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took these on my bike ride and rooftop apt garage

In the distance..

I am guessing the places that have been successful and well-run will be able to get loans to make it through. When I see a place like the downtown Hard Rock Cafe already closing, it makes me think they weren't that successful and knew the writing was on the wall.

How about Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Australia, and Germany? They are liberal democracies that have gotten a handle on the pandemic in their countries. Your attitude is indicative of the Tea Partiers -- the government can never be professional or competent so why even try? Why even try to fund programs that help society? It's a convenient attitude for rich people who want an excuse to lower their taxes and defund government programs. It's an attitude that is totally wrong and one reason the coronavirus is ravaging this country. The Trump administration and many state governments refused, and continue to refuse to learn from South Korea and Taiwan.

You do know that thousands of people live within a small radius, right? And that there are, in fact, poor people in Midtown and Montrose? Holman/Hawthorne is a major route for people commuting by bike from affordable housing in garage apartments, '30s era small aprtement buildings, and '50s and '60s era garden apartments in Montrose to HCC, UH, TSU, and jobs in midtown and downtown. The completion of the Braxos St and Austin St bike lanes, in combination with the removal of this ramp and its replacement with off-street multiuse paths, will help formalize that connection and make the route safer. Almost as importantly, it will make the route (and in particular, this major connection point) *feel* a lot safer, which will mean more people will use it who might otherwise be afraid to. Slightly changing someone's commute isn't regressive. If you can't get to work because your car breaks down, you can't afford to fix it, and you don't have a safe alternative? That's *actually* regressive.

Finally uploaded more pics... please, enjoy! https://www.dropbox.com/sh/0p9dtc4eugtypdc/AABhxHWhghdS5QlrVctcOxAAa?dl=0

While sad It’s still a good space, someone will do something cool with it.

I dont known ...I think 20 years for a concept that was played out 19 years ago...can be considered successful

I don't see that as even a remotely possible outcome. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. that is a quote from Franklin Roosevelt's inauguration speech in 1933. While Trump (and any of his challengers) is no where near as capable as he was, the message is still true. we've got car companies gearing up to make ventilators. we've got DIYers 3d printing PPE, this nation is banding together to survive, through the worst of this (and it is still yet to come), we will see the best of humanity come to the top.

^^^ aside from the "medical facility" exterior, the interior design is simply astounding... WOW!

It looks like the decision was made to fix the bridge and re-open it, although no official word yet. https://twitter.com/HOUstreets/status/1245726272367493123

That second photo really lets you see how it will expand the skyline north

True to a point, but they could have made the different components more homogeneous. Of course, some people like the look they chose.

Yes it is truly a sad state of affairs... I am seeing so may friends already struggle and that was in hopes of tomorrow being the last day of the stay at home order...but now that this has been extended until the end of the month, it is truly frightening. I have also gotten a handful of emails from various clients saying goodbye from having to close or those being laid off... what is this world now? wow... thoughts (or prayers) for everyone... xo

week before last 3.3 million people filed for unemployment, last week it was 6.6. I'm sure this will grow when this week's numbers come in. edit: link with no paywall https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-02/u-s-jobless-claims-doubled-to-record-6-65-million-last-week so 10 million total jobless as of now.

As someone who has worked in that industry for awhile now this is a massive understatement. If we have to socially distance past May there won’t be many restaurants left unless the government really steps up to the plate.

Ah, it was Culture Map actually. It's a great article with the inside complexities of this food hall. The interesting parts are further down in the article with the disputes and Finn Hall's future: https://houston.culturemap.com/news/restaurants-bars/03-06-20-finn-hall-downtown-food-hall-new-vendors-lit-chicken-papalo-taqueria-pho-binh-david-buehrer-midway-lionstone-investment/

I think we could very well witness the closure of some local Houston bars and restaurants. These places function on small margins.... any major event like this can be death for those type of businesses. Highly encourage people to read a recent Houston Chron article about the restaurants that had to leave Finn Hall. Gives you some good incite about the middle men that some restaurants have to work with which further cut into their margins.

Its being built that way because of the of the Texas Capitol View Corridors, which forces the taller buildings to be built with these weird shapes so as not to obstruct views of the Capital building.

Medical offices are just offices with specialized equipment. you don't really need a specialized building until you have beds and surgery centers.

It looks like Gables is branding this property as Crimson.

I hope this doesn't get harmed by the inevitable recession we are about to have and the city needing to cut spending. Though after reading more about this project, it sounds like the funding is money that was saved or collected from different sources for several years prior. That is going to be an awesome park for people in that part of town. This makes me happier in some ways than seeing whatever new plans for Memorial Park are being released since this facility seems more about active use. I won't ever use this park but its a worthy use of tax dollars I think. Speaking solely on the grounds of the site, that pool should be a model for the aquatics facilities the city runs. The new trend among cities is to have a smaller number of very large public swimming complexes rather than many small neighborhood pools. The bigger facilities can host more programs, they can be open for longer parts of the year, etc. The small square pools have a hard time attracting visitors, have very limited hours, and are just underutilized. Also in a city like Houston many neighborhoods have private HOA pools, so the purpose of having publicly funded aquatics facility is more about ensuring everyone incl. those in neighborhoods without pools has access to the programs(kids lessons, adult fitness classes, etc) and consolidated sites work better for that. The city of Dallas sold some extra land it owned for about $30 million and is building 6 or 7 big pools in geographically logical locations so the whole city is served and will then go back and fill in the tiny old ones in neighborhood parks. I think they've managed to build most of the big facilities by now, so it has been a success.

j

Cleared.

Some hardcore social distancing

My specialty isnt bridges, but it is important to note that the code that governs the structural engineering of bridges (AASHTO) is generally more stringent than the code(s) that cover buildings. The statement in the news article is alarming but sort of vague. A brief explainer on load combinations. In both the building code and bridge codes, the predominant system of design today is Load Resistant factored design. (In Wood, Masonry, Soils and some steel structures - the old system is still used sometimes,). Long Story short, the engineers classify different types of loads. I'll just use 3 for example, but there are a lot more. Dead Load(DL) - Self weight of the building/structure Live Load(LL)- typically a transient load/mobile load ie, people. Wind load(W)- Pretty self explanatory. The engineer takes those loads and applies factors to them. Then puts them in different combinations! For example, in the building code here are 4 combinations that you'll likely see. 1.4 * D = Factored Load 1 1.2 *D +1.6L = Factored load 2 1.2*D+1.0W+0.5L =factored load 3 0.9*D+1.0W = factored load 4 Then for each member in a building, the engineer will compare all the load combinations with the capacity. I'm only showing you 4 load combinations, but the structures I work on, its not unrealistic to have 20 to 30. Accounting for wind directions, uplift etc. This system results in "more efficiently" designed structures. A brief example fictitious example: I have two buildings that weigh 2000 lbs: 1 building has to hold up a 1000 lb statue. The 2nd building has to hold up a dance floor with for 1000 lbs of people. Building 1, per code, would have to be designed for 1.4*(3000lbs) = 4200lbs Building 2, per code, would have to be designed for 1.2*2000lbs +1.6(1000lbs) =4000 lbs The reason i'm goign through this giant explanation is that the bridge code, has even more load combinations. Including load combinations on specific lanes loaded, and other lanes unloaded. They got load combos that include vehicle braking force, thermal force, wind, seismic, ice, rain, snow, the list goes on. What this sounds like to me: They missed a load combo. Does it mean it will fail? Not necessarily. It sounds like theres a potential for damage during a load imbalance. Which may get remedied by restricting the amount of lanes in the south bound span until the other span is complete. This is the more concerning to me. The soils part is a bit alarming, because I would presume a pretty substantial geotechnical report was performed for this test. I would imagine they have cut into a bit of their factor of safety for one of the load combinations. Without knowing what exactly is wrong regarding the stability, I cant imagine a full demolition and start over is cheaper than trying to make modifications to the existing structure. I could see it being done out of an abundance of caution, mostly because things went south very badly with the FIU bridge. Anyway, apologies for the wall of text.

This gives a bit of context to the holes that they're punching.

https://www.papercitymag.com/restaurants/houston-post-oak-place-development-restaurant-seeking-uchiko/#268347

The cities plan to allow new development ordinances to create more cohesive, walkable neighborhoods is starting to pay off. This tied in with street reconstruction is slowly making Houston a more walkable city. We haven’t even reached the tipping point and things already feel and look better.