Leaderboard

I was recently commissioned to do a lot of photography for Main Street from downtown through the Med Center. The city is aggressively trying to promote this corridor and I'm looking forward to how it will continue to grow.

There's an "energy" downtown (especially along Main) that feels unique to our diverse, minimally zoned city. With the rail, Downtown Living Initiative, and popular eateries daring to set-up shop and stay open past business hours, the city's core is starting to feel less "business park" and more of an authentic place to experience urban life.

My wife and I went downtown on Saturday and it was alive. We went to lunch at Finn Hall and it was full of young people and had a very urban feel. My wife thought we were definitely the oldsters in the crowd, but everyone was buzzing and the place had an electric feel. It is a little pricey but not bad. I suspect there were a lot of guests from the surrounding hotels along with many of the new arrivals to downtown living. Barnaby's was full and there were people of all kinds on the sidewalks where it used to be empty or predominantly street people. This is such a change. It almost reminded me of when I was a child going to James Coney Island or one of the theaters on Main with all of the bustle. To those who dared, thanks and to those who said the rail was a stupid idea and would never attract development, never say never!

Another photo update, this time from a moving bus. I noticed that the dozens of signs on the fence that used to say "Opening 2019" have had the "19" cut out, so presumably this is behind schedule and not opening until 2020.

Tower scrapped, new entity has picked up the site for a smaller office building. https://www.bizjournals.com/houston/news/2019/02/07/houston-endowment-buys-buffalo-bayou-land-near.html

Darn another post about the property being vandalized. 😵 Looking forward to a real update on this.

A visual aid: edit: You can tell they're in Texas because of the dominos.

The same number that failed to yield to the new trains on Main when it first opened.

We tend to get bigger structures that are a decade behind the design curve. So maybe not in love but rather déjà vu. It’s crisp and clean without risk. Really what we’ve been used to, the 1100 Louisiana’s, 3 Allen Center’s, First City Towers. Sure they’re not award winners, however, they still look good collectively and age very well. Still waiting for the new generation of Pennzoils & Nations Banks.

Frank Lloyd Wright would agree with TBooze on the Williams Tower. The Gulf Building is awesome. The Esperson complex is my personal favorite. But if I were going to vote for a "masterpiece" ("masterpiece" being one of those words that invites skepticism) I'd say the Penzoil Place.

Cars, buses, BRT, light rail, and heavy (commuter) rail are all resources. No single one of them can take care of all the transportation needs. Personally, I think the most heavily used park and ride routes would make good candidates for heavy rail. IAH would make a good stop on a heavy rail route, too. Hobby's in a dense enough area that extending it down Griggs/Long Drive and Telephone Road to get there would likely add ridership to the entire route, which wouldn't prevent it from also being a heavy rail stop on the way to points south.

For me, its been whenever I'm in Downtown at night. Especially weekends, but even during the week as well. It used to be that the only time there were people walking around at night on Main or at Discovery Green was during or after a sporting event. Now there are people everywhere! Its really exciting to see. Market Square as well. Those right now are the biggest: Main Street from the Bayou to Dallas (more so towards Texas Ave), Discovery Green, and Market Square. Been exciting to see and its a great start.

Not sure how long it has been there but you can kind of see the two buildings that were there before on the left in this photo. One was a bank (the far one), and not sure of what the three story building was next to it.

The first Segway! From my perspective, the biggest transportation problem isn't getting people around inside the loop. The biggest problem is getting people in and out of the city mornings and afternoons on weekdays. For that reason I'd favor commuter rail or enhanced park and ride over extending the light rail much further.

I'm really failing to understand how the BRT is going to work. It looks like, at least northbound on Post Oak at the San Felipe intersection, the bus lane will be sharing the second left turning lane onto San Felipe with regular traffic. I thought the BRT was supposed to be completely separated with signal priority? There are also other points along the route that make it seem like the bus lane and the regular traffic lanes will merge. If so, this is going to be a total cluster

They need to just tear down that strip of buildings along W Alabama. With the Hanover going up behind the site, they're sticking out like a sore thumb.

I cant wait to see how many morons end up driving down the bus lanes on Post Oak.

Very exciting news. I'd love to see them turn 1/2 this block of Times Blvd into some kind of pedestrian mall/green space. Something like that and boutique hotel will continue to push the Rice Village in an exciting direction.

I imagine once the main construction on the structure and roof is finished and the building is airtight they will start on the interiors which is where any restaurant would go. It's construction is probably several months or longer off.

Its an incredibly tough job to do both estimating/scheduling, so I never envy the work a GC has to perform. They do the best they can with knowledge thats ever changing. Its not an exact science. I've never seen a job that is complete exactly when it plans to be completed. Just the nature of the business. Ultimately, these kinds of challenges (knowing that something is going to run off schedule) is if its worth the cost and headaches. The Pierce Elevated/ Rebuild will be an monumental effort both financially and sanity, but when we really look at it, what will the end product be? If its worth it then you put up and shut up and build away. Same with the Post Oak Rebuild. Same for ANY project. Is it worth it....yes....well then put up and shut up and carry on.

-

For any infrastructure project you typically finish the less intrusive portions. It looks 90% done because they did exactly this. The trouble child will be the intersection of Post Oak/Westheimer. This part is going to be a nightmare. Post Oak/ Richmond will also be a headache. Its been going along at a pretty good clip though. Landscaping also moves pretty fast, but its less noticeable because its putting things under and on the ground rather than building up, so it just looks like nothing is getting done, but believe me they are moving at a pretty good pace. Transportation projects almost never finish on schedule. This is typical.

I just can't believe the shortlist for this project: Rem Koolhaas Studio Gang David Chipperfield Farshid Moussavi The selection was for Farshid Moussavi. Don't actually know this persons work, though I have heard the name before. I do know this person is an up and comer. Essentially they went with a more daring unproven choice which is interesting, but then again this organization really likes their buildings to pop. Even if they went with the "safe choice" it would have been stellar. I mean Rem is Rem. Studio Gang is one of the best firms working in the US. David Chipperfield is one of the biggest in London and Berlin. He also did the Menil Master Plan. Was originally going to do the Drawing Institute. Now we wait for the first visuals.

I think a cemetery lies across the street, and I doubt they'll be making any noise.

Okay, I give. What is SSP?

Follow the money. He's got ties to Joel Kotkin and the Manhattan Institute. Gattis' new think-tank does as well. That means funding from sources like the Koch Brothers and other dark money groups.

This is great news. I really thought this had just faded into space. I'm happy to see this moving forward and can't wait to see what she comes up with. Something that the article mentioned and Ive been working onfor the past twenty years, is connecting the Museum district with Montrose Blvd. down to the Bayou. I have proposed a special Calatrava bridge at Montrose and an observation tower(Claus Oldenberg Flashlight) with its beam of light shining into space, to tie Houston to the space exploration. You have to have a flashlight to find your way in the dark, and the energy connection with the beam of light. It would be a great place for an observation tower and restaurant. At Westheimer and Montrose I'd place a roundabout with more art and fountains, and at every major intersection there would be unifying art and lights to bring attention to the great art collections and institutions that find their homes along Montrose. At the other end of the Montrose axis in Hermann park, where Sam's statue and the obelisk and spire of the zoo building all line up with Montrose, I'd have a sculpture in the middle of Lake McGovern of the space capsule landing in the water with its parachutes dropping it gently into the lake. That would just tie into the space city theme, and the flashlight at the other end. This would not only make Montrose the signature Boulevard it once was, and should be, and bring recognition to this cities great art institutes.

Houston is still missing our Eiffel tower, Big Ben, Statue of Liberty, Burj al Arab, Space Needle. We have some amazing works here in Houston but nothing in my opinion that is truly globally recognizable like the structures I previously mentioned. I'm not saying this building will be that but it definitely has potential.

-

Williams Tower may not fit your definition of a "masterpiece", but does fit mine. It is easily one of the most recognizable buildings in the Houston landscape, as it clearly defines the part of town that it resides in. It also sets Houston apart from other major cities, allowing us to boast of its dominance in the category of 'Largest Building outside of a CBD in the US', and makes the city easily distinguishable from other cities from a photo. I could also add the Bank of America building as it also makes the Houston skyline easily recognizable.

Menil...Is a masterpiece.

Do we already have a “masterpiece” in Houston? It’s a subjective question, I know, but I would argue No.

Now it is. Also the minimum can be 3ft per TAS / ADA if after a certain length there is a place for a wheelchair to rotate and go in the opposite direction. Ironically our curb cuts service this requirement which is why people are fine with only doing 3ft. While I personally don't care about the cost of an extra 2ft of concrete width of a sidewalk. When numbers start getting crunched and value engineering takes place, a 5ft sidewalk if 3ft with those extra direction changing pads requirement is meet, usually is the first to go. Been looking into the conversation here. Lets just let these guys get to it first. They haven't even brought down the construction fence. Landscape/Streetscape is always last and for now we just don't know. This would be like driving to the whole foods in midtown and seeing the construction fence yet not seeing any sidewalk yet and concluding that "I guess they won't have a sidewalk'. Its still not there yet. Lets give it time. Overall, I'm hoping that further into the future, as this area gets more urban with more foot traffic then the importance of the frontage parking will diminish and this will be replaced with more pedestrian walk space, and that would be incredible. That would be so much space.

Yes. Particularly to the tourist question. I think we can all agree that we don't necessary want Houston to flooded with tourists like other cities, but its nice that the city is getting to that point where a tourist would even dare walk around places like this. Its going to be a very inviting change. When the tourist start coming its going to want us to improve the city even more and invite people to this city even more. Our city has a chance for all these things to manifest in a very real and genuine way. Its like that previous GQ article that came out. Unlike Austin or Dallas (which I love those cities and what they do), Houston ironically by not being completely planned out and try hard, it ends up evolving into an entity that is unique and genuine. Whatever strips of people this attracts it will definitely feel earned.

5 feet is the minimum width allowed.

And what's cool is that during "business hours", especially lunchtime, there are families, students, empty nesters, tourists, business travelers, etc. in addition to the usual work crowd--and no one seems out of place; which looks like what you see in NY, San Francisco, Chicago, etc. albeit on a much smaller scale. What it doesn't feel like is downtown Austin or Uptown Dallas (which I both enjoy), but somehow more "real" and unique to our Bayou City.

All of these use ancient technology - even maglev when starting and stopping. Another visual aid:

I may be wrong but the "yellow cranes" in the back of the second picture is a separate building. I think that is a football (soccer) stadium). The angle makes them look like one structure.

https://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=114123&page=550

The answer to your question, SSP is "SkyscraperPage.com"check it out, it's a pretty good forum.

So this is that empty patch on Allen Parkway at Montrose, correct? If so, that's a great spot for something impressive looking. Hope they build it way up above Harvey depth. People will clutch pearls over anything and broadcast their anxieties for the Kabuki Theater of outrage and counter outrage for everyone to feel good about themselves. I doubt this particular act lasts more than one cycle should the project progress.

In other words, for no apparent reason, expect protests against construction of this building.

A look at her work, will definitely be something special https://www.farshidmoussavi.com/

Star Architect chosen. Something beautiful and Iconic will be amazing here. https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Ismaili-Muslims-hire-rising-architect-Farshid-13592178.php

Urbannizer sourcing Urbannizer. I like it.

-

Alliance Heights by Marc longoria, on Flickr Waterworks Heights by Marc longoria, on Flickr Waterworks Heights by Marc longoria, on Flickr Waterworks Heights by Marc longoria, on Flickr Waterworks Heights by Marc longoria, on Flickr Waterworks Heights by Marc longoria, on Flickr

From the past few days...

From the Dec/Jan TMC: Pulse magainze http://www.tmc.edu/news/tmc-pulse/