A tower crane rose high above the site for the new 23-story Frost Bank Tower on Saturday, signaling an onward and upward move as the project heads toward its anticipated completion in early 2019.
Clark Construction Group, a building and civil construction firm based out of Bethesda, Md., was selected by project manager Weston Urban and its Dallas partner KDC to complete the project, along with the leading architectural group Pelli Clarke Pelli and local firm Alamo Architects.
The project at 110 W. Houston St. broke ground in March, and Clark Construction Project Executive John Warren predicts that some of the offices will be finished by December of 2018.
The new Frost Bank tower will be the first office tower added to the downtown skyline since the Weston Centre was constructed in 1989. The project is part of a multi-million real estate deal with the City of San Antonio. The City will take over the old Frost Tower once bank employees have relocated to their new offices.
Once completed in 2019, the 460,000 sq. ft. office tower will be the new Cullen/Frost Bankers Inc. headquarters, featuring 430,000 sq. ft. of office space, 20,000 sq. ft. of ground floor retail, 10,000 sq. ft. for other tenants, and a 400,000 sq. ft. wraparound parking facility at the base.
“The tower crane goes up at the beginning where we’re about to begin our vertical construction,” Warren told the Rivard Report at his office at the nearby Rand building Monday. “That tower crane will serve all of the tower construction until we top out basically a year from now.”
Development began with the demolition of the mobile banking center that previously stood on the lot. Construction workers then removed seven feet of expansive soil, filled it with good fill, laid out the foundation, and began implementing piers into the ground as deep as 140 feet.
“We have the piers in, the foundations are in, [and we’re] finalizing our grade beams right now,” Warren said. “After the Fourth of July holiday, so next Monday, we’ll have another concrete company come in and they’ll start the slab on grade. Once the slab goes in, you’ll start to see the columns go in.”
Diagonal, almost leaning columns, will eventually begin to give the unique structure its shape. The building plan, however, is designed so that a full skeleton won’t be seen until the structure is essentially completed.
“Once we’re about halfway up, you’ll start to see the curtain wall,” Warren said. “All the glass starts to go up.”
The idea is for the structure to ignite the surrounding area with pedestrian activity and commerce, bolster the burgeoning tech scene, and connect seamlessly to San Pedro Creek, which is currently under construction and will feature several public art components.
Warren said he is grateful for the support that the project has received in San Antonio.
“In a town like this it’s nice to be a special project like this,” Warren said. “If we were in Austin we’d just be one of many towers.”
San Antonio needs some real skyscrapers to bring more people downtown. The skyline even with the new Frost Tower is very puny.
I totally agree. I hope this project paves the way to new bigger projects like the ones in Austin. Personally I really think It’d be cool to demolish the Tower of the Americas and build a newer 1000ft or higher tower that has many similar characteristics as the old but brings a new 21st century icon to our city. Doing that would put SA on the map.
Taller buildings sounds great but San Antonio needs to first clean up and repair the roadways. The roads are in horrible condition, Interstate Highway 35 look like a landfill, trash and debris on the center and side median. The Mayor of San Antonio said that it is the responsibility of Tex-Dot to clean the interstate highway. The City of Leon Valley cleans and maintains the HWY 16 median and Windcrest maintains a portion of IH 35. San Antonio needs to stop waiting tax payers money on remove historical statues, and buying over priced and over rated portable toilets. Instead of buying a (almost a hole in the ground) port-a-potty the city should build real rest room facilities ones with good lighting, heating and air conditioning,
cleaned and maintained on a hourly schedule. When tourist from all over come to visit, they will enjoy a beautifully clean and well maintained city.
Secondly the San Antonio Airport has little to no direct flights to large major cities (sad that you have to drive to AUSTIN for a direct flight and a lower air fair, really sad.)
There will be ~150,000 square feet of space available for other tenants to lease. Frost bank is leasing about 250,000 square feet.