We all know that buildings don't always turn out like the renderings. Last-minute changes and real-life materials can all cause discrepancies between the vision and reality of a project. In our Flash Forward Friday feature, we take a look at how different projects stack up.

This Friday we take a look at the nearly completed Park Central in Calgary Beltline neighborhood. With the Hines' developed project nearing completion we have a good overall look of the building and can make a reasonable comparison to it's renders. A comparison of recent photo of the building's southeast corner to a rendering also of the building's southeast corner shows the final product is indeed very similar to original proposed vision.

Image via forum contributor Urban Warrior

The recent photo of Park Central above, shows the coloring of the glass, the aluminum panels, and the wood style composite paneling are spot on to those in the rendering. Vertical white trim on the balconies of the tower has only begun installation and cannot be fully compared, but looking at the vertical balcony trim on the podium, we see that it matches well against the rendering.

Rendering of project, image via Hines

Looking at the general massing of the structure and it's context we see it again matches up well. In conclusion the Solomon Cordwell Buenz designed tower's real life edition is a strong match to its original rendered vision, and is one of the better matches that we've seen at SkyriseCalgary.

Though Park Central has topped out, there is still more to follow and SkyriseCalgary will be sure to return to this project as progress continues. For more information, check out the associated Database file, for photo updates and discussion check out the Forum thread, and as always, feel free to join the conversation in the comments section below.