Parking Garage At 1311 Louisiana St.

[ricco67]

They just started putting up barriers.

[BaderJF]

Does the Methodist hospital garage counts as one of the tallest at 14 floors or not since its under the building

[urban909]

From this morning:

[Nate99]

I can't really tell what they are doing inside the box, but I would presume it has to do with foundations/footings. 

 

 

[danthony05]

I work in 1201 Louisiana and have a pretty good view of the construction site. I'll probably be taking a lot of picture of the progress if anyone is interested. 

[Moore713]

I have never understood with a city as car dominated as Houston why we allow parking lots instead of parking towers...  Parking lots just seem like a money grab .. limited space creates demand which allows you to charge absurd prices.  For these companies it a win/win .. parking lot means I can charge asburb amount, if a company want to by the lot to build a building , they have to buy me out. I can point to how much money I make having it as a lot to force them to have to offer me alot more money for it

[democide]

Seems like quite a distance away from Wells Fargo Plaza.  The ideal location should of been one block behind One Shell Plaza, where the surface parking lot is at.

[Triton]

 

[democide]

People need their parking, this one is moving along nicely

[mfastx]

Better than a parking lot!

[HoustonIsHome]

With the 20+ parking lots set to be wiped out in a few years, it seems we may need about four or five more of these spread around downtown.

[kdog08]

With the 20+ parking lots set to be wiped out in a few years, it seems we may need about four or five more of these spread around downtown.

 

I would like more public-private partnerships with parking garages among the TIRZs along the Main St line. Houstonians who visit downtown will still need a place to park as surface lots make way for better use. 

[Triton]

 

I was being a moron when I took this picture.

 

But, I figured I'd update nonetheless.

 

[nate]

The crane base has been installed.

 

[Triton]

[Tumbleweed_Tx]

Polk as closed off last night for crane installation

[Luminare]

Well while I think we have way to many parking structures in this town already. its way better than low use surface lot! What they should do more is put them more on the periphery of downtown that way it gets people to walk a little more at street level. 

[HoustonIsHome]

I agree. I would prefer more of these type pf structures spread around the periphery instead of having massively hideous parking garages attached to each new building downtown.

[Texasota]

Hmmm. So a wall of parking garages between Downtown and the surrounding neighborhoods? I'm not sure that's actually better than having them dispersed throughout.

[HoustonIsHome]

I don't think anyone mentioned a wall of garages. If you are going to completely change the gist of the conversation to suit your point then it becomes pointless cause you are objecting against something you made up to make it sound unpalatable.

This 16 story garage is slated to have 1600 spots. So lets assume this is 100 slots per floor on a half lot building. This one building would eliminate the need for the ugly Skyhouse garage, the Marquette residential garage, the Hines MS garage and the garage for the 40 storey MS residential on the other side.

Now that is one building on a half lot.

Reduce the height to 12 floors and use a full lot and you get 2400. Put three of them in strategic areas near Pierce (either side), a few on the east side and a couple downtown itself and you Easily rack up 20,000 parking spaces. That's A fifth of all the parking currently downtown just in about 8 buildings spread about on the outskirts of downtown.

Even if you double the number of spots available downtown we don't need walls of Garages to accomplish this.

[Montrose1100]

I wish they'd scrap all those garages and build a massive hive super garage parking structure that took up 4 blocks and went up 30 stories.

[Sky-guy]

Or one block and 120 stories.

[Chi-Char-Hou-Dal]

Haha you guys are so full of BRAZOS river sediment it's not even funny. Would one of you gladly like to commute DT then commute the freaking 30 minutes up this hypothetical garage.

Sounds like a nightmare to me and probably the reason garages are usually capped including in NYC & CHI - simply not feasible to spend a half an hour going up in a spiral.

smh

[Luminare]

Hmmm. So a wall of parking garages between Downtown and the surrounding neighborhoods? I'm not sure that's actually better than having them dispersed throughout.

 

 

I don't think anyone mentioned a wall of garages. If you are going to completely change the gist of the conversation to suit your point then it becomes pointless cause you are objecting against something you made up to make it sound unpalatable.

This 16 story garage is slated to have 1600 spots. So lets assume this is 100 slots per floor on a half lot building. This one building would eliminate the need for the ugly Skyhouse garage, the Marquette residential garage, the Hines MS garage and the garage for the 40 storey MS residential on the other side.

Now that is one building on a half lot.

Reduce the height to 12 floors and use a full lot and you get 2400. Put three of them in strategic areas near Pierce (either side), a few on the east side and a couple downtown itself and you Easily rack up 20,000 parking spaces. That's A fifth of all the parking currently downtown just in about 8 buildings spread about on the outskirts of downtown.

Even if you double the number of spots available downtown we don't need walls of Garages to accomplish this.

 

Thank you sir for quickly restoring sanity. *claps*

 

I wish they'd scrap all those garages and build a massive hive super garage parking structure that took up 4 blocks and went up 30 stories.

 

This is actually an interesting concept given the context of this city and I know it's been discussed before. You would just need to make it look really freakin awesome on the outside to get away with it lol.

 

Haha you guys are so full of BRAZOS river sediment it's not even funny. Would one of you gladly like to commute DT then commute the freaking 30 minutes up this hypothetical garage.

Sounds like a nightmare to me and probably the reason garages are usually capped including in NYC & CHI - simply not feasible to spend a half an hour going up in a spiral.

smh

 

ummm if you want the exercise then by all means give the walk a try. I happen to know this guy. Kinda famous. Elisha Otis??? Yeah he invented this awesome thing called the "elevator" which is an amazing piece of technology way way back from the 19th century. I know...its practically science fiction. To use such a contraption to go up a building so high lol is just CRAZY!

[HoustonIsHome]

I was just going to say the same thing. Modern hirise parking structures use lifts. It saves space and time.

Cities around the world are building all these parking megastructures.

I heard Dubai is gonna build a 40,000 spot garage. I think that would be the largest capacity single garage in the world, but of course its Dubai so it has tp be the biggest. And two think, ten years ago they were parking camels

[Luminare]

well if there was ever an advantage to a rich king is that they don't freakin mess around when it comes to creating cities lol. Even though I like whats going on over there, it doesn't really hold a lot of weight because its so extravagant and none of it feels natural especially in the context of living in a desert. That city in twenty years is going to have major water resource problems, and not to mention that whole region is about to hit an Oil bubble because they are don't have the reserves they once had. In fact its the us in the US and those in Canada who have the enormous resources.

 

I usually think of it as a no brainer to just use a mechanical system. More cars means more money. I don't understand why we still use these enormous concrete monoliths.  

[Texasota]

I don't think anyone mentioned a wall of garages. If you are going to completely change the gist of the conversation to suit your point then it becomes pointless cause you are objecting against something you made up to make it sound unpalatable.

This 16 story garage is slated to have 1600 spots. So lets assume this is 100 slots per floor on a half lot building. This one building would eliminate the need for the ugly Skyhouse garage, the Marquette residential garage, the Hines MS garage and the garage for the 40 storey MS residential on the other side.

Now that is one building on a half lot.

Reduce the height to 12 floors and use a full lot and you get 2400. Put three of them in strategic areas near Pierce (either side), a few on the east side and a couple downtown itself and you Easily rack up 20,000 parking spaces. That's A fifth of all the parking currently downtown just in about 8 buildings spread about on the outskirts of downtown.

Even if you double the number of spots available downtown we don't need walls of Garages to accomplish this.

 

...ok...

 

As downtown continues to densify, it will need more parking, even assuming the proportion of people both living and working downtown increases. 

If you, for the sake of argument, magically zone Downtown so that parking garages have to be on the edge, then yes, you will end up with a layer of parking garages equivalent to a wall. Would there be streets through it? Of course, but it would still make for a horrible pedestrian experience. 

 

In fact, the southeast section of Downtown is already almost like this; it's mostly just parking garages and office towers that turn their backs to the street. It makes for an unpleasant pedestrian experience. 

 

What works better in an area with high enough property values (like downtown) are parking garages integrated into other things, particularly the underground garages under Discovery Green and Tranquility Park. 

 

The absolute last thing I want to see is an entire block with nothing but a parking garage on it. That is a total urban dead zone.

[HoustonIsHome]

...ok...

As downtown continues to densify, it will need more parking, even assuming the proportion of people both living and working downtown increases.

If you, for the sake of argument, magically zone Downtown so that parking garages have to be on the edge, then yes, you will end up with a layer of parking garages equivalent to a wall. Would there be streets through it? Of course, but it would still make for a horrible pedestrian experience.

In fact, the southeast section of Downtown is already almost like this; it's mostly just parking garages and office towers that turn their backs to the street. It makes for an unpleasant pedestrian experience.

What works better in an area with high enough property values (like downtown) are parking garages integrated into other things, particularly the underground garages under Discovery Green and Tranquility Park.

The absolute last thing I want to see is an entire block with nothing but a parking garage on it. That is a total urban dead zone.

Again, you are twisting what was said to come up with a doomsday scenario.

1. No one said anything about zoning anywhere for parking. In fact, it was said a zillion times that the optimum scenario would be a spread around the periphery.

2. I can name a zillion parking structures with ground floor retail. Just because it is a garage doesn't mean it can't look like any other building on the outside with retail on the bottom.

Edited May 24, 2014 by HoustonIsHome

[Texasota]

Really? A doomsday scenario? And you can name a "zillion" parking garages with ground floor retail? 

 

And you're accusing me of hyperbole?

 

"A spread around the periphery" is, by definition, a zone, and even, if dense enough, could be perceived as a wall.

 

Now, I will say that I agree that shared parking garages are a good thing, but I think they make more sense scattered throughout rather than clustered along the edge of a neighborhood. That clustering creates this perception that people drive to downtown, park, and then walk around for a few hours. There's nothing wrong with that, but i would prefer to prioritize those people who actually live downtown or in the surrounding neighborhoods and walk, bike or even drive between them.

I think it makes more sense to have parking clusters near individual parts of downtown- the underground garages in the Theater District being a good example. Another good example would be the not yet built Mid-Main project in Midtown, which offers parking for the entire district AND retail AND residential.  

[democide]

I believe each building should have its own parking garage, and virtually all do.  I would say most building tenants want it that way too.