urbanSTL

Crane base is in place! This crane will be visible from multiple angles and should rise to be about 100FT tall.





An a panorama of the site as of today.

Tower Crane being delivered today.

stlnative wrote: ↑

Jan 15, 2019

Tower Crane being delivered today.

Got this one as I was driving past.

The crane has quite an impact. It can be seen from I-44 before Compton for a split second. It is visible from Grand and Chouteau to Laclede. Here are some photos I took today...

Grand and 64 Exit...


Grand and Forest Park...



Near Circle K...


From Clark and Prospect...



From The Chouteau Building...



There were other locations you can see it, but I didn't stop to take pictures. You can see the crane from Laclede near Humphrey's, Laclede and Vandeventer, Sarah Street in the alley behind New Market Hardware, Sarah and Duncan and IKEA.

Progress update from the air. Hard to see that much progress from the street level. Seemed like the steel is going on slowly, but seeing from above tells a different story. Can also see the beginnings of the CFSTL garage. 

Is there some kind of steel shortage or something? Construction seems to have stagnated on this hotel, as well as the A Loft across the street, and the senior living center in U City.

framer wrote:Is there some kind of steel shortage or something? Construction seems to have stagnated on this hotel, as well as the A Loft across the street, and the senior living center in U City.

Well, I assumed construction was going slow here because of how there was foundation issues a while ago. They had to bring a foundation drill back a few months ago and re-drill some foundations.

As for steel, the upper floors of this hotel will not be built with steel. It will be using load bearing metal studs. The Aloft Hotel may use wood construction. If they happen to use steel, I think that the lack of steel is from the Chinese trade war. But you never know.

Still no visible progress. 

framer wrote: Still no visible progress. 

Wonder if Midas is using the same contractors/subs to build Elemental as they are using to build out Aloft down the street?  

I could see them directing and building out one hotel over the other to manage resources internally as well as contractors and maybe even their finances.  However, I would assume that each hotel is being built under separate construction loans, financing.   

Or as noted, foundation issues threw a wrench into progress if lawyers got involved.   We literally had a barge sit at a dock for 10 ten days with a tug crew on standby twittling their thumbs on full daily rates while waiting on a new crane to become available & make a pick because lawyers couldn't agree on a sentence within a service agreement from another vendor who could have done the 2-3 hour crane pick at fraction of price.  Instead, 10 days later we pay a premium to another crane company as well as the full tug rate instead of having the barge working on a new project and generating revenues.  This was relatively simple issue that cost us $75,000 more than it should have when all said and done.   I can imagine Foundation issues on a vertical construction can open up a serious can of worms even if the stick work above is relatively straight forward and standard..   

There are guys on site today. Looks to be some steel going up in the back. They’re working on it, just slow.

This site is very active now.  The second floor stud framing is going up fast, and there are large stacks of light-gauge steel studs sitting all over the place.

It seems like they are using a modular type of construction. It looks like the bathrooms are being delivered in blocks, probably mostly finished and just needing utilities hooked up. 

This was from yesterday.

stlnative wrote:It seems like they are using a modular type of construction. It looks like the bathrooms are being delivered in blocks, probably mostly finished and just needing utilities hooked up. 

That would make more sense than stacks of studs, since, now that you mention it, it looks like all of the walls are being delivered to the site and lifted into place prefabricated, strap bracing and all.  That explains why they needed the tower crane.  It will be interesting to see how fast they can erect the whole building.
I couldn't find a dedicated webcam for this, but you can see half the site from the City Foundry webcam across the street.

Update from the sky. 

^The west end of the new Foundry garage (lower right corner) appears to be nearly as tall as the first two floors of the hotel...

Might appear that way but it's not, west end is ~14'. The hotel would have a pretty low ceiling height if the 1st and 2nd floors were under 7' floor to floor. 

stlnative wrote: ↑

Oct 09, 2019

Might appear that way but it's not, west end is ~14'. The hotel would have a pretty low ceiling height in the 1st and 2nd floors were under 7' floor to floor. 

14' is the top of the precast panels, or the top of parking deck elevation?  
And it's beside the point, but the floor-to-floor height on that hotel is obviously pretty short, probably not much more than 9' on that second floor, which isn't surprising for a mostly-stud frame hotel. 

urbanitas wrote: ↑

Oct 10, 2019

stlnative wrote: ↑

Oct 09, 2019

Might appear that way but it's not, west end is ~14'. The hotel would have a pretty low ceiling height in the 1st and 2nd floors were under 7' floor to floor. 

14' is the top of the precast panels, or the top of parking deck elevation?  
And it's beside the point, but the floor-to-floor height on that hotel is obviously pretty short, probably not much more than 9' on that second floor, which isn't surprising for a mostly-stud frame hotel. 

Highest elevation of the garage above Forest Park Parkway grade is around 14', not including the elevator and stair towers on the south side of the garage. 

Just a reminder - the original rendering from 2017.  I guess this is what they are building.  There is no mention of this hotel on the Element reservations page yet.

Four stories have been erected, and they are starting on the 5th.  

This is shaping up to be a good massing for the street. Two more floors?

Confounding why a year and a half later they are only this far along. But agreed that it’s good how closely it hugs the street/sidewalk.

This whole stretch of the Parkway will feel very different in a year or two.

This is really taking shape and adding a dense, big city feel to Forest Park Avenue. The view from I-64 heading east is striking. Makes me think 7 stories might be the perfect size for infill for arteries like Forest Park and the SLU campus. In neighborhoods like Soulard I think 3-5 stories works really well. The new building on 1001-1003 Russell seems perfect for that street and neighborhood.