 'horizontally' not vertically. I think that works very well in D.C. The density in downtown D.C. is amazing. Almost all parking is below ground. Vacant parcels are hard to find.

We have to remember this isn't ego or arch school but basically about a market trying to balance supply and demand of say things like office space.

One huge skyscraper would flood the market with office space the market can't absorb.

I left Detroit just after the Renaissance Center opened and missed much of the discussion thereafter, but I do remember the predictions from many at the time that it would drain the existing buildings of their tenants, and they seem to have come true. It would be interesting to speculate how downtown might have fared without it, seeing it as an ego driven project by Henry Ford ll unrelated to economic demand. Ford is said to have begged his brother not to move the Lions from Detroit, but eight game days a year would not have offset the larger problem of daily downtown office occupancy.

[Spartan]

The current title is held by the Book Tower. After that, it's Executive Plaza and then MCS. Everything else that's vacant is under 15 floors or roughly shorter than Compuware.

It's not totally vacant, but Stott Tower is pretty much there [[especially with the recent flooding).

As far as tall buildings go, I agree with those saying we should build out, not up. There is way too much empty space in the city to really be worth putting anything over 10-15 stories in. The only exception I can really see is hotels, as I think economy of scale applies more to those. I think that the "skyline-changing" buildings we see in the near future will be ones around the edges of downtown, [[etc, JLA site or area between Fox and MGM) but because they're more visible from outside, not because they're tall. If we do see anything more in the middle of the city, I would guess the most likely sites are Cadillac Square/Campus Martius or Brush/Lafayette.