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Highway6

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Everything posted by Highway6

  1. The point.. We could do better as far as a downtown park is concerned.
  2. Red.. another user said it would be our downtown's premiere park.. I was simply disagreeing and stating why. I never said make nor tried to imply making houston into nyc. I was merely giving an example of what a premiere city park has that our new one doesn't.... mainly size. I love our parks here.. was just bemoaning the lack of use. And im not arguing against a rendering.. im arguing against what the render represents.. which is a park due to size and location will never get a big draw from where the bulk of the people downtown are. Yes.. it will spurn growth.. and that is good... but that still doent bring urban park to where the bulk of the people downtown are now...... which my answer to that is.. we already have the premiere park and potential park(bayou) closer to where the people are now... we just need to do a better job with bringing into into downtown by changing up access on that side of downtown and removing the manmade barriers to growth on that side of downtown.
  3. Trust me.. i was not comparing what we're going to have to Central Park. It is no central park. I was responding to another poster mentioned that this would be our 'premiere park'. If we want this to be a premiere park.. both in name, and use, and substance, i see no shame in taking parts of central park to strive for. And im not saying copy central park.. but i am saying what central park achieves, is the epitome of what makes an urban park successfull. central park is so perfectly planned and constructed that you cant tell it is so perfectly planed and constructed. I can see what we got is not just 4 square blocks of grass. This downtown park of ours though.. its too obvious, its too planned, too fake. I was saying, as a urban park, central park is perfect in that once you enter it, you escape the city, it is so perfectly designed nature, that you believe you are in out in nature and not in the city. I think thats what a urban park should be... i dont think our 4 square blocks will amount to anything close to that. And yes.. it is spawning growth.. i said it did already. But if a park will span growth.. then it doesnt hurt to have that growth also elswhere... where there more potential for a park/urban escape. For it to premiere and significant.. than it has to have size to reach more people... otherwise its just a neighborhood park benefitting a few new residences and the convention center. I say its on the wrong side, because an urban park of size is much more possile along along the bayou and the current park space we have on the other end of downtown. And the bigger buildings and more people are on the other side of downtown. And there is equal room for growth on the opposite side. This wont be a 'premiere' urban park.. it will be underutilized . Red... I do agree with you. I love memorial park. I love buffalo bayou park. It is underappreicated. And yes central park is equidistant from downtown as memorial.. and yet... central park is still surrounded by activity, plenty of access, plenty of residents.... memorial park is surrounded by freeways on two sides, and one of the richest groupings of private property and a bayou to the south. Eventhough memorial park is bigger.. i'd love for you to dig up some use numbers for the two... lets not compare size but how underutilized our park is.
  4. Lower Manahattan.. their skyline district.. isnt exactly right up on Central Park. It is at one end. I also reazlize as urban as it is, it isnt exactly a "downtown" park I realize we cant bulldoze 800 acres to put up a park. I am saying though that we should reazlie we already have it... or at least the great start of it. We need better access.... tear down that wall, mr mayor... or least the bridges. We need a plan... thanks to groups like buffalobayoupartnership.. we got a start there. Once these are done, we should encourage growth along the green spine of the city. Downtown growth shouldnt just be inside the freeways .... already happeneing with potential projects like Hardy Yards. Im suggesting we improve the central park we have and encourage higher density growth along its borders. Im suggesting we not pretend 4 square blocks of grass on the wrong end of downtown is going to make any significant impact.
  5. Its hard for me to get excited about 4 square blocks of obviously shaped green space. It is 168th the size of Central Park. The heart of the skyline district, where the majority of would be park users work, is 8 blocks away. A premiere urban park should be alot more natural then what has been proposed. Isn't that the point of an urban park.. a temporary midday escape to nature... not something with mist trees, urban sculptures, and a pond so small you can have a conversation with someone on the opposite bank. I do realize we dont have the real estate to plop a park right down in the middle of the skyscrapers we got. But I also see "if you build it, they will come" here... park being built, park tower and others immediately planned to surround it. Premiere park we already have. We have this great green spine plus buffalo bayou coming right up to the western edge of downtown. A premiere park would be tearing down the bridges.. tunneling 45 under.... or making it higher, with more clearspan and more architectural and tunneling the cross streets... .. anything that gets rid of this tangle of concrete and connects Sam Houston Park to Eleanor Tinelsy to Buffalo Bayou Park. With that, having the skyline district eventually expanding along Allen Parkway to the south. Improving downtown doesnt have to mean only filling in the confines of the freeway boundary we have set up for ourselves. It can also consists of redefining downtown... erasing some of the boundaries. This park proposed.. yeah, its an okay start... but to think it can become a premiere park is name or in use is laughable. ** My 10 minute really poorly photoshopped premiere park.... EDIT : Oh !$@%.. this is in the wrong thread isnt it... the tower and the park thread have become so interwoven.. my bad !
  6. Development as of 15 minutes ago !!! Oh Hells Yeah !!! Rocket's Return
  7. Groundbreaking June 15th. Is that old news or new news ?
  8. I understand that the biggest tenant gets the naming right these days. I was lamenting that, not arguing that it doesn't happen. And I understand that if this rumor is true, we very well could see another pointless namechange as most Houstonians ignore it. Wachovia Securities has an address listed at 2700 Post Oak. Williams Tower's address is 2800 Post Oak. I don't know that immediate area.. is there a corner Wachovia bank right there across the street from the galleria? Is 2700 the address of a smaller office building right there ? Williams currently leases 15-20% of the building. Based on the address above, it doesn't seem like Wachovia has a presence in the building. But this also means for Wachovia to be the monster tenant, they'd have to occupy almost 1/4th of the building. That much is currently unleased ?? Somebody else is moving out ?? Also.. Transco/Williams has bene the main tenant/namesake since the building was opened. I would think there would be some relationship/rapport built up between them and Hines. If another monster tenant did want to move in and take over.. wouldn't Hines notify Williams, seeing if they were interested in leasing more space so they could remain the namesake ??
  9. Name changes happen all the time... now. Thats the sad part. Empire State is still Empire State. Regardless... When I was told, I guess I assumed Wachovia didn't have offices there now? Am I wrong ? Do they already have offices in Williams Tower and are expanding and as a result will be the biggest tenant ?
  10. Maybe this has been discussed and I just missed it. What is going on at Main and Walker ? I barely caught it out of the corner of my eye as I was driving past but it looked like half the block had been excavated quite a bit. Is something going up here that I haven't heard about ? Or did something just get razed there ?
  11. He is supposed to play in 2 of 3 here in Houston.. which one he is sitting out, I don't know.
  12. Becasue not all people live in the suburbs.. and those people need to spend money also.
  13. This is JAckson Ryan Architects MO... lots of Masonry, a classic feel, and not pushing the envelope. They also did the musuem tower, st. martins., reckling park-Rice's baseball stadium. That being said.. I think classic , masonry, and understated might go well with the park. It's still going to be a succesful project and maybe it will be a little more impresive looking when we get more renderings.
  14. Sorrta off Topic... I was just readin an article in 002 about different artwork downtown... where are the Dissapearing Gnomes ?
  15. A ) What's gonna keep this from being just another homeless magnet ? B ) I guess this is a nice start.. but it seems to me to be too small and positioned to only benefit a small portion of downtown. Buisnessmen in the skyline district aren't gonna walk 8 blocks to eat lunch under a tree. It seems that until some of the ideas realized in the buffalo bayou plan are realized, like expanding Sam Houston Park, and the Commerce street waterfront, that Downtown isn't going to have a 'Park life'. But I guess its the cummulative effort of several smaller parks, so yeah.. this a good start.. I agree.. I dont think this park by itself is gonna do the job. It's a start though. As for the downtown revitalization.. I think it will happen eventually. Residential developers are sitting around waiting on each other... Perhaps once one developer takes a chance, the rest of the dominoes will fall and we'll all get this residential boom we've been hearing about down there. From the Chron.. "Last year, a Colorado developer purchased a block of land to build a high-rise residential tower just north of the park site. The company, LandCo, said it would wait until 2008 to start construction to give the downtown residential market more time to strengthen. In February, Houston apartment developer Marvy Finger purchased a 1.4-acre site near the park for another project. The details are expected to be announced soon."
  16. Have you been to the Marqi Center and Jillians lately ? Jillians feels like a glorified Chucky Cheese. The Edwards Theatre there is one of the worst I've been to as far as rowdy, loud teenagers are concerned. Why do we need to make downtown kid-friendly ? They already have enough places throughout the city to ruin. Is it really asking too much to keep downtown and the pavillions big-people only ?
  17. I agree.. Maybe having something like Dave and Busters there... primary is billiards. I think that would fit bvetter than something that is primarily bowling. Also.. I don't agree with having it all-ages till 9. Not downtown. All we need is a 2nd Jillians turning the Pavillions to crap.
  18. ________________________________________________________________ From article Court action feared Trevino suggested buyers of the property may have attempted to obtain the houses through court action if his mother had not agreed to sell. He declined to elaborate. Valdez and others familiar with the transaction knew nothing about the matter. ________________________________________________________________ If a holdout flat out refuses.. what legal recourse does the developer have ? Let's say..If the owner is in enough of financial standing to hold on to his property, and afford the taxes from the rising property value. Can he holdout forever? Emminent domain wouldn't apply in this situation... I don't understand how, in this case, a court could force a property owner to sell. Can anyone shed some light on this ? ________________________________________________________________ From article But Trevino, who makes custom mattresses in an adjacent house, believes he is a victim of gentrification. "It's just like what's happened on Washington Avenue," he said of the commercial development. "Here in the First Ward, they're grabbing up property like hotcakes. They want to redo the First Ward. Everyone wants to live downtown." _________________________________________________________________ I feel for him.. However. I don't feel an individual can be a victim of gentrifcation. A community can. He shouldn't be mad at Target, the developers, or the other communities that want the Target there. If he and the nearby surrounding community had joined together and decided as one to not sell out, there would be no target today and he'd still have his community. If he wants to blame gentrification, he needs to blame the owner of the first property that sold out.
  19. From Wikipedia - The building is unique in that it was built to function as two separate towers stacked directly on top of one another, one comprising the first forty floors and the other the forty-first to sixty-fourth. The building has separate banks of elevators and lobbies for each of the two building sections. A majority of the bottom 40 floors are occupied by Williams. The remainder of the building is occupied by a variety of tenants. On the 51st floor is a sky lobby and observation deck, which due to security reasons is no longer open to the public.
  20. And here we go all over again. WHOOOOOP !!! See y'all at the ballpark
  21. Serves the !#%@!@ right. I was all for supporting them and looking forward to going to some games till they caved in and changed the name. Viva 1836 !!
  22. Haven't missed opening day since coming back to Houston in 2002. Didn't think I was going to be able to this yr, so late tickets just got me SRO.. but standing at the rail under the pump with a glove on one hand and a shiner in the other.. can't beat that.
  23. The Menil Foundation owns the majority of them, and they are picky about who they rent them out to.. like only artists, photographers, archi students, writers....
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