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Showing content with the highest reputation on 09/16/2021 in all areas

  1. https://www.cbre.us/properties/properties-for-lease/office/details/US-SMPL-67746/1550-on-the-green-1550-lamar-street-77010?view=isLetting
    13 points
  2. Discovery Green just keeps getting better and better. See you in hell, Embassy Suites!
    9 points
  3. 8.23.2021 New Hope Housing Avenue J by Houston HCDD, on Flickr 8.23.2021 New Hope Housing Avenue J by Houston HCDD, on Flickr 8.23.2021 New Hope Housing Avenue J by Houston HCDD, on Flickr
    5 points
  4. Not sure if you've seen the improvements along Studewood, but that's basically what is coming to Montrose Blvd. Along the median of Studewood they added pedestrian crossings for better access to stops, wider sidewalks along the majority of the street and the bus shelters look really nice. https://www.ridemetro.org/Pages/METRO-BOOST-Network.aspx
    4 points
  5. Shepherd was redone from Westheimer to Allen Parkway, including new storm sewers. Kirby was redone to a high standard, and so were a bunch of other streets. Keep in mind that the money for freeways comes from the State, and doesn't use City money at all. And, in a nice change from the past, the City has actually spent money on streets in a number of underserved areas
    4 points
  6. The City of Houston has actually been pretty responsive in fixing damaged signal equipment in a timely manner. When I report most traffic signal related issues to 311, they're fixed within 24 hours, unless it's a bigger issue that requires more work.
    3 points
  7. 8.31.2021 Dian Street Villa Progress Photos by Houston HCDD, on Flickr 8.31.2021 Dian Street Villa Progress Photos by Houston HCDD, on Flickr
    3 points
  8. I'm staring straight across from the fins as I type. What you see is what you get. It looks like the punched metal screening material that accents the fins has been installed. They have some scaffolding around this assembly now.
    3 points
  9. Charles Dillingham residence - 1214 Rusk Street - then and now....
    2 points
  10. Take into consideration that in a car centered city like Houston, driving is sometimes the only option in areas where transit is non existent or sparse. In that case, it's not a privilege when you're forced into it.
    2 points
  11. It shouldn't be too much to ask that obtaining a driver's license should require demonstrating some level of proficiency in operating a vehicle instead of just barely adequate competence. This is the case in many other countries. But that ship sailed when the majority of people began regarding driving as a right as opposed to a privilege. Combine lowest-common-denominator licensing with selective amnesia when it comes to the responsibilities associated with rights, and you have a recipe for disaster.
    2 points
  12. I don't think it's fair to compare to Japan. We live in Houston where people run into the light rail.
    2 points
  13. Therein lies the crux of the problem. Cars *have* become way too safe in a sense, in that the proliferation of electronic driver aids and more restrictive motor vehicle safety standards governing automobile design and construction have led to both atrophied driving skills and an increased sense of invulnerability behind the wheel. One used to have to have a significantly higher level of skill to operate a vehicle, when manual transmissions were far more common and there weren't any computers to provide stability controls and anti-lock brakes. Now that people have become accustomed to cars coddling them, they know they don't have to be too precise in their driving, so they get complacent in their heavily-reinforced steel-and-aluminum cocoons. Such complacency apparently leads to the mistaken belief that the laws of physics no longer apply to them, if the number of F-250s hovering right on the rear bumpers of the cars in front of them on an average day on any Houston-area highway is any indication. I have a friend that can always be counted on to put forth the spike-in-the-center-of-the-steering-wheel solution whenever the topic of dangerous driving comes up. I've always felt there's a case to be made for teaching people to drive in 1970s Porsche Turbos, where the new driver will quickly get up close and familiar with important concepts such as drop-throttle trailing oversteer and turbo lag followed by gobs of light-switch power. Perhaps all that's missing to fully impart respect and caution is the aforementioned spike.
    1 point
  14. Man that is a letdown. You can barely see them from your view let alone the ground. I have been watching from my office and was worried when the metal frames weren't too big. At least the rest of the tower didn't change from the renders.
    1 point
  15. Nevertheless, it should not be too much to ask/require that they demonstrate basic proficiency and knowledge of the applicable laws.
    1 point
  16. I think Lochinvar has bent grass greens, but I'll never get to play there. The first time I played back in Houston on Bermuda greens after playing on bent grass for a couple of years in California, I manage to miss putts by 10 feet, as there was no break at all here. It was hilarious to watch. Unfortunately, bent grass just doesn't do well here.
    1 point
  17. My architectural knowledge is significantly less than many on this board, but isn't the Singapore example a giant covered garden with tall mushroom like supports; and the Thai example a glass tower over a giant upscale shopping center (with more in common with many Singapore towers)? I might be wrong on the Bangkok building. My usual trusty imagination fails trying to merge the two concepts. I look forward to seeing the designs. With all the new residential construction on or planned for Montrose Blvd, are there plans for improved public transit beyond the 56 bus?
    1 point
  18. All I can say is that rain anxiety is real. I never thought it would happen to me, but it did. Last year, where I lived, it went 243 days between rains. And the rains on either end were under a half-inch. When I'd replace my car's windshield wipers, it was because they dried out and were disintegrating from the heat and sun, not from over-use due to rain. It rained most of the days the first week I moved here. I sat and stared out at the rain for hours. I went onto the roof of my building and sat under an overhang and watched it fall. I stood out on the roof and stared up into it until I was soaked. I expect I'll get my rain driving skills back with practice. But since I walk or take a train everywhere I go so far, it'll take a while. On a related note, the only time I was ever pulled over by a cop as an adult was in Houston. It was because I went through a traffic light that had just barely turned red. I did it because I thought the streets were too slick with rain and that I'd skid through if I tried to stop. He didn't buy it and I got a ticket. This was in 2001, before I moved to the desert. So perhaps I've always had a weird thing with rain.
    1 point
  19. I wandered over to the Market Square area last night, and I was pleasantly surprised with the number of businesses that were open. Main Street is still largely dead restaurants right now, but MS seems to be holding its own. I expect this is because it has two large residential towers as anchors. It was sad to see the old Treebeards building vacant, though. I loved that place. I think you're right, that there are patches of downtown that are poised to thrive, but I don't think it's going to be across all of downtown. There are still too many surface parking lots, and still too many fortress towers. Progress is being made, but it's a lot slower than I thought it would be.
    1 point
  20. More evidence that there are just too many people driving who should not be. If one does not know that one is supposed to treat such intersections as 4-way stops, one should not be driving. We are not nearly strict enough with drivers licenses.
    1 point
  21. Autry Park Office Phase I & II https://www.cbre.us/resources/fileassets/US-SMPL-67739/34711091/ee670885-e09b-4ec6-9e39-cd17d8e4fbaa.pdf
    1 point
  22. The golf course at Highway 6 and 59 was First Colony Golf Course. I worked there from February '94 to August '94 before I went off to college. It remains my favorite job ever.
    1 point
  23. I would post my mailer but it got wet...
    1 point
  24. Property on the plat report. Being replatted to unrestricted:
    1 point
  25. 1 point
  26. They finished the tower crane removal and are about to dissemble the AT crane.
    1 point
  27. One of the tower cranes came down today. Also noticed glass going up on the tower portion.
    1 point
  28. Memorial Park land bridge takes big step forward with new tunnels The Memorial Park land bridge that will add 25 acres of native prairie over six lanes of traffic has reached a construction milestone: Two pairs of concrete tunnel tubes are in place with 500,000 cubic yards of dirt piled on top. Passersby essentially see four giant mounds of dirt where Houstonians used to run, walk and play, but it’s now possible to envision how people and wildlife can traverse the north and south sides of the park safely and in an environment true to the city’s origin as Gulf Coast prairie. Thomas Woltz, owner and principal at the Nelson Byrd Woltz landscape architecture firm that developed the park’s master plan and designed the land bridge over Memorial Drive, said that the project and others like it elsewhere are a timely answer to urban density and encroaching freeways. “We’re in a fascinating moment where we have built our cities without generous planning of public spaces, unfortunately, and this is across America, not just Houston,” Woltz said. “We build buildings and look for where we can make public green space. It’s where we find ourselves as a nation. “It occurs to us, what if the landscape could become triumphant over the gray infrastructure of an urban city? What if we could lift people, plants, prairie and wildlife up and over this tear through the public park?” Woltz said. “We basically are generating new acreage of parkland above the highway. It’s the park triumphing over the highway.” The work Work on the concrete arches began in late 2020, with 18-wheelers trucking in six-foot sections of formed concrete to create long tunnels through which three lanes of traffic will run, eastbound and westbound. Within months, new roadways that will replace the existing sections of Memorial Drive were poured, and by early summer, the dirt was dumped on top of the structure. Some is still exposed, waiting for waterproofing before it, too, is covered in dirt. Much of the work is being driven by a $70 million donation from the Kinder Foundation, which also loaned its director of parks and greenspace, Sarah Newbery, to work alongside Memorial Park Conservancy staff. By the first quarter of 2022, drivers — some 55,000 vehicles travel through the park on Memorial Drive daily — will be routed onto the new lanes and through the tunnels, first the eastbound lanes and later the westbound lanes. The old roads will return to usable parkland, contributing even more acres of prairie grasses. A new basin that will be a “wet prairie” was created when the construction crew dug up dirt to cover the concrete tubes; it will provide a place for water to go during heavy rains. Top soil stored there already has an initial cover crop planting to improve the soil and prepare it for the native prairie plantings that will come later. Though the tunnels will open to traffic early next year, the whole project — part of a 100-acre section of the park’s master plan — won’t be ready for Houstonians to venture onto it until late 2022. The land bridge will benefit wildlife and humans alike, with lawnlike space and benches, in addition to the native plantings. Houstonians may often refer to their city as being built on a swamp, but the reality is that much of the area was Gulf Coast prairie, a vanishing ecosystem. Conservation efforts What’s important to Newbery and Memorial Park Conservancy president Shellye Arnold is that both the work at the recently completed Eastern Glades project and this land bridge help make the park more resilient to drought and flooding, something that will ultimately will help the city, too. After Hurricane Harvey, soil samples taken in various places around the city found that soil from Memorial Park ended up as far away as the Houston Ship Channel. Randy Odinet, vice president of capital projects and facilities at the park conservancy, said that a major storm like Harvey can erode the banks of the section of Buffalo Bayou that runs through the park by 15 feet, sending soil and silt wherever the water goes. Prairie grasses help because their roots can run 8 to 12 feet deep, so the soil absorbs more water and allows less erosion. If soil stays in the park, it won’t contribute to flooding in neighborhoods or waterways elsewhere. The grasses also naturally combat carbon emissions, helping clean the air. Though it can take five to seven years for a prairie ecosystem to truly establish, Newbery said the new plantings will draw wildlife, birds and even insects that once thrived here but are long gone from the park. Hines Lake in the park’s Eastern Glades is one example. When that section of the park re-opened with the small lake and wetlands, it quickly became the home of a pair of Least Grebe water birds, who nested and hatched chicks. The pair returned this year and can be seen there now, swimming with their chicks. Woltz is excited that some of the land is returning to its origins, grasslands where Karankawa Indians once lived and even conducted controlled burns to generate new growth that drew bison to their hunting grounds. Parks and green spaces where people can gather for exercise or community are more important than ever, he said. “COVID has really taught us that public access to nature should no longer be considered a ‘nice to have,’ it’s an ‘essential to have’ for our psychological and physical well being,” Woltz said. “I feel like access to public landscape and nature should be part of our democratic rights, along with life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” diane.cowen@chron.com https://www.houstonchronicle.com/lifestyle/article/Memorial-Park-land-bridge-hits-visible-milestone-16444614.php
    1 point
  29. Houston reddit/u ryushe posted this under 1983? Is that metal frame going up the future Heritage tower?
    1 point
  30. A few years back I was driving down Main toward the Medical Center in a rainstorm. While I was sitting in traffic at a stoplight, a woman pulled up next to me and began gesticulating wildly in my general direction. I was momentarily worried, wondering if my car was on fire or something equally serious, only to discover when I finally rolled my window down to talk to her that the "emergency" she was pointing and waving at was that it was raining, and I didn't have my headlights turned on. I was truly at a loss for words, and didn't think to check for out-of-state plates on her car.
    1 point
  31. @Houston19514, far too many indeed! It’s all of these spacey out-of-towers moving here from points unknown... In general: they can’t drive when it’s raining; they can’t drive fast enough; they get nervous with the multitude of cars on the road; and they over signal their intentions when switching lanes. It is a pit maneuver - one blink while simultaneously jamming the wheel. That’s it. And lastly -this is the worst- they don’t know that you never, ever, ever intentionally stop traffic on Shepherd to turn left from the left lane UNLESS you see an opening wherein to avoid the soon-to-be traffic jam caused by the Metro bus stopped in the right lane you turn at full speed. One blink will do it! Brace yourself for the poor transition from street to driveway, and wish that your moderately priced sedan was a big fancy F250 just like the one the ***hole civil engineer that designed the grading that you’re about to bottom out on drives. With that said, welcome back, @editor! Do you feel like a sort of “prodigal son” returning to town after these many years?
    1 point
  32. The owner of the Cadillac dealership actually has been buying a lot of lots in the area over the least few years so doubt he's going anywhere. I think it's really cool though that such an old dealership building is used for its original purpose.
    1 point
  33. Flyer is up: http://x.lnimg.com/attachments/B4CD3E5A-5763-4F9B-B07E-E486592D3C17.pdf
    1 point
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