Austin City Lofts features a private lap pool and spa, fire pit and communal cooking area, on-site secured parking, a porter and concierge service, Hill Country and Downtown views, and large private balconies.

Another unique building in Austin, Texas The 5 Fifty Five is a residential building on top of a hotel.  The architecture is both contemporary and timeless.  First we will talk about the residential building and in the next article I will talk a little about the hotel.  The residents of the 5 Fifty Five live a truly luxurious lifestyle with the elite services and amenities offered.

The 99 residential suites feature beautiful interiors, gourmet kitchens and the finest finishes. 

The 5 Fifty Five offers the top 99 condo units above the downtown Hilton. The suites range in a variety of one-, two-, and three-bedroom designs ranging from approximately eight hundred to over five thousand square feet.  Private residence elevators and a separate resident parking garage area. The private resident lobby…spacious yet intimate, with striking finishes and plush, intimate seating. State-of-the-art concierge desk. The exclusive staff includes twenty-four hour lobby attendant, concierge, porter, hospitality officer, and housekeeping coordination. 

The properties offer fantastic panorama views of Town Lake & Hill Country.  Private balconies at every residence, floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall windows, dramatic, high ceilings, kitchens featuring maple cabinetry, granite countertops, stainless steel appliances with gas cooking, recessed lighting, elegant travertine stone bathrooms, hardwood floors.  The 5 Fifty Five is located on 5th St. across from the Austin Convention Center.

The residential units in the Austin 360 Condominiums Tower features a lighted glass spire facing Town Lake, street-level retail, large balconies for each unit, limestone accents at street level and decorative metal panels created by local Austin artists. Inside, each unit includes floor-to-ceiling glass walls, kitchens with granite and stainless steel finishes, tall ceiling heights, high-speed Internet access, TV monitors in elevators, 24-hour concierge services and a prominent lobby featuring a virtual art gallery that digitally displays art on lobby plasma screens.  The Austin 360 Condominiums Tower was completed on May 22nd, 2008 and was named Tallest building in Austin Texas as of June 2008 surpassing Frost Bank Tower.

Few Facts

The name “360″ was inspired by Austin’s history of having “360″ in the names of many things such as Loop 360, the Pennybacker Bridge, which is also known as the Loop 360 Bridge. The name was also given to the building for the 360 degree views that the building will have of downtown.

The building has 13,500 square feet of street level retail.

The building has a terrace level above the 17th floor at 174 feet 2 inches above the street. The podium level, which contains the swimming pool and sundeck above the 8th floor, will be 87 feet 6 inches above the street.

The building is the tallest all residential building in Texas, surpassing Mercantile Building in Dallas.

The final section of the spire was hoisted into place at 9:18 AM CST on January 15, 2008.

Surpassed the Frost Bank Tower to become the tallest building in Austin. The building is also one of only two in the city that is not on Congress Avenue to hold the title of tallest in the city.

The other was the Dobie Center.The 44-story, 432-unit glass tower in downtown Austin The Austin 360 Condominiums’ resort style amenity deck features a full-sized pool and an outdoor living room that includes a fireplace, cabanas and outdoor grills. An upscale fitness center includes advanced cardio equipment with West Austin views and a social center that includes a kitchen, Internet kiosks, and an entertainment area featuring plasma screen TVs and lush landscaping.

Companies involved in this Building*

architect: Preston Partnership, LLC Other firms: Novare Group, Andrews Urban LLC, J.E. Dunn Construction, Echelon Engineering, LLC, Jordan & Skala Engineers, Inc., Doucet & Associates, Terracon Consulting Engineers & Scientists, Prudential Life Insurance CO., Wachovia Bank.

This new plant manufactures NAND flash memory chips, which are widely used in a host of consumer- related products, such as MP3 players, cell phones, digital cameras, and other mobile devices.  This is the largest semiconductor fab in Austin, Texas.

Here you can see the new Austin , Texas  Samsung Wafer Plant under construction here you see steel rebar and concrete.

Moonlight towers are lighting structures designed to illuminate large areas of a city at night.

The structures were popular in the late nineteenth century among smaller cities across the United States and Europe, when standard street-lighting systems — using smaller, shorter, and more numerous lamps — were impractically expensive. The towers were designed to illuminate more city area at once via electric lighting. Arc lamps were the most common method of illumination, though they were known for their exceptionally bright and harsh light.

As regular street lighting grew more popular, the prevalence of moonlight tower systems began to wane.

Moonlight towers in Austin, Texas

Austin, Texas is the only city in the world, known to still operate a system. The towers are 165 feet tall and have a fifteen foot foundation. This type of tower was manufactured in Indiana by Fort Wayne Electric Company and assembled onsite.  In 1894, the City of Austin purchased 31 used lighting towers from Detroit. A single tower cast light from six carbon arc lamps, illuminating a 3000 foot (920 meters) radius circle brightly enough to read a watch.

When first installed, the towers were connected to their own electric generators at the Austin dam (near present day Tom Miller Dam). Over the years they were switched from their original carbon-arc lamps (which were exceedingly bright and time consuming to maintain) to incandescent lamps in the 1920’s, and mercury vapor lamps in the 1930’s. Mercury vapor lighting allowed the installation of a switch at each tower’s base. During World War II, a central switch was installed, allowing citywide blackouts in case of air raids.

In 1993 the city of Austin dismantled the towers and restored every bolt, turnbuckle and guy wire as part of a $1.3 million project, the completion of which was celebrated in 1995 with a city-wide festival.

Each tower weighs in at 2 tons. Most of the structure consists of a triangular metal lattice, commonly used for radio antenna supports today. The lattice sits on top of a single 15-foot pole and so must be secured by guy wires attached to each of the three corners of the lattice and strung outward away from the structure.

above is the Moonlight Tower in Zilker Park the lights are connected to the wooden post seen in the back.

Since 1965 the Moonlight Tower in Zilker Park has served as Austin’s Christmas Tree. The normal guy wires are supplemented by additional strands that contain over 3,300 lights that form a conical “tree” for the entire city. A favorite pastime of young and old alike is to spin under the tree while looking up at the lights, then trying to stand upright and fight off the resulting dizzying sensation.

This building contains over 525,000 sq. ft of leasable space.   The tower is finished in an energy efficient blue glass. This type of glass is only known to have been used on one other building, the Reuters Building at 3 Times Square in New York City. 

The signature 33-story Trophy tower features 560,674 square feet of premier office space in the heart of the Central Business District on the corner of Congress Avenue and Fourth Street, just blocks from the State Capitol.  Most people in Austin call this the nose clipper building. It’s the tallest building here right now but not for long.  The lower floors of the structure are finished in limestone.

Interesting Facts:

The crown of the tower contains more than an acre of glass.

Per tradition, tin crosses were embedded in the concrete on every floor.  The last cross was added at 9 pm on May 27, 2003 to the penthouse. The idea came from a story about an immigrant who worked on construction during the 1940s in New York City.

Cousins Properties contends that at the time of its groundbreaking, “this was the tallest building in America to have started construction after the September 11th attacks”. 
 

The height of the tower crane used during construction was 600 feet tall. This broke a record as the tallest ever used in Austin at that time.

Over 200,000 square feet of glass was used in the facade of the tower; 45,000 square feet of glass was used in the crown, about one acre’s worth (materials in the crown alone cost $1.5 million).

Four Frost Bank logo signs were added above the main roof. The logos are 20 feet in diameter. The signs are now the highest signs on a skyscraper in Austin at approximately 420 feet high.

Floorplates range in size from 16,826 to 25,856 square feet.

May 28, 2003, the building has its topping out ceremony for the main roof and mechanical penthouse. A 30-foot cedar tree was hoisted to the top of the mechanical penthouse.

The project includes a plaza with a restaurant, a workout facility and high-speed elevators.  conference facilities, dry-cleaner, full-service bank, ATM, deli/carry-out restaurants, coffee shop, overnight courier drop box, and a fitness center. In addition, the property features an 11-level parking garage with more than 1,400 parking spaces. Frost Bank Tower is easily accessible to and from Mopac Expressway and Interstate 35.

Tallest building in Austin when it opened.

The building’s lighting design won Cline Bettridge Bernstein Lighting Design Inc. the 2004 IALD Award of Merit.

 It was the first high-rise building to be constructed in the U.S. after the 9/11 attacks.

designed by Duda/Paine Architects, LLP and HKS, Inc.

 It has the title for tallest logo above ground in the city.

During construction, the building was derided by some locals for having a garish design. However the building was also voted the best new building by Austin Chronicle readers in 2004.

record-setting deal for more than $354 per square foot, a total of $188 million, signed Thursday.

The Frost Bank Tower will be acquired by the Chicago-based Equity Office Properties Trust, the nation’s largest publicly owned office building manager
  

In 2006 The Frost Bank Tower was sold for at the time a record price of $354 per sq. ft. to the Chicago-based Equity Office Properties Trust, the nation’s largest publicly owned office building manager for a total price of $188 million.
  

Tenants include Jenkins & Gilchrist, Winstead, Sechrest & Minick, and Constructors and Associates.

Companies involved in this Building*

architect: HKS, Inc., Duda/Paine Architects, LLP Other firms: Thomas Properties Group, LLC, Cousins Properties Inc., Constructors & Associates Inc., C. Young & Company, Brockette Davis Drake, Inc., Michael E. James & Associates, Inc., Susman Tisdale Gayle Architects, Inc., Turner Collie & Braden, Inc., Cline Bettridge Berstein Lighting Design, Spectrum Lighting Inc., Cousins Properties Inc., Security Management Consulting, Texas Crane Services, Capform Inc., Myrex Industries, Bludau Fabrication, Inc., Haley-Greer, Inc., Morgan Stanley, Constructors & Associates Inc., Dewey Ballantine LLP, Graves Dougherty Hearon and Moody PC, Jenkens & Gilchrist PC, Winstead Sechrest & Minick PC, Frost National Bank, University of Texas Investment Management Co, Heritage Title Co.

Table of contents for Bridges

1. Bang Na Expressway
2. Lake Pontchatrain Causeway
3. Manchac Swamp bridge
4. Hangzhou Bay Bridge
5. Runyang Bridge
6. Donghai Bridge
7. Atchafalaya Basin Bridge
8. Binhai Mass Transit
9. Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel
10. 6th October Bridge

The 10th longest bridge in the world as of this posting and 10th on our list is  the 6th October Bridge in Cairo, Egypt.  The bridge is 12.74 miles long, connection part of the city highway to the Cairo International Airport.  The people of Cairo call this bridge, the spinal cord of Cairo because half the city travels on it daily.  The bridge is usually croweded due to everyone useing it and can take as long as 45 minutes to cross when traffic is heavy.  The bridge was under construction for 30 years and was finnaly finnished in 1996.

Table of contents for Bridges

1. Bang Na Expressway
2. Lake Pontchatrain Causeway
3. Manchac Swamp bridge
4. Hangzhou Bay Bridge
5. Runyang Bridge
6. Donghai Bridge
7. Atchafalaya Basin Bridge
8. Binhai Mass Transit
9. Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel
10. 6th October Bridge

The Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel (CBBT) is a 23 mile long bridge and tunnel system that connects southeastern Virginia with Delmarva Peninsula in the United States.  The bridge connects the following independent cities Virginia Beach, and Norfolk, Virginia to Cape Charles in Northampton County along the eastern shore of Virginia.

The Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel uses a combo of tunnels and bridges over two separated shipping channels using four artificial islands built in the bay as portals.

The bridge-tunnel was opened on April 15th, 1964, in August 1987 it was officially named the Lucius J. Kellam Jr. Bridge-Tunnel after one of the civic leaders who worked for its development.  However, it still is best known as Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel. 

The bridge part of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel as far as I can know is 15.6 Miles long which is why this bridge is placed at number at the worlds 9th longest bridge and 7th longest over water and 4th longest bridge in the USA and 8th longest that is used by autos. 

The above water part of the bridge was upgraded in 1995-1999 from 2 lanes to a 4 lanes at a cost of $200 million

After the bridge-tunnel opened in 1964, it was selected as One of the Seven Engineering Wonders of the Modern World by American Society of Civil Engineers, however it has been replaced on this list since with more recent engineering wonders. 

Table of contents for Bridges

1. Bang Na Expressway
2. Lake Pontchatrain Causeway
3. Manchac Swamp bridge
4. Hangzhou Bay Bridge
5. Runyang Bridge
6. Donghai Bridge
7. Atchafalaya Basin Bridge
8. Binhai Mass Transit
9. Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel
10. 6th October Bridge

The Tianjin Binhai Mass Transit (BMT) (滨海快速) or Jinbin light rail (津滨轻轨) is not like the other bridges on the list so far this one is a light rail fast transit line or a rapid metro train line.  The longest all bridge part of this train line is 16.03 Miles long which makes this the 8th longest bridge in the world and first longest train bridge.  This bridge connects Metropolitan Tianjin to TEDA which are both located in China.

The length of the eastern part of the bridge, from Zhongshanmen to Donghailu, is 28.22 miles, of which, 24.8 miles is elevated, and 3.41 miles is on ground, taking a total of around an hour in either direction. A big portion of the service is alongside with the Jintang expressway. The west part, from Zhongxinguangchang to Zhongshanmen, will be 4.57 miles long, of which, 0.36 miles will be elevated, 0.17 miles will be transition, 4.14 miles will be below ground. The total length of the line will be 32.78 miles, and the Binhai line is the longest rapid transit line in China. The construction work of the west part began in 2004, to be completed in 2008.

The train used for the Binhai Mass Transit can travel up to 62.14 miles per hour, which is the record speed for any rapid transit system in China.  Construction of the bridge/rapid transit line began on May 18th, 2001 and was finished on September 30th, 2003.  The lines where opened in 2004.