Leaderboard

This one’s starting soon https://www.arch-con.com/divisions/multifamily/avid-living/

Them Fed boys and girls decided they weren't playing around. Told em to stop everything in a "did you not hear us the first time?" type-a-way:

Personally, I like the diagonal lines, and I think they make a more distinct silhouette for the skyline. It kind of reminds me of Frost Bank Tower in Austin without being too much like it. Especially once it lights up. My only real complaint is that I wish it were taller.

It's interesting. Low ceiling heights have also been given as an explanation for why the old Holiday/Days Inn could not be renovated, and the Sheraton-Lincoln before that. It must be that people in the 1960s were tiny, compared to the giants that walk among us today.

wow. that's a bit more strongly worded. I mean, it TXDOT just assuming that they can muscle their way through this? be very slow to deliver the requested data to the federal authorities, and all the while acquiring the land, then oops, well, I guess we're too far along now to stop, may as well finish the project. I'm suddenly reminded of the horrible state of Louisiana's interstate highways when the federal government withheld funding because they didn't change the drinking age. is that what we're headed towards if TXDOT doesn't comply?

I don't understand why the floor-to-floor heights won't work for residential. Usually commercial has the greatest heights, then residential in the middle, and then hotels at the bottom. Unless it's a very old commercial building with low ceilings that only work well for hotels (like the Carter Building that became the JW Marriott), a residential conversion of a moderately-old commercial building usually has perfect ceiling heights. I believe 800 Bell has approximately 13 foot FF spacing, which would be low by today's commercial standards (the towers built in recent years are all over 14 feet and some of the newest with in-floor HVAC are closer to 15 feet), but is plenty for residential. Remember the office buildings that were used for recent hotel conversions have spacings under 9 feet. The spacing of 800 Bell is actually enough for premium residential with "high" (by residential standards) ceilings, with 10 foot floor-to-ceiling heights if you want to match the ceiling height with the window height for floor-to-ceiling glass, and you could probably get a bit higher if you want more of a "loft" aesthetic.

Ah, Houston. Lived there for two years after having lived for 11 years in a much smaller city (Bryan-College Station) and having grown up in a smaller city than that (Victoria, Texas). And let me tell you, I loved it. Houston was very good to me. Houston is: - HUGE. It's the fourth largest city population-wise in the U.S., and it sprawls forever. - hot and humid, like living in an armpit - lately, a lot of flooding. It is near sea level, and sinking slowly - very diverse. LA and NYC have nothing on Houston for diversity. Just about every major ethnic and national identity in the world can be found somewhere in Houston- not to mention a lot of minor ones (I can recommend a good Bosnian restaurant for you if you'd like...) - compared to other cities I've been to, very easy to navigate. Learn the highways and about a dozen major surface streets and you can get anywhere without too much trouble. Traffic can still be a problem, but figuring out how to go from A to B is pretty easy compared to, say, Austin or San Antonio or even Charleston or NOLA or St Louis - mediocre public transit, just like most places in the U.S. - if you live in Houston and get bored on any given weekend (or weeknight for that matter), well, you're just not trying. All kinds of things to do, from cultural events to family-friendly venues to clubs. And tourist enclaves like Galveston or Spring or Conroe aren't far away at all. - Houston metro area has its fair share of craft and regional breweries if you're into that: St Arnold's, No Label, Karbach, 8th Wonder, B-52 Brewing Co, Southern Star, and Buffalo Bayou to name a few. - plenty of job opportunities, as you can imagine in a city that large Like I said, Houston was good to me. I enjoyed it there, and would be there still if I didn't have family obligations back in Victoria to contend with (caring for my elderly mother).

It’s all about that darn Greyhound I tell ya

Better yet, just cancel the damn thing, and get it over even sooner than that.

This is silly... just let them get started so it can be over sooner.

Oh Midtown… such promise, such disappointment time and again.

Construction of new Terminal D West Pier proceeding.

This rendering looks like 8 floors of residential over 4 floors of parking.... the write up is off or the rendering is off?

Allow me.

Love when developers come in and buy out a business that adds to the community all to just demo the building and add nothing. Hopefully they sell the land and can bring in a developer with some power to get stuff done.

It's not the hip cool place anymore, also you'll struggle to got a lot of high earning individuals with the plethora of homeless and that Grey Hound station.

I don't understand how midtown isn't crawling with highrises and young professionals. It's right on the metro and in the geographic center of everything important. It seemed like four of five years ago the sky was the limit, but now it seems like developers won't touch midtown with a ten foot poll.

I too forget how I originally got here, but I joined in 2007. Lots of fun, it helped me keep up with things when I was living overseas, and it's part of my day.

The USDOT just sent another letter to TxDOT after community leaders went to the county, telling TxDOT to STOP ALL ACTION on this project and to stop harassing residents in acquiring their property. This just happened today. TxDOT thinks they can just bulldoze over people, and I'm happy to see Harris County fighting back.

It was less ambiguous than the previous letter; I'll give you that much.

Fixed the link.

Wonder what happened to the MeeksPartners design?

Here's the listing: https://www.us.jll.com/en/investorcenter/land-development-site/212-milam-houston-tx-unitedstates

I became passionate about Houston development when the Stros/Rockets built their new stadiums with the threat of possibly relocating. I remember the Cotswold project being the first project that got me excited about the possibilities downtown. Been a member pretty much since the beginning. https://www.chron.com/neighborhood/bellaire/news/article/The-Cotswold-Project-beautifies-Downtown-9803075.php

The diagonals make me think of Torchy's Tacos for some reason.

Looks like less or no GFR than in the previous render.

Ok got way too down the rabbit hole on this one, but found this quote in the linked document concerning this site (P49) "Current land use of the Olshan property is commercial; however, planned future use of the subject property is residential redevelopment." https://www.publicworks.houstontx.gov/sites/default/files/assets/msd-application_2019_129_olc.pdf from 2019, so take from that what you will.

It would take a creative design to repurpose 800 Bell for residential. I’ve fantasized about stripping some floors out to create something like sky pocket parks within the building for tenants. Of course, the economics make that impractical.

the FF heights dont work, you would have to blow out portions of every other floor (which would make for some dope loft style units) but not sure what the market would be for that. Also the core depth of this building makes it inefficient for residential or hotel conversion. FWIW the comments above are largely from a bar conversation with a developer that doesnt like Shorenstein so take all of that for what it is......

I'd be really happy if they converted to apartments/condos and maybe mixed-use with a Hotel. The top of the building, ex-petroleum club is dying to be used as a fabulous resort pool. Could definitely open the roof. Think of the views and cocktails. I doubt it would ever come true. I think the best hope for this building was the city buying it.

here is the problem with 800 bell: no one wants an old 1.3 million SF building with low FF heights and extremely old infrastructure. The "sell" from Shorenstein is that you could deliver a "reno" of this building to market faster than a new tower but there are not a whole lot of anchor tenants looking for the kind of SF they would need to kick this into gear. Even with top tier renovations this will never be able to compete with new construction Hines or Skanska buildings....

So I got to talk with the site superintendent Tommy. Asked him a bunch of questions. First, this will start next week with surveying and core drilling and a ground breaking ceremony will take place in about 1 week. Then they will start digging and the hole which will be about 30' deep. He said they have to take a lot of precautions because of how close it will be next to the hotel. He was in the process of filling all the orange barricades with water as required by the city. He wanted to push the barricades onto the bike trail on Lamar as @wilcal mentioned but said there is an event this weekend so will wait till next week. He already has barricades up on Polk St. for the temporary bike trail. I asked him about the Skanska Westmont and he said that project is still in the planning stages and doesn't see it happening anytime soon. Wasn't sure about the temporary drive in and they don't have any permits in place for that as of now. The other Skanska building across the street from this will be a hotel & condos. Didn't know a timeline for it though.

Some years late to this party, but here you go... https://uhcl-ir.tdl.org/bitstream/handle/10657.1/860/JSC-org-11-05-002.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y And https://uhcl-ir.tdl.org/bitstream/handle/10657.1/859/JSC-org-11-05-001.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

Texas Tower and the Downtown as of yesterday (June 13th) evening.

Didn't realize it was built on a raised platform.

Flying up sheetrock.

WOW!

I think it does have its own lighting system, yes. Its why its see through glass and not something else. In other news, my trip to Houston ended and I caught some more pics on the way out: Despite how imposing the building is from the northern approach, its prominence is rather miniscule from the southern TX-288/I-69 approach. It seems JP Morgan is just enough to hide it in most angles:

webcam https://app.oxblue.com/open/houstonfirst/lynnwyattsq

I visited Houston for the first time since Thanksgiving 2019, and managed to snap a few picks of the building as I was coming down I-45. Got to say, its one handsome building, and you can really see how wide it looks compared to the JP Morgan Chase Building:

Removing the awnings.

I forgot that this has an underground parking lot underneath. I wonder if they will demolish it too and start all over. The tiny demo equipment they have unloaded so far makes me think they will save it and just demo the top.

now that this is open, getting from downtown to places southwest of Houston (Sugarland area) farther out than BW8, it is a faster trip to go down the 288 toll to bw8 to 59. at least during peak rush hour. google maps still doesn't show a direct connection from 288 to bw8 (the ramps are open), so it is even faster than Google says.

I have to agree, plumber. These men knew how to play politics (and I don't mean that as a bad thing) the way Jascha Heifetz played the violin and their constituency's concerns were somewhat higher on their list of priorities than a lot of our current representation in Washington.