Leaderboard

nothing. this, other hotels, ripping up Dallas St and Main St, making the convention center less ugly, a choo choo train, everything except fielding a team that might play in the effing game... LOL

Re: "The Coffee Shop" This is a temporary coffee bar, opened the 1st week of November, tucked beneath the escalator to the Garage next to Hermes. A full list of coffees of all kinds, I was told by the barrista (nice youngster who came from The Nook at UH), that coffees are free to visitors for 2 months (ie, through the holidays) courtesy of Oliver McMillan. The little space will then become headquarters for the valet parking personnel. Blue Planet appeared hours or days from opening, and also the first restaurant is also getting very close (the Viet-French one beneath Equinox near the front. I was told by a rep that most of the very high end restaurants will have Westheimer frontage, while the more reasonable will be along Bettis and nearer to the iPic. The garage entrance off Westheimer now has a 'scoreboard' type thing to give visitors a heads up as to which floors have open parking spaces. And landscaping along Bettis is moving slowly toward completion. Wow! ROD is amazing!

http://montrosedistrict.org/new-redevelopment-project-planned-for-east-montrose/ New Redevelopment Project Planned for East Montrose By Ray Lawrence | November 17, 2015 Most people are familiar with Gratifi, Cuchara and Max’s Wine Dive. Now the owner of those venues, Fred Sharifi, founder of SFT Investments, is planning an impressive new project, redeveloping a number of nearby commercial properties with new retail, office parking space. He is hoping to bring in some daytime activities to balance out the area’s evening crowd. The preliminary site plan (above) and three-dimensional concept (below) show the existing restaurant/bar buildings (A and and the prospective new structures in the early stages of the new concept. Fairview runs east and west through the center with north/south streets Morgan, Taft, Mason and Genesee depicted from left to right. Among the proposed buildings are three mixed-use structures. One will be located at 2302-2308 Genesee (E), currently the location of some older apartments and Meteor Lounge. 10,000 square feet of office and retail space on the ground floor are planned, with a 5-6 story parking garage above, which Sharifi hopes will alleviate some of the parking pressures in the area. The second construction project will be situated on the southwest corner of Mason and Fairview (F). The structure will include 7,450 square feet of retail space on the ground floor, and 10,500 square feet of office space on the second floor, which will overhang the retail space at the rear of the building and provide a covered drive off Mason leading to surface parking, and an outlet on Hyde Park. The other two buildings (C & D) being planned are as follows. Building D on the northeast corner of Mason and Fairview will be a 2-3 story, 10,000 – 15,000 square foot mixed use retail, showroom, and event facility. Building C will be a small 1-story 1,000 square foot structure in the corner of the parking lot next to Cuchara and Max’s Wine Dive, envisioned as a dessert spot, flower shop, or ice-cream parlor. Sharifi is contracting with the well-known Houston architectural firm Gensler to undertake the designs of all four buildings, with engineering and design work expected to take close to four months, and a planned start date in late August or September 2016. Sharif is no stranger to developing restaurant and retail space. Born and raised in Tehran, he came to the U.S. in 1969 to attend the University of Texas in Austin, where he did his undergraduate and graduate studies in Petroleum Engineering. After graduation, the Iranian revolution derailed his plans to return to his native country. Instead, Sharifi went into the restaurant and real estate business, opening the first Hungry’s in Montrose in 1975. Since then, Hungry’s Bistro served diners for over 40 years in the Rice and Memorial neighborhoods. His real estate portfolio includes over 30 inner loop commercial and residential properties. One of his most recent developments houses Common Bond, the award-winning cafe at Dunlavy and Westheimer. On the residential side, he is currently developing a plan for four-story luxury town homes on Portland Blvd behind Museum Tower on Montrose.

I bet it teleports you to our city's other transdimensional portal atop the Memorial Hermann tower in Memorial City. Now that's how you beat traffic!

http://houston-texas-us.blogspot.com/2015/11/central-square-redevelopment-as-of-nov.html

I just got off the phone with one of Marquette's executives, and he said they are going to sit on block 114 and wait to see what happens. He did say that they do plan to build the other project at some point.

They are getting there, the station used to be surrounded by 4 empty lots.

There was an article the other day about how the NFL wants San Francisco to remove the overhead bus wires in their "Central Square" (might be wrongful name) that would ultimately cost about $12 million dollars to take down and put back up. Here's hoping they "politely ask" to temporarily take down the Pierce Elevated

If Houston really wanted to commit to this, complete the University and Uptown lines that have already been voted on and extend the Green/Purple lines through the Washington corridor and out Hempstead HWY (the first option on the maps posted a few pages back) to meet the NW Mall station. Even if the train came into downtown it would almost certainly have to slow down as it traveled through the densely populated neighborhoods anyways. By building these three lines, nearly every major business center (and most neighborhoods BTW) of inner Houston would be connected by rail, as well as giving the option to riders of the TCR which part of town to travel to. As for later expansion, add heavy commuter rail to the major corridors (Hardy Toll & 59 N from the North Redline station, I-10 West from the NW Mall Station, Westpark from the Westpark TC, 45 S fromt the Palm TC, Etc.) once HWY construction is maxed out and Houston is truly a mobile city. Now all of that is more of a pipe dream, but the 3 light rail solutions have all been studied already, are all in desperate need of street renovation and add more flexibility than a downtown station would considering how spread out our major business centers are.

yeah the only thing that sounded super important historically was the archaeological site - which I couldn't find any information about (using a quick 3 minute google search)

Truly a jewel we cannot live without!

I spoke with Darren Sloniger in charge of development from Marquette. I pulled up their website and looked under development and his picture was there so I asked to speak with him. He was very nice and took the time to talk with me about this project. He said that they were going to put this on hold and hoped to develop this at a later date. I repeat this project is on hold so no amount of hoping or speculation will move this to a construct status until later notice. From the horses mouth.

TCR is gonna have to make an announcement soon about the station; if it's going to be at Northwest mall then they need to reassure everyone that the mall will be torn down. Somehow, that's not obvious to everyone, but I understand the criticism.

From about 5P.M. o'clock yesterday Seems to me that the proposal was over the new asphalt, not sure though 609_Main_at_Texas-20151116-170222 by Chris Rojas, on Flickr

Darn I was really hoping for a Steak 44!

I'm not too hot on that rendering. It looks cheap to me. Still though, more density will be good for the area /opinion

they gotta do something with the surface lots right across the street. they have the station right there and should be prime spots for a high rise or even a small office building in the 30 story range. something here then the empty lots

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Right, of course.

https://v3.boardbook.org/Public/PublicItemDownload.aspx?ik=37905666 Board of Regent expect to approve the 60 million renovation of Hofheinz Pavilion

If only we had some sort of system to get people moving without cars on the road.... HMMMMMM

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/real-estate/article/4600-POST-OAK-6630811.php

Los Trompos.

True indeed. I forgot how glorious this building is going to look when complete. It will break up the monotony of the skyline, adding a slight jagged edge. God bless Gerald Hines.

http://www.chron.com/business/real-estate/article/4600-POST-OAK-6630811.php?cmpid=twitter-desktop

One Park Place is in the 77010 zip code. That zip code is the wealthiest in Texas, I am told as it has the residents of One Park Place and the residents of the 4 Seasons apartments/condos in it but, basically, nobody else. One Park Place sits across LaBranch from Discovery Green that draws 1.2 million visitors per year by their own count. One Park Place is within two blocks of three hotels and all those tourists. One Park Place has a B-cycle rack directly in front of it. So....... Any thoughts as to why the retail space at the corner of LaBranch and Lamar (street level, in the One Park Place building) has never been leased in, what, five years? Or, has it? I walk by there quite a bit but I don't think I recall seeing any "for lease" signs up. I would think that this would be amazing retail space for something. ........ Speculation on why it's not rented?

Wow 40 miles is ridiculous, Houston defiantly has the advantage on this one. Hopefully this super bowl (the one in Houston) will be a great success and we can get it to come back every few years like NOLA.

What will happen to Meteor!?

Nice

Yes, right about here. (Google maps is clearly outdated). https://www.google.com/maps/place/Houston,+TX/@29.77401,-95.3556486,3a,75y,206.2h,84.23t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1ses_RcpmD8sIQfWLIqCXsAA!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo3.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3Des_RcpmD8sIQfWLIqCXsAA%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dsearch.TACTILE.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D392%26h%3D106%26yaw%3D63.8766%26pitch%3D0!7i13312!8i6656!4m2!3m1!1s0x8640b8b4488d8501:0xca0d02def365053b!6m1!1e1

For the Washington Ave corridor, the report identified Environmental Impacts to: - National Historic District Heights Boulevard Esplanade (https://www.google.com/maps/@29.7717105,-95.397202,3a,75y,207.98h,84.3t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s8cJ8b_pQL7I4PAwynWYp3g!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 - they'd have to create an elevated crossing or an underpass, disrupting the historic median https://www.houstontx.gov/planning/HistoricPres/HistoricPreservationManual/historic_districts/heights_history.html) - US Healthworks Hospital (https://www.google.com/maps/place/U.S.+HealthWorks+Medical+Group/@29.7947347,-95.4501751,17z/data=!4m5!1m2!2m1!1sUS+Healthworks+Hospital!3m1!1s0x0000000000000000:0x89ef9847eb343859- I assume having to demolish it) - Houston and Texas Central Railroad archaeology site (not sure what this is) - Cottage Grove Park (https://www.google.com/maps/place/Cottage+Grove+Park/@29.7783155,-95.4244988,17.46z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0xaf158f812431e5ef - it already has a train going by it but a new HSR would probably have to eat up some of the park's land. also, the FRA noted:

The moldy look on the roofs of MMP and TC don't really say "Santorini"

The FRA report (https://www.fra.dot.gov/eLib/Details/L17203) is certainly a thick read, but I would recommend at least skimming it if you're intested in this project. What I can gather from it, TCR had downtown as their goal, but needed to study if the costs of continuing into downtown were worth it compared to the increased revenue. From it being eliminated in level 1 screening, they used "the Project’s purpose and need, alignment objectives and design guidelines as screening criteria." The two downtown alternatives failed on Economic criteria and Environmental criteria The discussion of why is on page 22 of the report.

We've been speculating, but we know nothing. It looked paved when I drove by this morning, but I couldn't tell how much, it was still dark. Some of the equipment was still out there though. Here's the rendering again. I'm trying to mentally align it our pictures. The footprint of the building looks to be in the prepped area along Jackson.

I think this fits in nicely with some of the other buildings in the Galleria area for sure. It's a better looking building than that cream/brown/earthy tone building in the background of every shot in the last round. That is a horrid monstrosity, and makes this building look like the Mona Lisa in comparison.

Caffe Bene coming to Greenstreet

Sorry Bob, forgot to post these last week. These are shots of the plaza that Bobruss took last week.

This block will not change until Greyhound is either improved or relocated. 3rd and 5th Wards are not our focus here.

Basement walls and columns going up!

Peering over Jones Plaza. Turkish Festival was cool, just small!

Yesterday:

We have this conversation on every high rise. In a month or two people will be saying wow this one has really picked up pace or hit it's stride.

The 16th tower crane is going up downtown. They better get the Skyhouse guys to help out if they want to finish by the Super Bowl. Last vertical section.

To reiterate since I'm not out and about at work right now, you're going to discourage any contributors if you're planning to write a book, and such a book is so ridiculously niche that it making a profit would be slim at best. So what can you do? 1. Do research. Go to the Houston library downtown and spend a day poring over old city directories, or use a library card and use the archives from 1985 on to build an idea what it was like. Take pictures. Write stories about those pictures and what you remember. "This concrete pad used to be a McDonald's, built in 19xx and closed in...." 2. Publish those on a website or blog, and advertise. It will be a labor of love, and keep advertisements to an absolute minimum (if at all). Use a blog or a domain of your own to prevent being swamped with noxious ads. Advertise your own blog by bringing up common topics, like John and abandoned roads, or Tori and the signs of 1980s/1990s Houston. 3. This should bring people to share their own stories or at least share some kind words.