SMU1213 Posted May 20, 2019 Share Posted May 20, 2019 15 minutes ago, shasta said: So, how many new residential/hotel units are we adding along Allen Parkway, in the next 5-10 years? Regent Square- 600 Apartment Units, per article The Allen- ?# Condo Units The Allen- ?# Apartments Units The Allen- ?# Hotel Rooms Hanover- ?# Apartment Units Hanover - ?# Hotel Rooms Ismaili Center- ? Any residential units or hotel rooms as part of this project? That is just Phase II of Regent Square. There are two more phases. You also have Wood Partners deal next to Hanover's. And the JLB site that burnt down that is under contract to another apartment developer. The corridor between Allen Pkwy and W Dallas has to have over 3,500 units planned. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luminare Posted May 20, 2019 Share Posted May 20, 2019 (edited) 2 hours ago, Triton said: I'm excited we still have these towers but are they going for a clash of different architectures? I think I've said in another thread that "Life is about tradeoffs". Fine-grain development is what we are after at this point, but this will lead to a "clash" of different styles, but this can lead to interesting variations in the environment that would make a walk in this environment more pleasing and interesting. Coarse-grain is also fine in certain instances when you want to holistic and integrated look. At this point we have enough coarse-grain development, and its time to start getting/accepting more variation. At some point we will want to switch back to coarse-grain when the variations get too chaotic to stomach. Normally from my experiences in Europe, fine-grain is great in areas which embrace variations, and non-conformity. They also work well for most situations in a given city (like your typical neighborhood block or street). Coarse-grain is great in areas that are centralized, or areas which are meant to convey a sense of authority or prominence. These areas embrace conformity, and consensus because its more about the integration of the whole rather than the sum of its parts. Edited May 20, 2019 by Luminare 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Triton Posted May 20, 2019 Share Posted May 20, 2019 For the next phase, which apparently is heavily office focused, does anyone know the stats on the office market in Houston right now and what trajectory it is headed right now? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Avossos Posted May 20, 2019 Share Posted May 20, 2019 whatever happened to the second tower behind the Sovereign? @SMU1213 I imagine if this is phase 2, Phase 3 and 4 are the blocks bound by W. Dallas / Dunlavy / Allen Parkway / Tirrell and the block by the remaining Allen House... Not sure what phase the 2nd Rochow St tower fits in?.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SMU1213 Posted May 20, 2019 Share Posted May 20, 2019 12 minutes ago, Avossos said: whatever happened to the second tower behind the Sovereign? @SMU1213 I imagine if this is phase 2, Phase 3 and 4 are the blocks bound by W. Dallas / Dunlavy / Allen Parkway / Tirrell and the block by the remaining Allen House... Not sure what phase the 2nd Rochow St tower fits in?.. GID designed too expensive of a building so it is on the back burner for now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angostura Posted May 21, 2019 Share Posted May 21, 2019 (edited) On 5/17/2019 at 12:53 PM, wilcal said: Was curious so had to look it up. HCAD just has 5 years of values... but OUCH. 2019 is almost $4,000/day in property taxes. So how much property tax has been "squandered" since 2007? $10 million? Apparently they weren't high enough. Our valuation system fails to discourage under-development. If instead we had a land-value tax, sites like this would be developed a lot faster (and we'd have a lot fewer surface parking lots downtown). Also, looking for the parking in the rendering and I can't find it. Edited May 21, 2019 by Angostura 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iah77 Posted May 21, 2019 Share Posted May 21, 2019 1 hour ago, Angostura said: Apparently they weren't high enough. Our valuation system fails to discourage under-development. If instead we had a land-value tax, sites like this would be developed a lot faster (and we'd have a lot fewer surface parking lots downtown). Also, looking for the parking in the rendering and I can't find it. Why should the government be able to force you to develop something? That's like taxing people who don't study for not "developing" the full potential of their mind lmao. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rechlin Posted May 21, 2019 Share Posted May 21, 2019 5 minutes ago, iah77 said: Why should the government be able to force you to develop something? That's like taxing people who don't study for not "developing" the full potential of their mind lmao. It doesn't seem like anyone is suggesting the government should force anyone to develop something. The idea of property taxes being shifted to more land-based and less improvement-based is not a new concept, or an illiberal concept. Land is scarce and finite; improvement is not. Because taxes can be seen as a discouragement to do certain things, it makes sense that it's in the public interest to focus more on taxing the land than the improvement. The Economist newspaper has advocated for this, too, as I recall. To avoid vacant properties from increasing sprawl, which makes costs go up for everyone, some jurisdictions charge higher taxes for some vacant properties, too. This is all a system of encouragement; nobody is forcing anything. The Regent Square property has been a blight on central Houston for a long time now -- a giant fenced off field that is serving no use to anybody, aside from a small amount of vacant-land property taxes being paid. Perhaps it would make sense for Texas to charge higher property tax rates on vacant or unused urban properties (like Regent Square and the old Holiday Inn downtown) to minimize blight and encourage investment. 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angostura Posted May 21, 2019 Share Posted May 21, 2019 1 hour ago, iah77 said: Why should the government be able to force you to develop something? That's like taxing people who don't study for not "developing" the full potential of their mind lmao. It's not about forcing anyone to do anything. It's about aligning the incentive structure to favor things we want and disfavor things we don't. Taxing improvements and land equally disincentives investment, and encourages land speculation. As long as land appreciation exceeds the taxes, it can be profitable to sit on vacant land. Even more so if you get some parking revenue on it, which is why so much of the most valuable land in the city (downtown) is used for surface parking. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Houston19514 Posted May 21, 2019 Share Posted May 21, 2019 4 hours ago, Angostura said: Apparently they weren't high enough. Our valuation system fails to discourage under-development. If instead we had a land-value tax, sites like this would be developed a lot faster (and we'd have a lot fewer surface parking lots downtown). We already have a land-value tax. Apparently, you want more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iah77 Posted May 21, 2019 Share Posted May 21, 2019 2 hours ago, rechlin said: It doesn't seem like anyone is suggesting the government should force anyone to develop something. The idea of property taxes being shifted to more land-based and less improvement-based is not a new concept, or an illiberal concept. Land is scarce and finite; improvement is not. Because taxes can be seen as a discouragement to do certain things, it makes sense that it's in the public interest to focus more on taxing the land than the improvement. The Economist newspaper has advocated for this, too, as I recall. To avoid vacant properties from increasing sprawl, which makes costs go up for everyone, some jurisdictions charge higher taxes for some vacant properties, too. This is all a system of encouragement; nobody is forcing anything. The Regent Square property has been a blight on central Houston for a long time now -- a giant fenced off field that is serving no use to anybody, aside from a small amount of vacant-land property taxes being paid. Perhaps it would make sense for Texas to charge higher property tax rates on vacant or unused urban properties (like Regent Square and the old Holiday Inn downtown) to minimize blight and encourage investment. The Economist over the years had drifted leftwards and I think most people would agree there is no "shortage" of land in Texas. I would argue the opposite, that there is plenty of land and the problem here is improving it. The main cost of most project is the improvements and not the land. Here we have a labor shortage and now materials have gone up with Trumps tariff along with insurance. The government here subsidizes sprawl via cheap highways and FHA loans which highly favor new homes and almost never fund condos or older homes. Augostura who is the "we" in what we want? I promise you your ideal city looks very different from mine lol. Is the land truly valuable if the owner has decided to leave it as parking? Most of the city I can guaranty you does not want to work in downtown and I'm not even sure the roads can handle more cars into it at peak hours. Real estate is very cyclical and your idea mainly only functions in an up cycle. Your idea might actually encourage the demolition of historic areas as many times the land value is so high to you it might not justify having a nice historic home on the very valuable lot etc but anyways just playing devils advocate since I don't mind either much. People don't seem to get that taxes discourage everything period. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SMU1213 Posted May 21, 2019 Share Posted May 21, 2019 Between taxes and pref, developers have plenty of incentive to put shovels in the ground as quickly as possible already. The exceptions are groups that have owned the land for decades (Regent Square) and their cost basis is so low they can afford to be patient or religious institutions (Islamic center) who don't pay taxes and have bottomless bank accounts. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angostura Posted May 22, 2019 Share Posted May 22, 2019 16 hours ago, Houston19514 said: We already have a land-value tax. Apparently, you want more. We currently have a property tax, not a land-value tax. That is, we tax a dollar's worth of land at the same rate as a dollar's worth of improvement. I'd prefer we lower the burden on improvement and raise it on land, but keep the total tax the same. 16 hours ago, iah77 said: Angostura who is the "we" in what we want? I promise you your ideal city looks very different from mine lol. Is the land truly valuable if the owner has decided to leave it as parking? Most of the city I can guaranty you does not want to work in downtown and I'm not even sure the roads can handle more cars into it at peak hours. Real estate is very cyclical and your idea mainly only functions in an up cycle. Your idea might actually encourage the demolition of historic areas as many times the land value is so high to you it might not justify having a nice historic home on the very valuable lot etc but anyways just playing devils advocate since I don't mind either much. People don't seem to get that taxes discourage everything period. I don't think I'm along in thinking that having a lot of vacant lots in the CBD is not ideal. And there have been enough land transactions in the CBD to indicate that land there is pretty valuable. $15 to 40M per block, it seems. Maybe more in some parts of downtown. (The Chronicle building apparently went for north of $50M.) Our current tax regime has actually been pretty effective at shifting some land in some neighborhoods to higher-value uses. The de-industrialization of the outskirts of the Heights in the last 5-7 years is an example, but the fact that there are so many surface parking lots downtown indicates that we can do better. An office tower on a full city block downtown might be assessed at $300M or so, while the surface lot across the street is assessed at less than a tenth of that. If we assessed both at (the equivalent of) $160M, many of those lots would cease to be vacant. BTW, a lot of those empty lots are owned by a single entity connected to a Taiwanese oil company that seems perfectly content to sit on the land indefinitely. Click around the HCAD parcel map and look for land owned by "Golconda Venture". It's the equivalent of about 11 blocks, all vacant. (W/r/t to demolition of "historic" areas... moo. With a few notable exceptions, most of what we currently call historic preservation is really just density prevention by other means. But that's a discussion for another thread.) 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SMU1213 Posted May 22, 2019 Share Posted May 22, 2019 8 hours ago, Angostura said: Our current tax regime has actually been pretty effective at shifting some land in some neighborhoods to higher-value uses. The de-industrialization of the outskirts of the Heights in the last 5-7 years is an example, but the fact that there are so many surface parking lots downtown indicates that we can do better. An office tower on a full city block downtown might be assessed at $300M or so, while the surface lot across the street is assessed at less than a tenth of that. If we assessed both at (the equivalent of) $160M, many of those lots would cease to be vacant. So you want a bunch of vacant building instead of a bunch of vacant lots. Because if you do what you are stating, I'd rather build a building and have it be 10% full so I'm bringing in some revenue to offset my taxes that are fixed whether the building is built or not. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Urbannizer Posted May 30, 2019 Popular Post Share Posted May 30, 2019 Retail brochure is out http://www.regentsquareretail.com/ https://images1.loopnet.com/d2/HfejZiCczGBuu1yZeTDh7L7gZ0Uz9h0MXiQNohf_wXU/document.pdf 13 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Response Posted May 30, 2019 Share Posted May 30, 2019 It hasn't lost it's coolness. 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shasta Posted May 30, 2019 Share Posted May 30, 2019 3 hours ago, Response said: It hasn't lost it's coolness. yes it has 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post CaptainJilliams Posted May 30, 2019 Popular Post Share Posted May 30, 2019 11 minutes ago, shasta said: yes it has It's definitely cooler than 3 empty lots. 14 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
htownproud Posted May 30, 2019 Share Posted May 30, 2019 Another 12 years and the dream of Regent Square will be realized (or at least a significantly reduced dream). 2 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Response Posted May 30, 2019 Share Posted May 30, 2019 That's right. We need to keep those lots empty for another eternity so that someone else can develop something slightly cooler for our great great grandbrats. 😏 3 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Luminare Posted May 30, 2019 Popular Post Share Posted May 30, 2019 Did some quick photoshop during my break of both Hanover and GID put together. Existing Conditions: Full Build Out of both Develepments: Now that is pretty incredible when you see the whole picture like this. 32 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Response Posted May 30, 2019 Share Posted May 30, 2019 Incredible > Cool. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shasta Posted May 31, 2019 Share Posted May 31, 2019 Ok..that is Cool! 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Highrise Tower Posted June 8, 2019 Share Posted June 8, 2019 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarathonMan Posted June 9, 2019 Share Posted June 9, 2019 (edited) I think it’s hilarious how Hanover is showing GID how it’s done! Seems like GID has been caught completely flat-footed. Edited June 9, 2019 by MarathonMan 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Highrise Tower Posted June 30, 2019 Popular Post Share Posted June 30, 2019 18 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post jgriff Posted October 30, 2019 Popular Post Share Posted October 30, 2019 (edited) Fence is down. Heavy equipment on site. Lot is being cleared. Edited October 30, 2019 by jgriff 20 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarathonMan Posted October 31, 2019 Share Posted October 31, 2019 So it just took the competition making them look like idiots to get them to actually move forward?!? 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Texasota Posted October 31, 2019 Share Posted October 31, 2019 If this and Hanover actually deliver around the same time... transformational is an understatement. 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Avossos Posted October 31, 2019 Share Posted October 31, 2019 We are in a parallel universe if this is actually started. feels like we could be in the twilight zone... 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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