Leaderboard

Took these last Thursday on the roof of my parking garage.

Tower cranes are allowed to freewheel when not in use. Wind can put major stress on the crane so it is allowed to act like a weather vane when not in use.

http://www.autonews.com/article/20140307/RETAIL07/140309853/audi-superstore-opened-by-sonic-in-houston

By toxteth_o'grady on SSP.

Finally got off my lazy butt!

A look at the park, construction begins in August. http://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/real-estate/article/Houston-s-Midway-to-help-redevelopment-of-Upper-5305301.php#/2

Did you take that picture with a drone?

By toxteth_o'grady on SSP.

A little bit of progress on this:

As of today, still work being done! Dunno what the building behind it is, but it's looking good too. This northern part of River Oaks probably doesn't have much longer to go as an exclusive single-family homes area...

a couple of weeks ago IMAG0210 by Not.Larry.Dierker, on Flickr

Everybody should be excited or disappointed to know that they are removing the open sky walk extension from the side of the building right now. Check it out in the skyhouse webcam: http://oxblue.com/open/SkyHouseApartments. They took off the bottom part on Friday and are taking off the top part right now.

I once watched a façade restoration in Chicago that took several months... all the stone pieces were taken down, worked on, then put back up. Glacial process.

Completely agree. It will be interesting to see any projects that pop up next to Greyhound. ...Many people on this forum that don't live near the city would be shocked by the amount of growth occurring on the very western edge of Third Ward. There is townhome after townhome being built. I'll be sure to take pictures of it when I drive through there next time.

it wouldn't be unreasonable to consider that the east side of hermann park could eventually be surrounded by highrise residential, much like other parks in other large cities.

They've now started to add some relief to the 16th floor. They also started painting a little on the lower floors (click for larger view): Closeup:

It was hard to see in my last photo, but they've removed some big chunks out of the historic façade. Hopefully this is to restore them off-site rather than replace them with styrofoam à la 806 Main. Click for a bigger view:

Looks great, and will really go well with the future developments just up the street. I love this area of town!

Updates:

The surrounding area is really nice, and walking along Las Palmas will be awesome in the near future:

Taken earlier today, they have the three houses in question all fenced off. A guy was running into one of the residences, so they must not be completely closed?

Let's not forget the Almeda Road-Crawford corridor This.. The two Mosaics, the Spires, the new development planned next to the spires, the parklane, and the new tower at hermann place are all a good start to bypassing those 2 areas..

before pic

2014 03 08:

http://swamplot.com/new-apartments-just-scratching-the-surface-of-the-site-where-the-new-fire-museum-was-supposed-to-go/2014-03-06/

http://www.legacyroots.com/1/post/2013/01/where-was-this-picture-taken.html

There is a reason drycleaners, nail/hair salons, coffee shops, sandwich shops, donut places make it in suburban strip centers... they have relatively cheap leases. The trouble is getting these needed, though low operating cost (and low value) businesses to take a risk on more expensive leases in the core. They will also need enough foot traffic to survive. And while the demand is I'm sure high for a dry cleaner (for example), most Downtown workers who need dry cleaning probably just wait till they get home to use the local cleaners. There will be a time when enough residents live Downtown that they will demand that kind of retail and that they will get that kind of retail, but I do not think we've reached that level yet. With the build out of the proposed and now underconstruction residential properties in Downtown we will reach that peak where there are enough people living within a walking distance that these sort of stores will start to pop-up. That will help fuel more retail and further exploration into the Downtown market by private retail.

Phonecia does well even on evenings on weekends, I guess the downtown residents and people around for Rockets games and concerts at House of Blues keep things moving there.

I would think that a start would be seeing if a partial opening of the tunnels during weekends is at all feasible economically.

Phonecia seems do be doing well even off hours. There is some residential near Wall Street I have a cousin who lives on Wall Street and we went to Adrian's near it to eat pizza.

2014 02 21:

In the early to mid 50's I lived in 5000 block of Gibson. We used to play near an old cemetery just north of Memorial drive. If you look on the Google map you will see a short street named Chandler street. At the far west end of Chandler it dead ends, between there and Memorial drive is the exact location of the old Cemetery, Now there are apartments built on top of it. The graves in it were all old with birth dates from the late 1800's could very well be the cemetery that you are looking for. It is right in the neighborhood of the lost location.

I was stationed at Ellington in the late sixties and at that time the building for the Dyer Home for Children was still there along with the sign, but the orphanage was closed.

1 floor so far

Don't forget that people will complain that above ground rail would be too ugly.

Very misleading thread title. This thread is disappointing.