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They finally filled in the green marble wall.

"Dallas-based real estate developer High Street Residential is hoping its hospitality-inspired approach, plus the tower’s location near the popular Discovery Green Park, will help it fill the 43-story, 309-unit apartment tower it recently opened downtown. Designed by Houston-based architecture firm Ziegler Cooper Architects with interiors by Dallas-based Waldrop + Nichols, the tower’s luxury finishes and amenities aim to attract renters by choice – people who rent not out of necessity, but out of the convenience and lifestyle found in urban high rises." https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/real-estate/article/43-story-apartment-tower-opens-downtown-houston-17596342.php#photo-23201778

This is a great little video that just got published, with new animation of the finished product, more context regarding the nature and uses of the building, and great touchstones from other Ismaili Centers already in place.

You always say this and someone always has to correct you. You might want to pin this for your recollection; In only the last 10 years, starting from Midtown @ 59 4606 Main went from an abandon building to "Light rail lofts" 4201 Main went from the abandon sears to the Ion (they own multiple lots along main and you should be aware of their project) 3800 Main went from an empty lot to an apartment building 3815 Main went from an empty lot to a housing building + offices 3550 Main went from TWO empty lots to MidMain which is apartments and MULTIPLE businesses 3400 Main went from an empty lot to MATCH which is a theater center 3300 Main went from an empty building to a residential high rise 3001 Main went from an abandon building to Crime Stoppers' Building Midtown Park went from 1.5 EMPTY city blocks to park 2800 Main went from an abandoned building to a residential Highrise + multiple businesses (Drewery Place) 2.5 city blocks went from an empty lot to Camden McGowen, a residential midrise The green sheet building (previously abandoned) is in the process of getting redeveloped. Cadillac dealership is in the process of being converted into high density residential 2310 Main went from an empty lot to a residential building Main in Downtown 1810 Main went from an empty lot to an apartment building 1700-1600 Main went from 2 empty city lots to 2 residential midrise + multiple businesses (SkyHouse) 1616 Main went from an abandoned building to a Holiday Inn 1515 Main went from an empty lot to a residential midrise Old abandon'd Macy's off Main became a skyscraper office building 609 Main went from an empty lot to a skyscraper 315 N Main went from an empty lot a UDH building Im not even mentioning the buildings that were redeveloped like the AC hotel, or the wave of new businesses that flocked to Main St. Almost every lot has been redeveloped along Main in Midtown and Downtown. This website literally has forums where you can check them out too, have you not seen any of the Harrisburg developments going up?? Are you not even following ANY developments on this website?? I want to teach you a trick, don't tell anyone, type in "google.com", then click on the buttons on the very top right, click on "maps." Then go to any area you would like, THEN, on the top left it lets you see the exact street in previous years. Isn't that crazy? and its free! Have fun with it and stop the anti-rail gas lighting

Super Serv was a buying group for independent super markets. I believe we were able to purchase certain items at a discount each week, if we belonged to the Super Serv group. We had a small independent store and purchased from Schepps Grocery Wholesale. It may have been associated with Schepps. There was another group that was similar and their logo/group was "Lucky 7" stores. This is my dad in the 50s and if you look at the circular behind him, you can make out the Super Serv name.

There is a track hoe still here, it doesn't have any indication that it belongs to Cherry Companies which leads me to believe it might be from a different company about to do some other type of work.

This is just flat-out untrue, as evidenced by all of the development on (and right off) Main, Harrisburg, and Scott. I would call Main the best-designed street in Houston without a second thought. Even North Main and Fulton have begun to poke their heads out. Even if I had a car, I can't imagine driving to Downtown, the Museums, the Med Center, Hermann Park, NRG, MinuteMaid, PNC, EaDo, 2nd Ward, East End. And believe it or not, there are a lot of people in Houston who don't have cars, so places with better transit access are, well, more accessible. Of course, all of this is almost irrelevant when compared to safety, which is the most important problem with stroads. A pedestrian-friendly street is one you can cross anywhere, easily, at any time. That means narrow streets and car traffic (if there is any) between 15-20mph. Since we don't have any of those, the next best thing is one that you can cross at any intersection, and quickly. Montrose, Kirby, et al fail miserably at this (despite the fact their frequent car speeds of 35-40mph only yield average overall speeds of 15-20mph, depending on traffic). Your only safe option is to walk up to the next light, wait for a signal, cross the wide stroad, then walk all the way back. Naturally, this leads a lot of people to say "screw it" and cross anyway, and sadly, that actually is dangerous, because we've designed our commercial streets using the same "safety" features as highways (wide lanes, clear zones/setbacks, etc.), which makes speeds that would be appropriate for complex mixed-use areas (less than 20mph) feel awkwardly slow. Now, I realize that Houston has been on a car-centric spiral for about seventy years, so we have internalized a lot of ideas as natural ("you want me to go less than twenty miles an hour??!!"), despite their being anything but. But I am an optimist. I believe the city can change. So my criteria for what makes a good street (or urban area) put all-around safety first, pedestrian comfort second, transit access third, bike access fourth, per-acre economic sustainability (including infrastructure maintenance costs) fifth, and car access at the very bottom. I understand that many people on here don't have the same priorities, and that's fine.

Houston Chronicle finally reports on the Lady M Houston retail location opening in the Galleria next year. The New York City bakery specializes in Japanese mille crepe cakes. The article is light on the details. No additional information about the store or projected opening are included in yesterday's article. https://www.houstonchronicle.com/food-culture/article/lady-m-houston-opening-pop-up-17604717.php

New York City bakery Lady M opened a pop-up store in the Galleria recently. The company announced the news earlier this week. Lady M is also opening a permanent Houston location in the Galleria next year. "Houston, we’ve landed! Our newest pop-up is officially open at The Houston Galleria near the ice skating rink!" https://www.instagram.com/p/ClHdfA1OcaX/

From UHD From White Oak Bayou Trail

(1) I'd have to think a lot hinged on this past election and people were in "wait-and-see" mode. I think @Triton is right that we may see some movement either one way or the other soon (although I have nothing to base that on). (2) As a longtime State pol, I think Mayor Turner sees his role as an intermediary between the County and the State and the business community, so he has been pretty deliberate and not being the loudest voice in the room (although I have nothing to base that on, either). Regardless the mantra of these anti-NHHIP groups appears to be, "Well we complained, so they're supposed to cancel everything," again, based on what happened in like 1950s Baltimore when whole neighborhoods nowhere near any existing freeway were being demolished for the first time. At no point have they offered any alternative other than to not build, it is absolutely performative and juvenile and not in the best interest of the city or the region as it's not like the problem goes away. I mean, sheesh, at least put something up that says, "Spend the $7 billion on commuter rail, and here's an alignment that would work." If they tried, I'd definitely have more empathy.

Rice article and pictures from Rice archives of a baron South Main. Wild stuff!! Charles Weber’s Farm Posted on September 17, 2012 by Melissa Kean A lot of Rice people are vaguely aware of some story about a guy with a pig farm near the Administration Building. There really is such a story—Mr. Weber had just over seven acres between the south end of the building and Main Street. Although there seem to have been some pigs on it, calling it a “pig farm” might imply a level of organization not strictly applicable. He was an old man and he didn’t want to leave, so he held out, extracting in the end over $7,000 per acre for his land from the Rice trustees. (The average amount paid to the other sellers was less than $700 per acre.) Unfortunately, the 1910 agreement also allowed him to remain on the premises for three and a half years. Unsurprisingly, his continued habitation became . . . . problematic. https://ricehistorycorner.com/2012/09/17/charles-webers-farm/ Difficulties arose when Weber repeatedly fenced off his property in such a way as to cut off the road. By the time it was all over, the Rice board, weary and knowing that they would need that roadway for the opening procession, gave Weber an additional $800 to vacate the premises before the Institute’s formal opening. The fence was removed only days before the event. Other pictures from the early 1900s:

1911 directory shows him 2.5 miles beyond city limits on Main. Other city directory entries over the years show him living all over town in various rooming houses Buried at Forest Park Cemetery https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/182131929/samuel-lewis_williams-hain

I have a copy of a birth certificate from March 22, 1928 of a baby born at Baptist Hospital at 602 Lamar. The doctor that delivered the baby was T C (E?) Dusmam, MD, 1302 Med. Arts Bldg.

More greenspace around UHD is a good thing. Likewise, installing ivy and other crawling plants (akin to 59 in Montrose) can provide an attractive landscape to the bridge columns within the greenway

To be clear, you can't just narrow important arterials without doing anything else. But I do think that just about any urban arterial that gets jammed with traffic would benefit from rail lines I do think optimizing alignments would vary depending on how much of a thoroughfare the street is (e.g., center-running for Washington, West Dallas, side-running for Montrose/Studemont, Shepherd/Durham, Navigation), and how wide the ROW is (e.g. can fit two center-running thru-lanes, rail lines, one-lane siderunning streets, and sidewalks?). Another option would be to run rail along parralel alignments that aren't major car routes, but then you run into issues with intersections. Or you could elevate it, but that adds a whole lot of extra cost. All of that, though, is a very politically optimistic, expensive, multidecade undertaking. A great deal of the intended effect (i.e. fostering diverse, lively, and comfortable "third place" options that aren't on noisy stroads) could be achieved by simply doing away with minimum parking requirements, anti-business deed restrictions, etc. I imagine there'd be some hesitancy in the local lending industry, based on conventional Houstonian thinking that equates going places with driving. But the truth is, there are a lot of businesses (virtually every coffee shop, taqueria, refresqueria, etc.) that thrive on an almost entirely neighborhood clientele. If businesses weren't forced to own enormous properties to accommodate an enormous number of cars, they wouldn't need to think about ease of access for suburnanites in the first place.

Under Contract per Loopnet. That was very, very quick! Around 4 months of being on the market and already under contract. I'm hoping for a hotel on Westcreek. There are already tons of apartments and condos on that street. My 2nd choice would be an office building. https://www.loopnet.com/Listing/2020-Westcreek-Ln-Houston-TX/26155201/

Which gets to my bugbear about how highway/road capacity is expanded in this godforsaken country: adding lanes to existing roads rather than increasing the number of connection and increasing redundancy. We need more bridges across Buffalo Bayou, I-10, the north loop, etc. I'm happy with adding road capacity if it's done in a way that increases options for people so we stop funneling everyone onto just a few routes. And to be fair, I've lived in tons of places way worse about this than Houston, but still.

Once again, how do the people using Kirby, Montrose, Shepherd, etc to get from TMC(and other similar places) to the NW quadrant inside the Loop make their journeys when those streets cannot carry the traffic load? There are only three bridges across Buffalo Bayou between Downtown and the West Loop. The Waugh Drive bridge isn't connected in any good way South of Westheimer, which leaves the main North/South routes as Shepherd/Kirby and Montrose.

So, you guys are essentially arguing that Montrose and Kirby should be rebuilt to be one lane each way with a turn lane in the middle? Not necessarily. In my ideal world, both would be redesigned to be more like Main St., with a rail line down the center, and no left turns. That said, it would be simpler to just improve the pedestrian realm on side streets and remove any regulations that prevent or inhibit pedestrian-oriented businesses from opening there. The central issue with Montrose and Kirby and Post Oak (and Washington, and Shepherd, and virtually every other urban arterial in North America) is that they try to perform the antithetical functions of streets (places that serve as platforms for building wealth in the community) amd roads (high-speed connections between places). And as is universally the case, they perform neither function very well. Tax revenue is low on a per-acre basis (relative to what can be achieved in places with less space dedicated to driving and parking), but overall velocities are also low because of congestion and traffic lights. Moreover, these street-road hybrids (again, you are correct that they're ubiquitous in North American cities) are expensive to maintain and exceedingly dangerous for pedestrians, drivers, and especially cyclists. If it's not obvious from everything I've written, I strongly recommend the book Confessions of a Recovering Engineer, by Chuck Marohn.

While unusual it's far from being unique. Reference this map (which is a few years out of date). What the dispatcher was doing was ordering your train to back up on the "passenger main" where the Amtrak station is to west of Chaney Junction, where the freight main line (which, incidentally, is the one with the graffiti-covered bridge over I-45 and I-10 north of downtown) diverges. Once on the freight main, it's a direct shot to Tower 26 and thence to Belt Junction which is where the ex-MoPac line to Beaumont and New Orleans (main line #4 on the map) leaves the terminal area. Why do they do that? Can't say. It could be that there was heavy freight train traffic at and around Tower 26 blocking the spur lines, or perhaps track work was in progress. While the directional running I mentioned above is standard operating procedure now that can change at the drop of a hat; if major track work is underway on either main track to Beaumont all traffic in both directions will likely be diverted to the other one.

Stormy and Rainy:

Damn I never knew this hotel was built with a garage.

The newest desktop Google Maps shows the new building.

It specifically appeals to the types of people who don't want "downscale elegances."

Nice. Let's do 100 more in Midtown

Does anyone have info / news on the old convention center redevelopment? it has become a make-shift homeless shelter. The amount of trash has also significantly increased.

Thats the Christmas decorations. They were beautiful last year! I highly recommend taking a walk along this new Christmas trail which will lead to the POST, for a great view of downtown all lit up, and something good to eat and drink! Cheers!

Campus view:

I think "fancy development promotional" is my least favorite writing style. "upscale elegances"

[/url]DJI_0219-HDR by Jason Luebbe, on Flickr[/IMG]

I used to work in these buildings. Originally Foster Wheeler's back in the 80's before S&B bought them. We moved out to a new location in the energy corridor just before the pandemic. Owners had plans to redevelop the site, but I think the whole pandemic lead them to put the property up for sale instead. Word was there was about to be a sale a few months ago, but it's apparently fallen through.

Still waiting on the green marble.

This building looks great at street level landscaping and all.

I listened to this podcast, which had as its guest Bob Eury's successor at Central Houston (someone who most recently was head of some Hollywood BID). Anyway, he stated the organization's goal is 30K residents in downtown Houston . . . he didn't give a timeframe on that, but that is about triple the current number. Seems like probably a good 20-year goal. Obviously it was all kick-started by the DLI incentive packages, and there have been a couple of non-DLI projects since, but that's a lot of new units to deliver. Seems like still a ways to go in getting the momentum going towards tripling the units downtown. Looped In Podcast: Interview with Kris Larson and Angie Bertinot of Central Houston on downtown Houston's recovery post-pandemic (houstonchronicle.com)

Change up the exterior facade and make it more engaging with the rest of downtown. Take that beige plain walls off and get some style going on it. I really like designs like they did with the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Something very contemporary that really pops.