Hudson's Site Building Thread

[LeightonGeo]

"Outside of that set of basic metrics,Detroit is Detroit,she does not need to reinvent herself in anybody else’s image or by useing thier floorplan as a blueprint,she needs to reinvent herself in a way that works for her and her citizens."

I agree completely. No city on Earth has had a boom followed by such a suburbanization and globalization bust as massive as Detroit-proper. It's bones, character, chemistry and rebirth cannot be compared to any other place save for Cleveland, which is almost identical but half the size [[city & metro).

When you shake it out the cities of Rustbelt and the Northeast will always have more character and flavor than the Denvers, Charlottes, Phoenixes and Nashvilles of the world. I refer to those places as the "Johnny Come Lately Cities". Places that just 30 years ago may as well have been Albuquerque or Amarillo. They've since grown into giant, vanilla, flavorless blobs.

[EGrant]

Denver and Nashville are pretty great places to live, and Detroit could learn a lot from them, but to each their own.

[Richard]

Denver and Nashville are pretty great places to live, and Detroit could learn a lot from them, but to each their own.

Personally never been to Denver but spent time near Nashville while in the military and agree that both seem to have retained thier identities so far.

Also spent many years in Orlando that went in a short amount of time to mimicking a cookie cutter suburbs appeal.

Thats why I moved,character gets lost in the process and it becomes a situation of just existing as a resident,which one can do anywhere.

It was not my intent to thread jack or imply lessons cannot be learned more so apples to apples comparison.

To me anyways I grew up outside of Minneapolis/St Paul and 59 years ago it was not a nice place to live inner city wise,just as Atlanta was not 40 years ago.

They had a jump of those years over Detroit so it is hard to me to say as a detriment Detroit sucks because Minneapolis has this. Or insert any city here.

It is not to say do not look at how things were implemented and thier success rate long term as it would apply to Detroit.

That would be the distinct advantage that Detroit would have.

[Traveler]

Pic from this afternoon

[LeightonGeo]

Denver and Nashville are pretty great places to live, and Detroit could learn a lot from them, but to each their own.

I've lived in all three. What could Detroit possibly learn from Denver and Nashville?

[bigboat]

Almost looks the same as it has for the past 6 months, except now they have multiple caissons drilled into the ground and hidden. Who gets that job of locating all of the caissons that have already been drilled and covered with dirt. Plus, that cannot be that easy of a job of locating them, clearing the dirt from a rebar cage without damaging it.

[313WX]

Denver and Nashville are pretty great places to live, and Detroit could learn a lot from them, but to each their own.

You can learn something from anything.

That doesn't mean two or more things are equally comparable.

[[although Denver's a much better comparison to Detroit than Cleveland).

[313WX]

I've lived in all three. What could Detroit possibly learn from Denver and Nashville?

To name a few things:

*Regionalism

*How to land a MLS team

*How to not let NIMBYs who restrict housing supply overrun your city

*Road maintenance

*How to incorporate parking podiums into new construction high rises, maximizing land usage and building height.

[Gistok]

Almost looks the same as it has for the past 6 months, except now they have multiple caissons drilled into the ground and hidden. Who gets that job of locating all of the caissons that have already been drilled and covered with dirt. Plus, that cannot be that easy of a job of locating them, clearing the dirt from a rebar cage without damaging it.

Have you ever heard of MissDig? Every single caisson has been mapped out, as though on a blueprint. I highly doubt they would drill and forget.

[Gistok]

Almost looks the same as it has for the past 6 months, except now they have multiple caissons drilled into the ground and hidden. Who gets that job of locating all of the caissons that have already been drilled and covered with dirt. Plus, that cannot be that easy of a job of locating them, clearing the dirt from a rebar cage without damaging it.

Have you ever heard of Miss Dig? Every single caisson has been mapped out, likely in rows and columns, as though on a blueprint. I highly doubt they would drill and forget.

[LongGone06]

To name a few things:

*How to not let NIMBYs who restrict housing supply overrun your city

That is certainly a hot button issue in cities like Los Angeles, where single family zoning gets blamed for a range of perceived social ills. But, how is that an issue in Detroit? Depending on the source of information, roughly 20-25% of developable land in the city is vacant. It doesn't seem that NIMBY's could be a significant problem.

[313WX]

But, how is that an issue in Detroit?.

I never said it was an issue now.

But if Detroit has any aspirations to grow again, it certainly would become one and it should be taking notes from these other cities to avoid their mistakes

[Richard]

I never said it was an issue now.

But if Detroit has any aspirations to grow again, it certainly would become one and it should be taken notes from these other cities to avoid their mistakes

Not for nothing but if you follow pretty much everything that is happening in Detroit is following the today and future line of thought.

Outside of the few that are bucking the system.

Back to caissons,being close to the river,what is the water table like?

[Gistok]

Not sure about water table... but when they build Fort Ponchartrain back in 1701, the downtown part of the riverfront had the highest elevation of the entire riverfront in the city.

[NSortzi]

Almost looks the same as it has for the past 6 months, except now they have multiple caissons drilled into the ground and hidden. Who gets that job of locating all of the caissons that have already been drilled and covered with dirt. Plus, that cannot be that easy of a job of locating them, clearing the dirt from a rebar cage without damaging it.

The locations of the caissons are all predetermined. They’re not randomly placed. The workers know exactly where every single one is located.

[LeightonGeo]

To name a few things:

*Regionalism

*How to land a MLS team

*How to not let NIMBYs who restrict housing supply overrun your city

*Road maintenance

*How to incorporate parking podiums into new construction high rises, maximizing land usage and building height.

I get all that. Sincerely.

- Regionalism is easy when you have a tsunami of new residents every year and an existing population base that is originally from somewhere else.

- MLS selection.. I would've loved to have seen Detroit land a team. But when it all shakes out who really cares? And is it really a measure of a city's legitimacy? Of course not.

- NIMBY's are virtually non-existent in Detroit-proper. Especially considering the abundance of open land.

- Road maintenance has almost nothing to do with the city if Detroit. What doesn't fall under the control of MDOT mostly resides with Wayne County. And however you measure it the ills on the Detroit area's roads stem from underinvestment by Lansing bureaucrats. And to be totally honest Denver's roads aren't exactly a panacea of smooth road surfaces.

- Parking facilitation: Given Detroit's existing inventory of high-rise building I don't see what can be done around them. On high-rise developments currently in development I have no idea what sort of parking accommodations or coordination is happening.

[313WX]

Road maintenance has almost nothing to do with the city if Detroit. What doesn't fall under the control of MDOT mostly resides with Wayne County. And however you measure it the ills on the Detroit area's roads stem from underinvestment by Lansing bureaucrats. And to be totally honest Denver's roads aren't exactly a panacea of smooth road surfaces.

The city of Detroit is solely responsible for the maintenance of non-state highways in the city of Detroit. While you have a point about roads outside the city proper, what I said still stands.

And while roads in snowy climates will never be perfect, at least Denver hasn't gained a notorious reputation for crappy roads. Detroit has, and for good reason[[s).

[bigboat]

I'm sure they know where the drilled caissons are located, but I was just wondering how or what machine do they use to uncover the caissons that have been covered with dirt. If they have 175 of them that cannot be that easy and would seem to be very labor intensive to uncover the dirt to continue construction.

[drjeff]

To name a few things:

*How to land a MLS team

*Road maintenance

1) MLS is the equivalent of AA baseball, at best, on the world stage. It's where washed up stars go to play among guys not good enough for the majors. Not having a team is not loss.

2) Denver and Nashville do not have the road destroying climate we have here. Yes the state is terrible about fixing roads but it's also a much bigger problem here than southern places. And, to be fair, the roads in Detroit proper have been improved more in the past 3-4 years than they were in the 20 before that in my observation.

[313WX]

2) Denver and Nashville do not have the road destroying climate we have here. Yes the state is terrible about fixing roads but it's also a much bigger problem here than southern places.

Denver isn't "southern places." It averages nearly as much snow as Detroit and arguably has a worse freeze/thaw cycle.

[Richard]

Most of the southern roads are newer as older industrialized cities have had roads around 100 years,apples to apples.

[Richard]

I'm sure they know where the drilled caissons are located, but I was just wondering how or what machine do they use to uncover the caissons that have been covered with dirt. If they have 175 of them that cannot be that easy and would seem to be very labor intensive to uncover the dirt to continue construction.

Depends on what the engineers say on soil compaction and what they are going to do for a foundation.

It is about stopping downward forces and tipping over.

If they are going to use a Matt or big steel reinforced floating slab on top of it all,of sorts and the soil compaction rates can support that then they will not have to dig anymore.They do not need to connect the slab to the cassions because the weight will use them to spread the load,nobody will be able to walk up to the building and pick it up.

Look at that construction used in Packard or the Fischer body plant,the columns and ceiling as a visual.

Or maybe different contractors for the cassions and foundation diggers,where they would not be worried about digging that out at that time.

With blue prints they know where they are located,with us not seeing the whole picture it is just guessing.

With the big tubes shown laying around in the picture,they could be just poured pilings and not cassions.

[bigboat]

Watched today's You Tube video and did not see a lot of progress at all. Less than 10 construction workers doing their job in the pit. Must not have a decision yet on what they are building. This continues to amaze me, no decision as to what they are building and here it is September, 2019. This whole scenario of starting at 734', then 800', then 912' and now we don't know what they are building or just what it will be. Has the Detroit market changed so dramatically in the last year that allows so much indecision. Bedrock market analysis must not have a concise picture of what the downtown Detroit will support. Hopefully, the next Bedrock announcement will be accurate, concise and hopefully everything will be in place. I see the Bedrock Book Tower renovation will include 6 floors of some sort of a hotel also as announced earlier and again this morning in the Detroit News.

[Jason]

The video for September 3rd shows them doing some work on a caisson hole, assembling some steel reinforcement, uncovering previous foundations, cutting out another floor section, doing some work on the back wall, removing some material from the site, and maybe some other things that I missed. They absolutely could be going faster, but they're definitely working.

It's very clear that they're pushing for something special. The height changes based on programming mix and negotiations with hotel operators.

The thing that has been determined is the foundations, and as a result the maximum size of the tower. Those have been determined because they need to be in order to build them. The rest of the tower doesn't have to be determined yet.

When you go out to dinner you don't need to know what you're ordering when you leave your house, you just need to know what restaurant you're going to.

[EGrant]

Just thinking about how we're going to have at least three more years of mindless debates on this thread; "July 6, 2021: the crew placed a bolt in the southwest corner of the building today, and based on my extensive background in internet commenting, I believe the bolt was backwards and the entire project is a fraud."