Destroying buildings to grow new ones

[the hound]

I assume if a lot has combined to make a large building and it isn't one you want (maybe one you already have several instances of) then you need to destroy it in the hope that another will grow.

Can anyone give me any guidelines on how to best do this?

If I have a 5x5 lot with, say, 2x2 of it occupied by medium wealth residential and the rest high wealth, would I need to destroy the medium wealth buildings in the hope of growing a high wealth 5x5 building?

At what point does a building reach the stage where it can't combine with anything else around it on the lot and should thus be destroyed if it's not desired to grow that specific building?

Thanks

[memph]

What 5x5 high wealth building are you trying to grow? If it's a high stage building you'll need a very high demand, a city that's as dense as the zoning will allow (few other places to build R$$$ of lower stages) and lots of parks, and fire/police coverage, and maybe little pollution and garbage in the area you are trying to grow the building. For me, it helps to destroy and rebuild the parks to get more construction.

You shouldn't have to destroy the previous buildings unless the one you're trying to grow is lower wealth or much smaller. I never got a high density R$ or R$$ destroyed to build a mansion, but I often lost high density R$ and R$$ to make way for high density R$$$.

[the hound]

I have a few I'd quite like to see sprout. I know I'm not quite there yet in terms of region size, but it's getting there and I wanted to make sure I wasn't missing any prerequisites regarding the actual zoning.

The other thing I wonder was whether you need to zone a single big lot? One or two of the readmes for one or two of the larger-footprint tall buildings actually say you need to do that in order to grow their building, but if you do that then what about the earlier stages?

[RippleJet]

The other thing I wonder was whether you need to zone a single big lot? One or two of the readmes for one or two of the larger-footprint tall buildings actually say you need to do that in order to grow their building,

It's not a requirement for getting those larger-footprint lots to grow.
The game is capable of merging neighbouring lots into one, single, larger one.
However, it does increase the chances considerably for a larger lot to grow, if you ctrl-zone a lot with the correct size.

Note however, that such larger lots often tend to split up into smaller lots, especially if there are roads on more than one side of it.

but if you do that then what about the earlier stages?

In order to ctrl-zone a larger lot over existing, smaller lots, you will first have to dezone those lots.
When doing that, all existing buildings will of course become bulldozed...

[the hound]

Very helpful, and clears up any remaining confusion I might have had. Cheers Ripplejet. 

[westamastaflash]

So I can get a 10x10 building to grow if I have 4 5x5 buildings in a block? I want to get some of the NYC 10x10 housing projects to grow, and I have huge R$ demand but the ctrl-zoned lot just sits there...

[BarbyW]

The NYC housing lots are minimum stage 7 so you need to have the region at a suitable population to grow them. Most of them are over stage 8 so must have CAM installed to grow.

[SC4BOY]

Plus there is the added issue of "road driver penetration" .. that is "how far can a passing car/bus/etc get into a lot without transportation. Normally it is 3 tiles for R & C and 4 for I lots (if I remember correctly) If you add the ordinance called something like "shuttle" I think, it adds one more tile. For larger buildings it helps to have as much penetration as possible. This also tends to make it VERY DIFFICULT to get 4 5x5 lots to grow on a single 10x10 area.. there is very poor commuter penetration to the center of the lot and it tends to break up into smaller peripheral buildings with empty "no car" places in the center.. and of course as Barby mentions, you must have excellent demand too.

[metarvo]

Only the front of a lot, marked with arrows, must touch transportation.  So, a lot is technically allowed to be only 1 tile away from transportation, but the lot can vary in size.  As long as the arrows touch transportation, access is provided for the entire lot.