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Looks promising!

Well it will be great when market forces start working and some midrises and highrises start going up in midtown.

No, the entity name is Fenway Development Inc., which is linked to Frank Liu. He's already platted out all that land for townhome development just within the past year. You can look at the HCAD plat maps to see how it's configured. EDIT: Here's a story about the cleanup process: http://stateimpact.npr.org/texas/2012/06/18/urban-renewal-toxic-brownfields-tough-to-redevelop/

Yeah, it was a Superfund site that Frank Liu bought and cleaned up for residential development, but his timing was right before the real estate bust, and so that never happened. Not sure if he still owns it, but I think so. We probably would've heard about it transacting, otherwise.

To be clear, my comments on Novare's aggressive construction schedule and that they do things "on the cheap" were in no way intended to imply that I believe their buildings are poorly built, simply that we should not expect this building to take long to come to fruition NEITHER should we expect anything extravagant from this developer on this particular project. Prior to the last couple of years, my occupation was in the construction field, specifically a project manager for a top homebuilder/developer. Many times customers would "complain" that we were building their homes too fast and it appeared we were just throwing the house together. Ironically, it has always been my experience that the homes that go up the fastest are generally the best built because fewer major mistakes were made that needed extra time to correct! Additionally, when we adhere to a robust schedule, it limits the amount of time that construction materials are exposed to the elements. 7 years ago I personally bought a condo built by Novare here in Atlanta and I have not had any issues regarding construction quality, in fact I'm quite pleased - and this coming from a construction guy!

OMG! I have to cross the street to go to the gym?!?!?!?

some activity from the planning commission agenda, concerning building a bridge over Peckham Strict application of the ordinance would create an impractical development by forcing residents of the multi-family development to cross Peckham Street at street level to access amenities provided to the residents. The proposed skybridge shall have a 18’- 8 15/16” clearance above grade and will allow the residents to freely travel between buildings out of the elements and without impacting traffic on Peckham Street. http://ataps1.pd.ci.houston.tx.us/drc/PC+Meeting+Calendar.nsf/WebDocumentOpen/86597F54E86FB4A88625797C00544F30/$FILE/Draft+Agenda.pdf

People who clamor for "mixed use" but never invest their own money in projects never seem to understand this statement. And, though I've said it before, I'll repeat it here. Just because there are not retail stores sitting underneath apartments does not mean an area is not walkable. Everyone except the couple of hundred people in the apartments will reach that retail by driving from downtown offices, stepping off the train, or walking from other apartment complexes nearby. Even the people in the apartments above will not be inconvenienced by walking across the street to reach the retail. It is not so much a "a wasted opportunity" as Fortune stated, but something different than he fantasized. With the retail built at the edge of the park and nearby, this will be as good as anything he envisioned, it simply will not look like what he envisioned. I'm OK with that. Hopefully, he will be too.

I'm let down by this project. It's great that the area is getting a new park, that's wonderful. However, I'm disappointed about the apartment project. At one point in time this was going to be a mixed use project with retail as well as the apartments. Now it's just apartments, what happened to the retail ? It just seems like a huge waste of opportunity to create a unique development in Midtown. It's a huge piece of land centrally located in the middle of Midtown next to the light rail. Think of how great of a environment this could be with the park and a mixed use development with retail.