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Houston by Marc longoria, on Flickr

https://houston-texas-us.blogspot.com/2017/04/downtown-art-school-progress.html

I think we (or at least some of us) might be surprised at how quickly Hines develops this site. I say that for a number of reasons. (1) Hines has not typically been in the business of banking land for some theoretical future use. (2) The overall vacancy rate of downtown office buildings is almost irrelevant to whether a new office building gets built. All it takes is one big or several mid-size leases; see, e.g., Capitol Tower now under construction. And that assumes the new building will be offices, which leads me to... (3) I don't think Hines has ever given any indication that they necessarily plan an office building on this site. They could very well have residential, hotel or mixed-use in mind.

Dj and party on top: Marriott Marquis by Marc longoria, on Flickr

Black Page Brewing construction Black Page Brewing by Marc longoria, on Flickr Concrete along the creek: Black Page Brewing by Marc longoria, on Flickr Black Page Brewing by Marc longoria, on Flickr

Hopefully with downtown becoming more of a neighborhood and destination we can see some smaller more niche companies move into downtown. Companies that many only take up 10-30,000 sft with a good number of their employees living in or very close to downtown.

I find it fitting that this development, on Gillette Street, seems to have taken inspiration from a stack of razors. Well done.

yeah... just barely out of range of the 14" guns. Which is probably good for Market Square.

I can't seem to find the downtown bike path thread. Looks like they are finally connection to the Buffalo Bayou park: New bike lane by Marc longoria, on Flickr

I like to see Walk On's coming to town.

Really Subdude don't you think the monstrosity at Franklin and Milam has a sort of Omaha Beach pillbox charm to it? It is a good thing it is some distance from the USS Texas or the Texas might reflexively begin lobbing shells toward it as it did on pillboxes on June 6, 1944.

COH did a brief presentation at the Neartown Meeting. Biggest discussion was need for lighting to be lower, live oak and pin oak trees are not options that residents want, and parallel parking on westheimer that might or might not have parking meters. the On street parking by the clothing resale apparently is given a by but the parallel parking in the 300 block met with a negative reaction. Instead many suggested that space be used for cafe tables chairs and planters. Pull in parking on side streets was also suggested as an alternative. Also so learned that COH is actively seeking new businesses for that part of Westheimer that would put the storefront directly by street with parking behind. public feedback is still being sought. Lowerwestheimerstudy.org

views from near the top

It seems like it's about time to start having some mixed use. We are now getting to enough people already living downtown that the old "downtown after 6 is such a great place to get mugged / marvel at empty streets / vandalize empty buildings / publicly urinate with no consequences" schtick seems to be going away.

But it should be acknowledged that a bunch of the "80s" (and 70s) garages were pretty well-disguised. Heritage Plaza, 2 Shell Plaza, Texas Commerce Tower, Tenneco come to mind.

Park District - slightly distorted view of PwC Tower (right) and Residences at PD (left): Facebook The Ascent: jsoto3 Victory Parkside: CTroyMathis The Union: Bleu Ciel: Alexan Katy Trail: No. 10 Harwood: Hilton Canopy / Residential @ Cityplace: The McKenzie:

http://www.chron.com/neighborhood/bellaire/business/article/Extravagant-high-rise-The-River-Oaks-unveils-11098255.php#photo-12801389

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Sideout Valleybar by Marc longoria, on Flickr Sideout Valleybar by Marc longoria, on Flickr

You are mostly likely correct if the numbers mentioned in this form are accurate. Downtown Houston will have approximately 9 million square feet of vacant office space if the vacancy rate reaches 20%. I imagine the downtown movers and shakers are busy trying to stop and reverse this situation. Downtown Houston has much to offer so hopefully this situation will not last long and more towers will go up.

I wish someone would show a picture of this to whoever designed that monstrosity at Franklin & Milam.

This project is such an odd story, it does seem to have a good ending though. Has there been any specific mention of a garage on the Chronicle block? The demolition work is now almost all below grade, and there is the interplay with the tunnel deal/lawsuit and the adjacent block that complicates things, but if they were going to just lay asphalt over the block it seems like they would have stopped digging. Hines could make a bit of a semi-contiguous development among the Chronicle building block, Aris, and the Chronicle garage half block if they were so inclined. If that happened and the International tower went ahead, how cool would that be?

my understanding is that everything besides the initial tower and lifestyle center are all TBD. Uses will include office, apt, retail, perhaps medical but designs and scale are subject to change.

http://x.lnimg.com/attachments/7EA47D59-BEE9-409D-BD89-36139512D1FF.p

Here's a better look:

https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/Houston-TX/pmf,pf_pt/68428177_zpid/39051_rid/mixed-use_att/globalrelevanceex_sort/30.170656,-94.963074,29.46172,-95.84198_rect/9_zm/

Just a clarification, the "1200 units" will be the total including the existing buildings to the east and southeast (689 units in Bayou Park and 436 in Memorial Heights). This new building only adds 232 units; the garden apartments that used to be there had 120 units. So this section of land now sees twice as many housing units, plus a nearly 100,000 square foot H-E-B, plus nearly 40,000 square feet of other commercial space (mostly offices and a bit of retail). That's a nice improvement in density and should be great for this location!

Im not sure because I haven't been downtown in a while, but I heard my buddy is going downtown in the 500 ton with luffer this weekend to tear down a Bellows tower crane. Does anyone know where this might be? Don't know if I'll be there on the job or not, but if I go I'll take some pictures or ask him to take a few.

Dallas' creative economy continues to fuel intown development-- 2015 US Bureau of Labor Statistics data revealed that North Texas supports 99,000 creative jobs, while Texas' second and third-ranking creative metros combine for 103,000. https://economicsresearch.unt.edu/sites/default/files/DFW_CreativeIndustries final.pdf

Typically, hotels will be on the lower floors with condos above. It would have nothing to do with EB-5 investments. EB-5 investments are not condo purchases. That's not the way the program works.

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I'm curious if the intention is for the hotel to occupy the upper floors of the tower or if it will occupy the lower floors in order to incentivize EB-5 condo purchases on the upper levels.

I want to live there. I wonder how much the cheapest one is!

they're going to need to jump the crane soon

Turn Allen Prkwy into Houston's own Champs Elysee!

Looks good from where I'm sitting. Let's reel 'er in, fellas!

Yes, the Trash Tower has a ring to it.

Opinion: Some Buildings don't need neon feature lighting. It gets a bit tacky, when its overdone.

I'm not sure I've seen the colored led roof outlines mentioned on this thread before. I was surprised to see that when driving by downtown the other night.. one building was lit red, the other in blue. Sorry for the terrible drive by picture.

I don't see any official news on this one yet, but another plan review permit was issued in late March and today they had some sample brick facades sitting out there. Kind of hard to differentiate what might be happening here from all of the Project Brays work around this site, but I take this as a positive sign

I just got a drone and have been having so much fun touring around Houston up in the sky. by Thomas, on Flickr

Waaaaay better design

One of the architects behind this wrote a really interesting narrative from his perspective on WOMH on reddit yesterday:

Lightrail by Marc longoria, on Flickr

http://www.chron.com/entertainment/restaurants-bars/article/Heights-bar-Better-Luck-Tomorrow-to-open-in-April-11036267.php The Bar (with food). Opening in April.

How dare you not share. When the never built Allen Center tower was shown I knew it was only a matter of time before a skyscraper would spill over the freeway and change the view. If 45 is turned into a park this location will be prime. Later down the road the wood frame wraps will be taken out. Hope I'm alive to see it.

http://zieglercooper.com/buffalo-heights/