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Views from the top: Untitled by o texano, on Flickr Untitled by o texano, on Flickr Untitled by o texano, on Flickr

The Glassell School of Art & The Brown Foundation, Inc. Plaza by Marc longoria, on Flickr Montrose Area by Marc longoria, on Flickr The Glassell School of Art & The Brown Foundation, Inc. Plaza by Marc longoria, on Flickr Downtown Houston from The Glassell School of Art by Marc longoria, on Flickr The Glassell School of Art & The Brown Foundation, Inc. Plaza by Marc longoria, on Flickr

Texas Medical Center by Arie, on Flickr Cloud Column and Texas Medical Center by Arie, on Flickr The Cloud Column and the Texas Medical Center by Arie, on Flickr

Decided to take a photo at a new location today. Across the street at Total Wine.

Driving through the neighborhood off W. Alabama. Nice area, and I've love to see this everyday

Heard today that Hines is close with another major tenant (not V&E) for this building. The prospective tenant has a need for a significant amount of space in late 2020. Wouldn’t be surprised to see this one announced soon.

Like this photo. Skyline will be changing soon! Downtown in the back is a nice as well

Yes, Hogg Palace remains, garage goes.

Can someone with an HBJ subscription post the rendering? I had trouble copying it. This would be an awesome project From Houston Business Journal this morning: "For its first mixed-use development, Houston-based McNair Interests plans to enter the market with a splash. In 2019, the private investment and management company will break ground on a 1.2 million-square-foot luxury mixed-use development at the intersection of Richmond Avenue and Post Oak Boulevard, McNair Interests' chairman and CEO Cary McNair told the Houston Business Journal. It'll boast all the components of a high-end district: luxury residential units, a roughly 350,000-square-foot Class A office tower, around 30,000 square feet of upscale retail, chef-driven restaurants, green space and a 150-room Rosewood Hotel. "I don’t know that there are very many projects like this around the country," McNair said."We feel like we’ve been a little bit of a rogue investor, and maybe we’re breaking new ground." McNair estimated that the project's cost will be around $500 million. McNair Interests will wholly fund the project through typical real estate finance sources and lenders. "We're having good discussions," McNair said. "Lenders are interested in this project." The project will break ground in 2019 and deliver in 2023. A contractor and any leasing brokerages haven't been selected yet. The development will sit on six currently unoccupied acres between the Best Buy at 5133 Richmond Ave. and the Broadstone Post Oak apartment complex. Chicago-based Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP is the architect, and Houston-based Patrinely Group will manage the project. In recent years, the Uptown district has become home to several high-end mixed-use projects, such as BLVD Place, which delivered in 2014 and contains 284,000 square feet of retail, restaurant and Class A office space. That project won the Houston Business Journal’s 2015 Landmark Award in the Mixed-Use Project category. More recently, Tilman Fertitta unveiled his luxury mixed-use development, dubbed The Post Oak. The project is anchored by a $350 million, 38-story hotel, 150,000 square feet of boutique office space, 35,000 square feet of event space and 20 residential units. When asked how his project will compete with the submarket's luxury mixed-use developments, McNair cited a few ongoing projects in Uptown, including the ongoing bus lane project that's been underway for several years. He said it'll be the main stopping point for the transit system; a delivery date on that system is still unclear. And in discussions with the Uptown Management District, McNair said the project has been favorably received. "They’d been hoping something would kick off development at Richmond and Post Oak Boulevard," McNair said. McNair Interests acquired the land from Dubai-based Deyaar Development Corp. back in 2014. It's unclear how much McNair paid for the parcel."

Anthony Bourdain and a man with a bowler hat walk into a bar...

https://edrc.houstontx.gov/edrc/login.aspx Click on Current Agenda Street names: Zydeco Drive Port View Ave George Brown St. Herman Brown St. Third Coast Ave. S. Battery St. N. Battery St. Dan Root Blvd Barbara Jordan Ave Bringhurst St. Kermac Blvd. Bayou City Dr. Hike and Bike trail runs along Hirsch If section labels are an indication of phases, they run from west to east. Under the current Chapter 42 standards, we could hypothetically provide only one north/south public street throughout the entire development and no east/west streets (what?! Ridonculous!). Alternatively, we have decided to incorporate several public streets, many aligning with connections to the north of the site, to create smaller and more walkable blocks. This site will be able to be accessed easily both by future residents of the development and surrounding neighborhoods. It will also activate the bayou frontage. There will be several connections to the bayou waterfront for pedestrians and the developer is granting an easement to the Buffalo Bayou Partnership to continue the trail system everyone is so fond of on the west side of downtown. Pedestrian bridges are being discussed with Buffalo Bayou Partnership to connect the two sides of the bayou. The site layout for this development was designed with complete streets in mind. Pedestrians and bikes have received just as much attention as automobiles. There will be dedicated on-street bike lanes along Bayou City Drive, Gregg Street (in accordance with Houston Bike Plan), and Barbara Jordan Avenue. The rest of the development will have shared bike lanes, but the low speeds and traffic calming design measures undertaken will make it a safe development for all modes of transportation. The developer is committed to promoting a live/work lifestyle with East River. There will be several parks throughout the development totaling approximately 19 acres. Some will be located adjacent to the trail being dedicated to the Buffalo Bayou Partnership and the rest will be mixed in with the myriad land-uses.

why in the hell do we have multiple posts in row debating bronze sculptures when we have a new rendering???

https://houston-texas-us.blogspot.com/2018/05/midtown-sears-with-facade-cover-up-gone.html?m=1

Houston, Texas May 20, 2018 by George Zimzores, on Flickr Houston, Texas May 20, 2018 by George Zimzores, on Flickr

New Houston Hope Clinic, design by Gensler, Email from May 2016 mentions HOPE Clinic searching for a location along Bellaire https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/alieflife/xvrCLIUZOTY/seCg6gyXIwAJ

Houston, Texas May 31, 2018 by George Zimzores, on Flickr Houston, Texas May 31, 2018 by George Zimzores, on Flickr

Houston, Texas May 25, 2018 by George Zimzores, on Flickr Houston, Texas May 25, 2018 by George Zimzores, on Flickr

I’m not a fan. Looks like something scraped out of the worst aspects of Dallas.

Damn son. That is some nice clickery.

http://swamplot.com/heres-an-8-story-office-and-apartment-complex-for-heights-studewood-low-point-on-white-oak-bayou/2018-06-04/

Correct just the old HC garage goes. Hines is taking a new look at the underground parking (I think getting rid of it all) and will look to begin construction after. This will sit just south of MST and be a little taller. Not sure the amenities will be quite as good as MST but this thing is going to be very nice.

Houston, Texas May 31, 2018 by George Zimzores, on Flickr Houston, Texas May 31, 2018 by George Zimzores, on Flickr Houston, Texas May 31, 2018 by George Zimzores, on Flickr

If the street is a pedestrian space (not a car space) then it is inherently pedestrian friendly. Think of a city as divided into three kinds of space: people space (destinations; places where people on foot predominate; homes, shops, restaurants, parks), car space (roads, parking, etc.) and empty space (places where nobody ever goes; highway medians, the insides of cloverleafs, "green space"). Great, memorable, pleasant cities tend to maximize people space and minimize the other two. The problem is, like the lady who swallowed the spider to catch the fly, we tend to fix the problems of not enough people space by adding more non-people places. We build our roads to wide, which means more and faster car traffic, which is dangerous and frightening for pedestrians. So we build segregated sidewalks (a people place) with landscape buffers (an empty place) to keep pedestrians away from the road (a car space). People don't like street parking in their neighborhoods, so cities require off-street parking (more car space). This makes everything further apart, so we have to move a lot of people longer distances. So we build roads for high speeds. No one wants to be right next to high-speed traffic, so we institute building setbacks (empty space) to separate homes and businesses (people places) from car places. Now things are EVEN FURTHER apart, so we need freeways (car space) with sweeping on-ramps and cloverleafs (car space), surrounded by empty space. All of this is built at ruinous expense and is expensive to maintain. At the same time, the parts of a city that generate the tax revenue to support it (people places) occupy an ever-smaller proportion of land area. So when it comes time to rebuild all this infrastructure (when it comes to the end of its design life) there's no money to do it. Narrowing the streets (making them for people) is a good way to start counteracting this tendency.

http://realtynewsreport.com/2018/05/30/40-years-of-designing-urban-houston-qa-with-scott-ziegler-of-ziegler-cooper-architects/

Soon to be rebranded "The Habitrail at St. Emanuel"

This building screams “Memorial City.”

Now up to 27-stories http://stoaintl.com/design/mixed-use/

From today at the new office.

Project fence

You know you're on the HAIF drug when you start seeing Bank of the Southwest Tower in reality.

The people in River Oaks are already paying for a park. It’s called Memorial Park, and those people are the Kinders.

Let the one-upping BEGIN!

This article from Roads and Bridges has a lot more details https://www.roadsbridges.com/ship-and-handling

Giorgetti, Hanover River Oaks, and 2727 Kirby.

From today

Trump was staying at St. Regis a few days ago. The freeways were shut down for his motorcade. Spent nearly an hour on the 610 feeder! Took this photo during the hour long wait.

No update, sorry. Maybe we've seen this high resolution rendering. Don't remember, posting anyway... http://zieglercooper.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/perennial-8.jpg Somebody go inside Zadok's and ask a salesman when they're opening inside this location.

Going on about 5.5 years now! Almost done!!

I thought for a moment the rendering was zooming in on a Texas flag on the side of the building for some reason. Looks very strange.

When we lived across the street from this building I would walk our border collie around here over to the field under the Elysian Viaduct. If you look along the sidewalk there are open slots under the building and there were people living all under there. The first time we were walking back at night I thought I heard someone talking but didn't see them. Then I saw someone smoking a cigarette and smoke coming from the slots. It was one of those moments that catches you totally off guard and scared the hell out of me. The dog went crazy barking and scared the hell out of them too. In the day time you could see clothes and blankets and all kinds of things when the light was right down there. It was like an underground tent city. On the Franklin side where Jackson's barbecue is, was Fiesta Ballroom, a Mexican dance hall with great neon and young girls who would dance with the customers for money. I never went in but there was a story about it in the chronicle. It was a crazy scene back then.

Proposed restaurant for the MFAH http://hsuoffice.com/project/museum-of-fine-arts-houston/

Permit filed for a yoga studio build-out at this address by Yoga Works.

Info on the variance request, including street cross-sections and a site land-use layout, are in this week's planning commission agenda. (Item 99, pg 125) The ask is pretty modest: 50-ft RoWs on some of the internal streets. Layouts would be 70-ft between facades, 36-38 ft between curbs. It's only a 10-ft reduction in Ch 42's RoW requirements, and 50-ft RoWs are already permitted for SF-only streets. The site layout shows 6 streets taking access from Clinton (for the most part aligned with the existing street grid north of Clinton), and one each taking access from Jensen and Hirsch. There are six easements ranging from 15-ft to 40-ft in width, between the internal streets and the bayou for Hike & Bike trail access. Most of the Clinton Dr frontage appears to be dedicated to townhouses. The site also includes 8 multifamily sites, 10 office sites, a dozen or so retail sites, a theater, a hotel and a museum.

Oh my! That is right down the street from where I live. Williams tower gets some competition!

As a Midtown resident, I don’t have any issues with Randall’s. Conveniently located for me, especially when it rains (underground parking garage). We’ll see how my opinion changes once Whole Foods opens (across the street from my residence)

Guess its time to get a new prescription!