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We all realize how important coronavirus protection is to a building's structure, but some may not realize the secondary purpose is for supporting the stone(?) cladding:

Site work permit issued:

https://www.loopnet.com/Listing/3100-McKinney-St-Houston-TX/18739853/

What’s the blue fencing stuff for?

It looks like they added some more official signage that will stay after these cardboard poles go away.

Domino's opened yesterday! Stopped by and talked with the manager and they were having some first day pains, but seemed to be somewhat under control. It's a corporate-owned store. They actually have 12 ebikes to use for delivery. He said he was having a hard time actually hiring enough drivers. He took me into the back behind the oven and they have racks for all 12 to hang up and a battery charging station. They are set up to do car deliveries as well, but he said that they were going to try to do all ebike. He said his territory was 59 on the south, 59/288 on the east, Allen parkway on the north, and Taft on the west. Definitely a manageable region for ebikes imho. The Joint had some equipment inside their store front, so they may not be terrible far away.

Always loved this building! It would make for a great whiskey bar.

The trail on the south side of the bayou is fine...

I'm a big fan of doing the drop off zones. As curb space becomes more limited, commercial zones like this are vital. Nice to see they are sticking with it.

It's impressive.

People always have places they have to go and places they want to go. Making it easier to get someplace encourages them to go. Private automobiles have been hugely successful in that regard. It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that if it's easier to go someplace, more people will go. Do we want to encourage people to stay home more?

We used to be tied to the hip, I would say we are more or less connected at the knee now. Which is a big improvement. The oil business hasn’t exactly recovered from its previous slump. What current growth is from oil related companies? And I realize I’m oversimplifying things a tad - but we haven’t seen any developments locally in years from O&G companies.

These popped up over the weekend on Travis next to The Rice, Market Square Park, and Bayou Lofts. From what I can find, they are newly designated drop-offs for rideshares (Uber, Lyft, etc.), which will be interesting to see how this affects foot traffic near them on the weekends and a line of cars trying to drop/pickup at these locations.

I just attended a neighborhood meeting with representatives from the city, local residents along Westheimer, and a lot of local business owners. There are a few currents in this discussion that I think might be based on assumptions about the issue on which I'd like to add my perspective. First, some posters seem to frame this as a conflict of interest between Midtown/Montrose and the broader interests of Houston's commuters. My neighbors and I are all against the removal of these traffic flows. The roads, entrances, and exits that they are talking about removing are all important options for those of us who live here. With more construction looming on Elgin, it will only become more important to keep as many paths open as possible. As the area grows more dense, as it is doing and ought to, removal of transportation works sounds like the wrong direction to us. We are on the same side as Houston's commuters. We still can't figure out where this idea came from, but it seems to be driven now by our neighbors on Courtland and other nearby residents who rightly think a park sounds nice but don't use these roads all the time. Second, the proposal is not a park. It's proponents don't even have the chutzpah to call it a park. It's two slivers of green space which might or might not be more appealing to walk past than the tuft of trees currently between Brazos and Bagby. The area can be beautified without shutting off access. Third, there is nothing about the proposal that makes the area more "walkable". Green spaces are nice, but what gives a neighborhood its walkability is the range of amenities within walking distance. The restaurants and nightlife give character to the area and the availability of stores, pharmacies, laundries, etc. make it easy to live there. Anything that puts additional pressure on local businesses stifles the growth of more amenities to accommodate more residents, and could even threaten existing ones. The speed control measures in those proposals are not necessary on those streets that have plenty of traffic signals.

Even if expanded freeways do not eliminate peak-period congestion, they typically limit congestion to only the peak period. That's a big benefit. Several freeways in Houston with inadequate capacity (especially the West Loop) are congested through most of the day and on weekends. A more important benefit of expanded freeways is that they empower more people to meet their mobility needs. While I don't have exact traffic numbers for the pre-expanded Katy Freeway, it was generally in the low 200,000s. Now it serves 369,000 near BW8 (2018), which is down somewhat from the 2016 peak of 387,000.

Bear in mind that the o&g sector has a boom and bust business cycle. The folks running these companies, particularly the majors, expect that things like this will happen and know how to deal with it. Just my speculation, but I suspect the panic will be short lived as covid19 passes through the population and we get used to it being around.

i know Eastern Glades is opening this summer...anyone have any other updated info as to when exactly or any photos? @ekdrm2d1 etc?

this is a good article: https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/The-First-Casualty-Of-Tanking-Oil-Prices.html at the start of the 2014-16 thing it was over $70 for break even. then when 2016 hit and Saudi decided it wasn't worth it, it was around $40 for break even. that article states that now it is around $25 for break even. if that's to be believed (I can't find data to back it up anywhere else), things aren't quite as doom and gloom, they just aren't as awesome as they would have been 3 weeks ago.

Now people are going to steal it.

Keep out the coronavirus.

Luminare, From 2012-2014, we had about 18 million SF of office space begin construction. From 2015-2017, we had about 0 SF of office space begin construction. From 2018-2020, we've had 2 or 3 million SF of office space begin construction. Oil prices were high in 2012-2014, low in 2015-2017, and mediocre in 2018-2020. Has the 2-3 million SF built in 2018-2020 been leased primarily to non-oil companies? Yes. Does this mean that our office market is no longer tied to oil? No, it is still tied to oil. Would those 2-3 million SF have started construction if oil prices were low and companies were laying off workers? No, probably not. You're saying that even though the leases in the new buildings aren't for oil companies, those buildings still wouldn't have been built if oil was doing badly? That's what I'm saying. Developers need to know that the other buildings are somewhat stable before they build new ones.

Seems like we have all fallen into a real logical-illogical hornets nest or some kind of death spiral of reason. I don't know how to describe it but as I keep reading everyones comments people bring up points that do make sense, but each time something is missing or just doesn't add up. I think a bigger issue is that we all seem to be starting with conclusions and then looking for evidence to back up each argument which seems to be causing a lot of friction. Here is the assumption/conclusion which people are starting with and then it leads them off to find the evidence they want to see: Houston is still an economy that is linked at the hip to the Oil Industry. _____ Even a lesser stance with the assumption/conclusion: Houston is still an economy that is linked at the knee to the Oil Industry. ______ Maybe these are true, but maybe they are not true. I don't know, and its clear nobody else knows either. We definitely know that either of these was a truism for our economy in the past. Does this still hold up now. Things which can't be ignored from this are: 1. New office construction has been continuing over the past several years 2. The demand for new office construction has not gone down 3. The office market even if you ignore new construction is oversaturated, and when you add in the new construction it looks bloated. 4. Even with a bloated office market the economy doesn't act or operate in a way that an economy operates in a bubble situation. 5. New office is being constructed even though Oil has been laying off even before the Price War and CoronaVirus. 6. Spec office construction is still being done, but just not for Oil companies. If Oil is still the most important part of our economy, why is this the case? 7. If Oil is laying off people or downsizing in big ways, and if they are still supposedly the most important part of our economy, the engine that drives this city supposedly then why are we seeing more and more people moving to this city and more residential under construction if Oil is downsizing / laying people off, and at the same time this downsizing / laying people off has not prevented or slowed residential growth. These are some initial questions to ponder over. Don't think we can make any assumptions about Houston being linked to Oil like it was in the past in any shape or form. This doesn't mean that Oil plays a role, but the ole assumptions of the past clearly have not played a factor in this cities recent growth. Can we not start with a conclusion in this conversation and instead redirect it to FINDING a conclusion? A lot of stuff just hasn't been adding up for a long time. There are many more questions to ask, but the first 7 are immediate ones I can think of at the top of my head. Once again if this exercise is interesting to anyone then start with these questions, or even propose better or more questions, but start with a question instead of a conclusion as if its a statement of fact because honestly its not getting us anywhere. EDIT: @H-Town Man Really interesting article. Just wanted to remind people that my questions are for the trends which have been happening over the past several years. Lets remember that a price war / coronavirus panic isn't the norm. This is a panic sell off. I'm asking larger questions about how Houston functions as an economy. There will obviously be slow downs regardless because of this idiotic panic attack people are having for both of these situations, but my questions are about larger trends.

Are you referring to the hike/bike trail along the bayou? No. That is still partially washed out. Shame too, it was one of my favorites.

it's Houston, everything is oil related. granted, Houston is more insulated than it used to be, it's still tied to the hip with oil. I think the one saving throw here is that this probably won't be a protracted thing. hopefully. remember a few years ago, Saudi decided to not turn off the pumps and kept oil at $30 a bbl for a long time, all this did was push fracking companies to become leaner and use more automation. when Saudi realized all it was doing was pressing innovations, they decided to slow their production. before that 'price war' it would take a month and 20 guys to set up a drill in west Texas, now it takes 2 guys and some automation software. this might push for even more efficiency. that's me being optimistic.

i45 is being relocated. there is additional ROW acquisition to account for an elevated i45 to follow the same alignment as i10 where it intersects Elysian street. there is a cross section in here that is close to Elysian street. http://www.ih45northandmore.com/docs13/10_NHHIP_Seg3_Overview_Layout_PH_1-1.pdf look to the very right of the pdf. pretty sure his point was that Elysian is elevated above the roadway level, the i45 relocation is going to be an elevated freeway above grade level along almost the entire stretch of the i10 alignment, should we assume that in the location where i45 will intersect Elysian which is already an elevated viaduct above grade, that the elevated i45 will be going even higher above Elysian? good thing we're removing one elevated freeway from the rich people side of town so we can add an even taller elevated freeway where the poor people live. edit: found the video that shows elevations and what they will be dealing with where i45 runs along the same alignment as i10. it is elevated over Elysian. so really tall elevated freeway.

yet another article that bigger/more doesn't correlate to less traffic... https://earther.gizmodo.com/why-expanding-highways-makes-traffic-worse-1842220595 strange, I never can seem to read/find articles that studies that show that bigger freeways mean less traffic...

I spoke with a sales person and apparently there Will be several phases.

I wish I could be as optimistic. I tend to believe, however, that a market correction was coming anyway and COVID-19 just accelerated it. But more worrying to me is the damage done not just to the "market," but to the real economy. To businesses large and small and to actual people, especially people in the vulnerable "gig economy." I really fear this will be a huge all-around disruption.

I currently an owner/investor in multiple hard retail businesses in several markets (Boston, Houston, Denver, and Los Angeles) but please continue...

I work in 1MC and for all of last week, the brown lots have been pretty much empty. Any normal time, these lots are at full capacity. I’m thinking they already started making people park at Smithland. Anyway, my desk is on the side of 1MC that is facing the brown lots, so I will have a very good vantage point for when they start construction. Can’t wait! This picture is from the sky walk around 4pm. I’ll get a picture from my desk this coming week.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B9XyCAKp4rS/

The days are numbered for this particular view. Going to miss it, actually.

FLOODING: PROPERTY: EDIT: If anyone knows what was on page "19" then please let me know or if you have the page. Page 19 didn't exist in the pdf's

TRAFFIC:

Yup, as others said, they finally released the material yesterday. The BRT lines are really impressive, though those are no doubt going to be expensive to build over some sections and they really have to plan with TXDOT for that BRT right of way, even if it is just columns holding the BRT bridges. San Jacinto connection is still there!

Converting all pdfs into jpegs over the course of today. All materials can be found from this post above: Once I look through all documents I'll probably put in my too cents, but my inital reaction is that this is an impressive amount of work. They really did listen to comments and actually working hard to pitch the cities side to TXDOT. I'm glad they also posted the timeline for what is going to happen going forward. This clarifies why TXDOT again didn't include recent inputs and that was because both are working parallel to each other, but will not cross over until both processes are complete. In order to not create one giant post I will be posting the jpegs in spurts. INTRO: I'll post the next segment in a couple hours.

Well...that's distressing.

Engineers raise ‘significant concerns’ over design of $1 billion Ship Channel Bridge

The market is probably gonna rebound by the middle of the year, or later at most. Russia and Saudi aren't going to last long (no matter how much reserves they have) if oil stays below $40. Considering oil is 16% of Russia's GDP (52% federal revenue, and 70% exports), and 42% of Saudi's GDP (87% budget revenue, 90% export earnings) I would find it crazy if it doesn't rebound above the median later this year ($70 maybe even $80+). So I wouldn't worry to much about it, ultimately it might even help Houston in the near future. Going onto COVID-19 and how it effected the market. Overall, it's a general over reaction by the market which usually happens when a supposed big name disease comes around. When the cure is found the market, and oil will rebound like nothing we've ever seen before. it's going to make the previous gains looks like a bust. Now with the Development side of things. I could see the the developers who were skeptical before shelve their developments because they're scared of low demand/bad returns (which really shouldn't be a problem in this area, and isn't). But, the developers who know what they're doing are going to keep on building. During this mini-recession land/construction prices are going to go down, which tends to make it cheaper for big name construction companies to build larger developments.This also means that developers that are afraid of not having immediate returns will shelve their products, while the developers who can wait for a return will keep building. This is a full on recession i'm talking about, this thing we're seeing rn isn't anywhere near a full on recession, just a bs reaction by the market to a disease that has a mortality rate between .1% to 1% (reaching more towards .1%), but I digress. I could see some developments getting put on the back-burner, but the majority of them are staying on pace to start. We have to remember the current boom we're having isn't due to oil, it's do to other parts of the Houston economy. Oil has been in the shiter for the past 2 years, but Houston has been building more and more, while people just keep moving in and the the job market just keeps growing. I could see a slight hiccup in the 1st maybe 2nd quarter, but things are going to stay on track. Hell, they might even get better than pre-corona by the end of the year.