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I hope everyone realizes how fortunate we are in Houston to have such a dynamic art community. We just witnessed the opening of Match, a new arts venue, and Rice University's new art center. October will bring the opening of the much anticipated Drawing Center and new park and landscaping at the Menil and now the MFAH steps up huge with the new designs by Stephen Holl for the Glassel school, and new Contemporary exhibition space and the Lake Flato conservancy center atop the Beck garage. These are the type of things that great cities are defined by. Not how tall their buildings are or how big the galleria is. Its the opportunities for people to thrive that makes great cities. Just like the TMC, Buffalo Bayou park, and our growing community of higher education institutions that are all striving to become more responsible to the communities they serve. Its a great time to live in Houston.

It's not a bad design, just compared to what we first got it is a let down.

When I was in architecture school at U. of H. back in the late sixties and early 70's I worked nights as a janitor for two semesters. My wifes uncle was in charge and let me work until I found something more lucrative. The first semester I was working in the Humble building and my job was cleaning the massive computer floors with hundreds of large units where they ran all of their reports. I'm not a computer geek, but these were floor to ceiling units that had to have special, air conditioning and cleaning so I went around doing this. Then I got promoted to their newest site which was the Post Oak Towers in the Galleria. I can remember the first night I showed up and he took me to the 22nd or 24th floor of the building and as the elevator opened I walked into Gerald Hines offices where I spent the next 6-9 months cleaning the whole floor including Gerald's office. By the way he had a gold colored phone. The offices were remarkable with large scale models of new projects all over the open floors. There were ancient artifacts in display cases and wonderful art works on the walls. As you can imagine I almost peed myself right there. Gerald Hine's is one of the most remarkable people I have ever met. He started with such small beginnings on Richmond between Buffalo Speedway and Kirby with Harwood Taylor designing his early two story projects and then all of a sudden he blew up. I really don't think you will find that quote uttered from his mouth. It's just not his style. The man has more gravitas than that. He's also a genius.

Very cool story. It kind of works as a blank verse poem.

This angle in the photo above must have been taken the morning after Tigereye awoke from passing out on his way home from a concert at The House of Blues, and he decided to take a pic before he got up. Just joking, but I don't mind this angle. My beef was the same as above that they had such an interesting original design and then went kind of bland. The opposite side of the building which is mostly the precast tan stone gets completely lost in the milieu of tan buildings surrounding it.

I hope we hear something- that project was one of my favorites outside downtown

^^^ @gene may you acquire some illustrations for us of the day vs night ambiance? would be interested in viewing this LED approach. props....

I walk during my lunch breaks and I can assure the canopies make a world of difference. Trees do too. Instead of archaic rules that hinder pedestrian development they should be encouraging developers to do this. Heck they should be giving these guys a tax break instead of making them beg for a variance. The big drawback I see with canopies are people sleeping underneath them and defecating and urinating right where they sleep. But if this project is successful there will be a flood of activity around it and that would limit chances of vagrants fouling up the sidewalk

Ah. I thought it had already happened when I stumbled across the set up yesterday. The new garage below the Glassell.

http://edge-re.com/Properties/Houston/~RuskStFanninSt-Lease/RuskStFanninSt-Lease.pdf any idea what royal blue is?

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/Changing-streets-11177181.php Great article on the rebuild of Lower Westheimer. What I don't understand is West Alabama was expected to start reconstruction in late 2016, already fully funded, and nothing has happened yet. And with these new designs for Lower Westheimer, my concern is when are any of these actually going to begin? Both are fully funded and so I don't understand the delay or lack of urgency from the city or local TIRZ districts. From the article, "For too long, the city has lagged behind private developers in building cityscapes at the scale of a person." With all the new development happening around us, the thing that's keeping many of these new developments from flowing together is better infrastructure. Does anyone have any additional info on this?

Sorry you have to move. I hope its to a nice place.

Royal Blues are great! So excited to see we might be getting one downtown... At least someone has it on their radar.

Which makes me having to move in a few months that much more sad

The Montrose TIRZ hasn't started yet- but Lower Westheimer goes into design phase in Dec 2017 after review of public online comments

I can only suggest that sometimes it depends on the business that chooses the space. Look at Post properties at Bagby and West Gray. That retail has been buzzing now for over ten years with very little turnover. Of course this is in the middle of a very large concentration of residential complexes and the streets are alive with people. But that wasn't the case before Post came along so there is a way to make these types of mixed use developments work. Karate studios and Greek Pita places probably weren't the best choices for tenants.

Edit: Those apartments struggle to capture retail. Karate studio closed and haven't been able to lease the corner and most visible spot. Wine Bar next door shut down, Greek Pita place has been "coming soon" for months. I think there's only a Subway and ER place. Maybe it has to do with the location & visibility. Wish this location better luck.

Dont you say that! Haha.. admittedly that mixed use development seemed really ambitious, but it seems like the developers behind the project were serious about it, given their submission of the plat, trying to work with the neighborhood association to address any issues, requesting abandonment with the city, and what not.

I was just wondering about that development yesterday.. Has the Museum District Neighborhood Association(?) said anything further on plans for the development/abandoning Palm Street? fullsizeoutput_74a by Justin Anderson, on Flickr

Hobby is using RNAV approaches now, which allow air traffic to follow curved approaches to 12R & 12L to avoid downtown. That being said, the FAA can still make a big stink about anything being made along that straight line or the current RNAV trajectory. I do wonder if it will be an issue for that high rise proposed for the museum district.

They have Royal Blue grocery stores in Austin. Would be a great add if correct.

Conceptual renderings for mixed-use development on former ACS HQ site. 22-floor, 462,000 SF residential tower 18-floor, 450,000 SF office tower 12-floor, 300,000 SF office tower 5-floor, 150-room hotel 33,400 SF retail some underground parking rooftop deck Project Location From my Photobucket:

I like it tbh

Reading this forum is getting more and more trying with all the arguing.

Thanks Mollusk. Next time I visit an old friend at the Med Center I am going to steer the conversation toward high rise buildings and then use the info you just provided. Make me sound more smart and worldly than I actually am. Of course I'll claim credit for the information. You don't mind do you?

This has been addressed elsewhere, but 12R/30L and 12L/30R point almost straight at downtown (the runway designations roughly correspond to rounded off compass headings). 12R is heavily used for landings from the north and takeoffs to the south because of the prevailing onshore flow; 30L (its reverse) could be used for departures into a northerly wind but generally isn't because of all the nearby houses (and we have 4 pointing northeast). Downtown is right at the edge of the restriction cone; IIRC you could build a supertall on the old post office site without nicking into it. In contrast, there are no runways that point toward the Med Center from Hobby.

Wow, a fine Houston welcome to the forum. Yep, I'm definitely an idiotic troll, that's why I wrote what I wrote with a QUESTION MARK. I do remember reading years ago, I thought in connection with Transco, that someone had pronounced downtown as dead, but, in retrospect, you're right, doesn't make much sense. Maybe it was Kenneth Schnitzer with Greenway Plaza. Wait, I don't want more tomatoes flung at me. Maybe it was Kenneth Schnitzer with Greenway Plaza?????????????????

Thank God. Voters are complete brain-dead idiots these days and have no clue, vision or ability to think for themselves. Just ask any Putin puppet.

How about 80 parking spaces? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_of_America_Center_(Houston) Maybe this is just me, but this building is just Houston. The color, the cut of the roof, it's unique, and because of where it is, it will never be hidden behind other buildings from the typical west side skyline shot.

Park facing Main St.

Data on the top ten fastest growing Texas cities was published today. The study divided growth into total increase and percentage. Texas Metros by Total Increase (2015-2016): *limited to top ten fastest growing Texas cities DFW -- 59,727 Houston -- 29,434 San Antonio -- 27,473 Austin -- 22,584 Texas Cities by Total Increase (2015-2016): *limited to top ten fastest growing Texas cities San Antonio -- 24,473 Dallas -- 20,602 Fort Worth -- 19,942 Houston -- 18,666 Austin -- 17,738 McKinney -- 9,607 Frisco -- 9,576 Conroe -- 5,924 Round Rock -- 4,846 Pearland -- 4,844

Hell freaking yeah, this rivals 609 Main and Marriott Marquis for impact on the city. (Sorry I didn't mention ROD or any of the grocery/multi-family sandwiches.)

Via Swamplot: