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The Langley: Residential High-Rise At 1717 Bissonnet St.


musicman

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lol People won't care about that kind of negative PR. Now if you come back and say that the materials are cheap, it looks unfinished, pipes are bursting, and it was built with slave labor? Then maybe you will have some bad PR in terms of the actual building. It's not like the building is running for office or anything!

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Look, I'm not siding with the neighborhood on this, but at this point I think the developer should consider options for getting out of this location. Offer to "donate" the property to the locals with the sole purpose of creating a park, only if a similar size property can be purchased by the community nearby in a location the community and the developer thinks will be more appropriate. Midtown? Kirby? Museum District? Medical Center? Uptown? By creating a park the developer could save face while also still getting to build the designed building at another location.

There is just too much other competition for residential high rise in Houston right now to build where sales may be harder to come by because of the high amount of negative PR.

If there was ever a "point of no return" situation for a developer, this would be it...
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Look, I'm not siding with the neighborhood on this, but at this point I think the developer should consider options for getting out of this location. Offer to "donate" the property to the locals with the sole purpose of creating a park, only if a similar size property can be purchased by the community nearby in a location the community and the developer thinks will be more appropriate. Midtown? Kirby? Museum District? Medical Center? Uptown? By creating a park the developer could save face while also still getting to build the designed building at another location.

There is just too much other competition for residential high rise in Houston right now to build where sales may be harder to come by because of the high amount of negative PR.

Out of the 4m people who live in Houston and the Billions more that live around the world --- a significant number of them with business or lifestyle arrangements that take them to houston routinely, I am quite sure that the owners of this building would be able to find about 300 folks willing to pay the rent that they charge. Negative press means zero to the Saudi or Chinese businessman who is relocating for two years to open a new office for his company. Or, for that matter, the oil exec from Boston who similarly needs a place for 36 months. Zero.

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  • 3 months later...

1717 Bissonnet

Location: 1717 Bissonnet at Ashby

Developer: Houston-based Buckhead Investment Partners

Original plan: In 2007, the developer said it would build a high-rise residential tower in the neighborhood near Rice University. Later referred to as the "Ashby high-rise," the project became poster child for Houston's land-use tensions as neighbors fought for years to stop it. In May, a judge awarded $1.2 million in damages to area residents who had sued the developer. But the judge said he could not stop Buckhead from building the project.

Status: "We are working to start as soon as possible," Buckhead's Matthew Morgan said. The lawsuit is in appeal, but "that's not going to keep us from starting," he said. The developer has found a new general contractor to build the project, and it has its foundation and core and shell permits.

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/real-estate/article/Cracks-forming-in-commercial-real-estate-market-6037038.php#/0

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  • 4 weeks later...

I think the ultimate revenge would be to open a pawn/liquor/check cashing store on the site. I bet the neighborhood wouldn't be so NIMBY after that.

The ultimate revenge would be as follows....

1) Hold a press conference with local news announcing you are NOT building the high rise apartments

2) Publicly apologize to the good people of west u for putting them through all this

3) Let some time pass while still retaining ownership of the land

4) After sufficient time has passed for everything to be forgotten, commission sculptor David Adickes to create the biggest "F*** You" in the history of statues.....

....A giant size replica of THIS guy, built to the scale of the cartoon, overlooking those asshole nimbys homes....

Stop_Ashby_High_Rise_sign2.jpg

5) ?????

6) Profit

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The ultimate revenge would be as follows....

4) After sufficient time has passed for everything to be forgotten, commission sculptor David Adickes to create the biggest "F*** You" in the history of statues.....

....A giant size replica of THIS guy, built to the scale of the cartoon, overlooking those asshole nimbys homes....

Stop_Ashby_High_Rise_sign2.jpg

 

 

3D print the sucker!!

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100% agree. What can we do to help get this ball rolling?

 

 

So it's a go? It is proceeding?

 

 

Those effin residents ... we should start a fund to assist with the developer's legal fees. In return the developer can name a floor or a park bench in honor of the largest donors.

 

 

They should add 30 stories for the hell of it.

 

 

They should add 20 more floors to this thing just for that.

 

 

Count me in!

 

 

the taller the better.

 

 

I just hope there's a bar included in this supposed street-level retail. This way everyone who drives by can see the bar patrons drinking and getting plastered. Cool.

I'm trying this "MultiQuote" feature for the first time. Pretty cool.  I wanted to test my theory that little can be done to change a HAIFer's views on a particular project.  LTAWACS has been consistent....

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  • 1 month later...

Beat me to it, there was definitely some work going on this afternoon, looked like utility work though it's unclear if it's actually related to/the start of the project or something else.

 

I remember last year they were able to do the electric grid install then got shut down. This looks like it might be water utility work, so might just be another stutter step.

 

I'm sure the first time a worker honks their horn at 6:59:55 am, it will be shut down.

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I've asked this in the past, but why would developers demo cash-generating properties until the construction is 100% certain to go forward?  Or does that 100% assurance never really happen? This site has been an empty lot for 2 years, and if I recall, the old apartment complex here had high occupancy rates.  

 

Regent Square is another example.

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I'm going to talk with the developer and simply say just build the d*** thing. This fight has been going on way to long. Screw these anti highrise nimbies, if you don't like it should have never moved to Houston. :)

Edited by JoninATX
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I live in Southampton. My next door neighbors are in their early 90s. They've lived in their home since 1956. Their house was originally built in 1928 and they purchased it from the original owners. Pretty sure that in 1928 and in 1956, NOBODY would have predicted a high-rise being built on Bissonnet. 

 

 

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