A Tower Block

A midcentury mid-rise tower in International-come-Brutalist style with a prominent cantilever.

This contextually massive yet relatively squat International block tower is like so many others. Built in the midcentury to solve the housing crisis - or maybe as the main office for a regional bank? - and replace so many aged, unsightly projects which had turned to slums. Naturally, apathy came for these shining examples of 20th century optimism and delusion, but this one has thankfully been spared the tactically-placed dynamite and goes on with its rectangular head in the clouds. Good thing, too, given it might be a solid block of concrete (or several) with steel panels slotted permanently in-place, which sure would cost way more to demolish than renovate.

Which it seems like some ambitious redeveloper set out to do. Despite the decades of sediment staining its exposed concrete and fifty shades of rust hiding between panels, somebody saw its potential. The lobby, first residential floor, and some of the topmost floor have been restored and renovated to be move-in ready. Unfortunately, it's also apparent that the renovator's heart was bigger than their wallet, because that's all they got done before the tower landed back on the market. Residential floors two through thirteen are empty bar carpeting, some stale air, and probably atleast one ghost. And without the elevators in operation, it's a long, long climb up to the top floor suites... which really aren't any better than the first floor apartments - that is, cramped and uniformly carpeted, even in the kitchenettes. Yikes!

224 bedrooms, 224 baths! In total... theoretically, if the building were finished. As-is, it's more like 20 of each. Sixteen apartments with the bare necessities on the first residential floor, four more on floor fourteen. But all the hallways, the lobby, and the majority of the structural walls are good to go! Shockingly, this one was less torturous to build than my Marooned Motorhome, just incredibly tedious. Performance is also poor, even worse on higher floors, and though you can stick this tower in Melino (it fits on the empty bluff lot overlooking downtown), it's pretty much unplayable there. I'd be hopeful that Paralives is able to handle such massive structures someday, considering we can build them right now, but obviously the developers never intended for me to be so ambitious and make such a massive mistake.

At about $585,000, this is... well, it's a giant midcentury apartment tower. What did you expect? I'm honestly not sure what can be realistically done with it right now, but I imagine somebody could figure out a way to play Paralives like SimTower or Yoot Tower with this as a good starting point. I just wanted to see if I could make a tower block to my liking, and I did! And now we all must suffer my arrogance. Oh well!

Seriously, if your computer struggles to run Melino as it is, DO NOT PLACE THIS IN MELINO. Unless you like playing games at one frame per minute. It'll be fine on the flat terrain map, atleast until you get to the top few floors. Good luck and monitor your CPU temperature!