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Soil sampling this morning on the block just north of Caydon’s high rise construction site. Preparing for The District Tower I, possibly? For reference, this is the art supply store parking lot on the south side of Dennis between Main and Fannin. You can see Caydon’s tower crane and the nearly-complete Camden Midtown in the background.

Took a trip to downtown today

Didn't realize till today that the bean had a concave side to it. They had the Grand Opening today.

If it gets built there is a 100% chance of gentrification.

Stripes are slimming

Forgot this near the entrance.

Scaffolding is completely down on Main St.

The white and black stripes are making this look so much better.

The construction trailers were going up this weekend.

https://www.virtualbx.com/construction-preview/houston-planning-commission-gets-early-look-at-tmc3/

https://www.bizjournals.com/houston/news/2018/05/21/developer-hanover-river-oaks-retail-component-will.html

Yep, I saw them this morning and thought the same. The marketing was going for a vintage 40's feel and the stripes kinda remind me a pin stripes on a suit...pretty clever touch. Glad you got a pic.

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/XTO-to-begin-move-from-Fort-Worth-to-Houston-12926462.php

Found this on ABC 13's Youtube. Coverage of the "blue bandit" parachute jump from multiple angles on the ground and in the air from 1983.

Unfortunately by then half of HAIF will have passed away from old age.

Sorry but I didn't include the other pic that shows an excavator on site also. But it seems strange that all those small piles of dirt are placed in the deeper parts of the site and that they have a sheepsfoot roller compactor.

It's like they're raking a giant zen garden

Steel beams going up.

So pedestrians and bikers can use it without getting run over by cars. We have no dedicated north/south bike lane, and this could run from the Museum District all of the way to the north edge of downtown.

If they wanted to do something more immediate, they could just do the area between Alabama and Elgin first. Get appropriate variances and install bollards to block/limit vehicular access. This area already sees a decent amount of pedestrian traffic and new developments have been pedestrian focused. I think Ensemble theater is the only business that has a Main st focus vehicular access(valet).

Not sure what this building is but it's across from the future Isabella Surge project.

Bids are being taken/awarded for the block 42 residential tower. I can’t wait to see this design everyone keeps talking about.

You are a monster and you should never be forgiven.

Let's face it; mass transit like bullet trains work best if it is in conjunction with other transit options. The biggest mistake they will make is not stopping downtown. That 290 terminal is nice in paper but less practical than a downtown location. The web of public transit from downtown is so fast it's just unimaginable that the terminal won't be in the thick of all of that. There is a reason why the word Central usually preceded the word Station in many terminal names. NASA tourist numbers were never good because it is not convenient to get to via PT. Getting to downtown from most areas is easy. Getting to 610 and 290 is never easy. Not even by car. The Post office site with Greyhound, MegaBus, light rail and Metro buses connections would be an awesome development for Houston. Imagine you are in Dallas heading to Houston for a football game. It would be nice if you could hop on DART, zip down to Houston, hop on the Red line at UHD down to the Stadium. Another thing we should consider is impression. Stepping off a train in downtown and soaking up your first experience with Houston is a lot different than first experience being a less attractive area out of the way area. Coming in from Hobby has improved but still it's horrible. Coming from IAH isn't much better either. The bus goes through greenspoint and then through billboard corridor down 45. But my biggest worry is accessability.

Well said H-Town and I totally agree. Having grown up in and around this gigantic metropolis until I was in my mid-30's, I've either seen or read about and then noticed every example of architecture within the time frame you mentioned. Only Houston did it way better than everyone else, but never gloated about it before and just kept on doing it's creative wonderful independent "thing" while other Texas cities, who shall remain nameless, constantly touted themselves as the ultimate place to be, especially for TX. This has turned out to be so much hot air and not much more, if you've visited these other cities and compared them to Houston over time. Houston has always been THE big city for Texas in it's history at least from the early 20th century on to today. I see that only accelerating from this point forward to the foreseeable future. Proof? Look around you- incredible growth rates on scales we haven't really see sustained before in our history, most of the growth coming in the form on millennials and young people just starting out, especially college graduates, international immigration on a huge scale to our city with no limits, many new architecturally significant projects all over town, but especially downtown with so many more in the works or in serious planning stages, technology growth both originating and coming into our area as our society in America progresses in science, technology, aerospace, and medicine. AND, let's not forget, even Harvey couldn't stop this growth and progress for Houston. That's pretty much the definition of a "disastrous" event. Not that worse things can still happen and may still in the future, but all things being equal, Houston will continue to grow phenomenally as it has for most of it's history, where the people and policies have determined what their future will be, and not the politics of Washington or our State lawmakers. As for modern day Austin? Well, I'm sad to say, not so much... I also lived in Austin straight out of college from roughly 1985-90. It was a much more interesting city back then and didn't try to bite off more than it could chew. Seems as has been said, that the pace of the population growth there was never (and is still not being addressed properly) anticipated to be as large as it is today. Therefore, the experience of living there is no more genuine that it used to be due to so much clogged traffic and congestion, and being taken over by too much "new money" that doesn't fit in with Austin's original way of life that was so wonderful, even into the early 1990's. There seems to be much more a division and segregation of wealthy people (newcomers) concentrated surrounding the city on the western Hill Country side and downtown, and the not so wealthy people now being pushed further east and southeast of the city limits than ever before. Surprising for a city that is supposedly "liberal" thinking, but bears little resemblance to that ideal these days it would seem. Could this all have something to do with the tilt in national politics and the takeover of our state government from one party to the other during the late 90's ? You can decide that for yourself. I'm only trying to highlight what I believe are important factors in the changes we are seeing for our beloved Austin. Yet, despite all the weird, and downright ghastly changes it is undergoing, Austin will always stay in my heart as a wonderful experience where I first began making my way in life, before moving back to Houston to evolve into the person I remain to this day. I guess in a lot of ways, population being the main exception, Houston and Austin are getting more and more similar, as one moves towards the right and the other moves more to the left. They seem to meet somewhere in the middle, overall. Having said all of that (I know, quite a bundle of thoughts, right LOL!) in closing, I just have to say HOUSTON will always be my one true home.

Had a doctor's appointment and had to take some pics.

I've been a negative nancy on this project since the awesomeness of Houston continuing to have the biggest freeways in the world wore off. The only winner is the developers that will own the land that the pierce elevated is on. Everyone else will be net 0, or loss.

It looks like, at 3 lanes each direction, the downtown connector is just as big as the current freeway where it crosses the bayou. I'm not sure I understand, from a quality of life perspective, why we are doubling the freeway on the east side of downtown with only marginal benefit to the west side of downtown. Do they really need as many lanes for their downtown connector as they formerly did for the entire freeway? The only winner in this is Midtown.

They need to either completely redevelop Bayou place or burn it to the ground and put something useful there. It's a dump, as it is.

Taking down the east side freight elevator.

They either tie into the surrounding rebar and lay concrete or make it an elevator shaft. I recall asking a Skanska worker about this when they had 3 tower cranes.

I noticed yesterday as I was sitting in Jury Duty that there was only one crane, as I'm in my office now, there's a definite hole where the crane once stood. What happens to that hole? I am guessing they make it the freight/service elevator?

Driving home from work today I saw the the taller tower crane taking down the shorter flat top crane.

I don't think it's been said enough. There have been some incredibly civic minded Houston, philanthropists over the decades. Really too many to name all. However in my mind the two most positive forces in Houston over the last decade has to be the Kinders. She was instrumental in raising the money for Discovery Green. They donated millions for the ongoing bayou beautification project. They have a new wing of the museum named in their honor, and 70 million, this week to the Memorial Park conservancy, to put a little git in their gitty up. Hats off to two outstanding transplants, who are doing the heavy lifting of Houston, into the 21st century!

https://www.virtualbx.com/construction-preview/25253-houston-pedestrian-realm-takes-precedence-in-washington-avenue-retail-project.html

I’m not to sure how I feel about this though. Obviously I like the idea of it being DT, but I prefer a boutique hotel on top of the tower instead. A couple reasons...I’m not sure if height will be restricted if you’re building on top of the tower? I believe I read that they can only go so high at this location. Also, I would love the W to be in its on site and fill in one of those parking lots. I’m not sure the street presence would be significant if you built on top of the tower and that would be my main concern.

Unfortunately, when they do their freeway expansion (and if they do the cap) the cap will only extend as far as Lamar street. Furthermore, Polk street will no longer cross the freeway. This will not be a gateway to anywhere. If anything, the freeway expansion will serve to make this location even less desirable as it will be even more isolated from the east end than it is now.

nah, it'll work out just fine. it works very well with conventions, many of the 3 day business conferences I've been to have a 'party night' where they take everyone somewhere. This will be a perfect venue for these kinds of appreciation events.

I don't understand the concerns. It was a vacant lot that will now attract more people downtown. I won't be going but Houston is full of rednecks and country western fans. I hear the one in Dallas does well so let them fill an empty space for a while, draw more people downtown , generate more foot traffic and revenue while the convention center makes plans for the future. It sure cant hurt anything. Im sure restaurants, hotels and parking lots will be happy to have the extra business. It might surprise you how well they will do.

Today is Tuesday. If this were China, that 150 acre plot of raw land would be 100% built and ready for occupancy by Friday. Of course, no one would be living there but that is another story all together!