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POST: Mixed-Use Development At 401 Franklin St.


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On 11/16/2017 at 10:53 AM, jmitch94 said:

Can you imagine if everyone in Manhattan tried to drive themselves to work, it would be utter chaos.   

 

If everyone in Manhattan drove themselves to work, Manhattan would look a lot like downtown Houston: a lot lower activity density, a lot more parking.

 

Transit is kind of a chicken-and-egg problem. You can't get transit to be even close to cost-efficient without much higher density than pretty much every part of pretty much every US city has. And it's politically very difficult to achieve that kind of density without a workable transit system, because neighborhoods object to new development by citing increased traffic and parking concerns.

 

Houston has some advantages in this area, since developers can add density by right, so there's no need to up-zone in order to increase density. But at the same time, our setback requirements and parking minimums tend to make fine-grained walkable development all but impossible, and result in very low activity density, even in central neighborhoods.

 

And we dedicate a very high proportion of land-area to non-productive uses. For example, EaDo is a rapidly densifying urban neighborhood, with a mix of multi-family residential, high-density single-family residential, and commercial development. But the area is platted with 280-ft blocks with 80-ft rights of way, which means that almost 40% of land area is RoW. That's before you add in parking minimums and setbacks. Very hard to get to a critical mass of activity density when half your land area is empty.

 

 

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  • 1 month later...
51 minutes ago, BeerNut said:

Any word when they will start developing this site?   After the 2nd year of them hosting D4N, I'm beginning to think that the festival in it's current form will last only as long as the site isn't developed.

 Where will Day for Night festival go???

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18 hours ago, Timoric said:

 

How about bulldoze it all and make it the best park in Houston for 10 years for concerts, dog play, picnics, art, food trucks, and some pick up volleyball or kickball games

 

No way!  The beauty of that site is all of that indoor space just waiting to be built out.  With the realities of Houston weather, having indoor recreational space would be a great compliment to the adjacent outdoor space along the bayou.  My wife and I were at D4N and during one of the breaks we started listing some of the possibilities: indoor electric go-kart track, bowling alley, shooting range, miniature golf, pool hall, arcade, skating/hockey rinks, lawn bowling, cornhole, RC car track.  I'm sure that there are more.  Maybe carnival rides for kids that can work within the existing ceiling heights?

 

All of those other things you mention are great, but can't we do those at Eleanor Tinsley park?

 

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4 hours ago, innerloop said:

 

No way!  The beauty of that site is all of that indoor space just waiting to be built out.  With the realities of Houston weather, having indoor recreational space would be a great compliment to the adjacent outdoor space along the bayou.  My wife and I were at D4N and during one of the breaks we started listing some of the possibilities: indoor electric go-kart track, bowling alley, shooting range, miniature golf, pool hall, arcade, skating/hockey rinks, lawn bowling, cornhole, RC car track.  I'm sure that there are more.  Maybe carnival rides for kids that can work within the existing ceiling heights?

 

All of those other things you mention are great, but can't we do those at Eleanor Tinsley park?

 

 

I think this will be more of a playground for adults than a playground for kids. You basically described the old Fame City. Which is all well and good, but people looking for that usually care a lot about parking and easy access and very little about downtown location.

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3 hours ago, CrockpotandGravel said:


If you go back and read some of the more recent articles and minutes from the Downtown Houston meeting, renovations began this year. They're working on the building while leasing it and their other properties out for events.

Exactly how I understood it. It seems the renovation is happening as they lease out spacr for events like D4N.

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  • 2 weeks later...

http://www.txrfc.com/En/Post/Post.aspx

 

Assuming this was the previous plan?

 

Quote

 


COMMUNITY HIGHLIGHTS
 

Participation of the firm OMA, one of the leading architectural firms in the world.

 

Luxury apartments for rent, built by Hanover, one of the largest contractors in the United States.

 

Great location, 16 acres of land in downtown Houston, surrounded by Interstate 45 and Interstate 10.

Government and the media attach great importance to the project.

The project won the "Best Reconstruction Project in Houston, 2015" by Realty News Report.

 

 

3s.jpg

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  • The title was changed to Post HTX: 401 Franklin Post Office Site Redevelopment
  • 2 weeks later...
2 minutes ago, CrockpotandGravel said:


The Post HTX video on Vimeo is no longer private (Lovett Commerical marked it private after Swamplot's report on the mixed use details with renderings)

The video is outdated and doesn't show the newer renderings from the brochure that was online last year. Outdated as it may be (I think it was from late 2016), it's similar to the newer renderings and depictions from Post HTX's leasing brochure and website design plans that hasn't been updated to show the renderings.

https://player.vimeo.com/video/201923389

I feel like this is where our tech startup district is going to be. I could be wrong, but this is one of the main reasons Houston lost the bid for Amazon. We need new ideas in this city. 

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1 hour ago, CrockpotandGravel said:


The Post HTX video on Vimeo is no longer private (Lovett Commerical marked it private after Swamplot's report on the mixed use details with renderings)

The video is outdated and doesn't show the newer renderings from the brochure that was online last year. Outdated as it may be (I think it was from late 2016), it's similar to the newer renderings and depictions from Post HTX's leasing brochure and website design plans that hasn't been updated to show the renderings.

https://player.vimeo.com/video/201923389

 

The video mentions that there will be co-working (1:35) and a food hall (1:38). I feel like downtown is already saturated with these things.

 

We already have 4 food halls open / in planning stages and there is a 10 story WeWork coming to 708 Main...

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5 minutes ago, downtownian said:

 

The video mentions that there will be co-working (1:35) and a food hall (1:38). I feel like downtown is already saturated with these things.

 

We already have 4 food halls open / in planning stages and there is a 10 story WeWork coming to 708 Main...

You can't have enough. If you want downtown to grow and densify, these types of developments can't have just 1 or 2 locations. You need lot's of these types of meeting places for PEOPLE.

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With the way they are explaining this location it just makes sense that this is going to become our SoMa SF. It's centrally located in an overall thriving area with solid infrastructure and the ability to draw some MAJOR tenants. I think the city will eventually name this our tech district which would be absolutely huge and a real game changer for this city. When a company like We Work opens offices in your city, it's because they see the potential for technology. We have to capitalize on this and keep our young talent in Houston. I work in animation and I've been waiting a very long time to see something like this happen. I just didn't know where and when it would happen. 

Edited by j_cuevas713
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 If they  can stick to that schedule, it will be a good pace to develop that large of a project.

I like the idea of it growing in stages. Give it a little time to feel things out.

Besides look how far along Regents Square is after 8 years.

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1 hour ago, bobruss said:

 If they  can stick to that schedule, it will be a good pace to develop that large of a project.

I like the idea of it growing in stages. Give it a little time to feel things out.

Besides look how far along Regents Square is after 8 years.

I guess you're right. By the time I'm 80 everything will be finished lol

Edited by j_cuevas713
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On 1/19/2018 at 0:48 PM, downtownian said:

 

The video mentions that there will be co-working (1:35) and a food hall (1:38). I feel like downtown is already saturated with these things.

 

We already have 4 food halls open / in planning stages and there is a 10 story WeWork coming to 708 Main...

 

I don't know about co-working, but food halls, with as many new residents there are in downtown, it can sustain a whole lot more than just a 5th food hall.

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  • 2 weeks later...
3 hours ago, CrockpotandGravel said:

Does anyone know for sure if Rem Koolhaas OMA ( Office of Metropolitan Architecture) is designing the remodel of Post HTX? Offcite is reporting OMA is no longer involved.

Here's the excerpt:

Back in Houston, PostHTX’s emptiness is temporary, and only the result of the time it has taken to plan for the site’s reuse. Before becoming the downtown post office, the land was first Houston’s Grand Central Depot and then the Southern Pacific Grand Central Station; though the tracks are gone, their traces still remain in back of the complex. The post office, designed by the architecture office of Wilson, Morris, Crane, and Anderson, was built in 1962, and renamed to honor Barbara Jordan in 1984, a native of Houston’s Fifth Ward. Citing contractions in federal post office budgets, the building was sold in 2015 to Lovett Commercial, who is now researching how best to redevelop the campus. PostHTX already has its acronym-based rebranding, an early indicator of the redevelopment that is to come: The duality of post references the building while hinting at its future. What was a techno playground for three days will, in a few years’ time and if all goes according to the advertising, be “transformed into a fully immersive destination featuring a variety of office, retail, and culinary experiences.”

Lovett Commercial has consulted many architects, including local ones, to understand how to renovate the post office complex. Rem Koolhaas’s OMA was engaged at some point but is no longer working on the project. In 2012, Koolhaas lectured at Rice, discussing his current research project of preservation and articulating a position of “history without preservation.” The idea embraces material engagement with the past, not “preserving history” but instead “revealing history,” in a manner that invites newness. Buildings are not renovated or preserved, but instead remixed. Since then, OMA’s built work in projects like Garage Museum of Contemporary Art or the Fondazione Prada campus in Milan have shown that this theory can be translated into cultural buildings with successful results.



http://offcite.org/posthtx-as-fun-palace-a-review-of-day-for-night-and-what-happens-next/

I wonder if Koolhaas was used to help fully grasp the concept of what Lovett wants to do. Maybe they were confident he could help get that point across with the potential of the site. 

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12 minutes ago, j_cuevas713 said:

I wonder if Koolhaas was used to help fully grasp the concept of what Lovett wants to do. Maybe they were confident he could help get that point across with the potential of the site. 

 

Thats probably exactly what happened. It's the same when a company might want to develop a master plan for project, but then hire a different architect for an individual building. In this case they wanted to pick the mind of a architectural theorist like Koolhaas, but then get other architects to do more detailed parts of the project. This happens quite a lot actually.

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