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rechlin

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Everything posted by rechlin

  1. rechlin
    The second block looks like it's showing a clone of it, just rotated 90 degrees and in silhouette form. I guess that means they still want to build 2 towers but in 2 phases.
  2. rechlin
    Actually airlines are not profitable. They only survive thanks to public subsidies (government subsidies for the airplane manufacturers, government subsidies for the airports, and investor and creditor subsidies through bankruptcies). Right now they are trying to hold railroads to a higher standard, one without subsidy. Though actually regardless of what happens, I'm sure the Japanese will be subsidizing it in some form or another.
  3. rechlin
    TowerSpotter, Something like this, I'm sure:
  4. rechlin
    Haven't seen any activity towards converting this to a Le Meridien, but over the weekend, a local artist decorated the brick near the roof (click for a larger view):
  5. rechlin
    That locomotive and the two houses have been in that area since long before the museum was announced. They moved them more recently (a few years ago maybe?), but they've been within a block or so of there for close to a decade, if I remember right. So I don't think those will necessarily be taken away.
  6. rechlin
    BG Group occupies less than a third of BG Group Place, so it's unlikely that much space would end up on the market if they downsized.
  7. rechlin
    The hotel seems to have lost a few stories in the new rendering, with a bit less striking of a design (balconies are smaller and the "hole" in the corner is a lot smaller), but I'm glad to see the addition of the residential tower! And things always seem to get scaled back so I'm not too surprised they made the changes. This will be a great addition to the medical center. Plus it means a lot more people will be able to walk to work!
  8. rechlin
    I think parking will become increasingly less of an issue. I can't remember the exact numbers, but I seem to recall reading somewhere that the downtown population (excluding detention centers, of course) should be at least 12,000 people by the time the current housing developments are finished and start filling up. That's the size of a small town, big enough to support lots of shops on its own with no outside shoppers. Downtown is dense enough that nearly all of that housing will be no more than about an 8 block walk from GreenStreet. No matter how much you want to argue that Houstonians hate walking, I think 8 blocks is not unreasonable. This means that I think GreenStreet should have no problem supporting ordinary shops, even without free parking, once the housing built for the Downtown Living Initiative is occupied.
  9. rechlin
    cloud713, Most of the time they like to orbit eastbound as close to parallel to the equator as possible, to take advantage of the earth's rotation, so they would want to go straight east. If they launched from Bolivar I wonder if it would go over populated land too soon after takeoff (Florida), which may not be ideal because of the possibility of launch failure. That's why Brownsville is ideal because it's far enough south that an eastbound rocket wouldn't have to deviate far from east to avoid going over any populated areas. Though perhaps Florida is far enough away that it's safe. Ellington would, of course, be unacceptable for launches because there are plenty of people living just east of it. Cape Canaveral and French Guiana have nothing to the east until reaching Africa, so both are perfect launch facilities. Kazakhstan obviously isn't ideal for launches, for the above reasons plus it's too far north to take as much advantage from the earth's rotation, but I don't think the USSR really cared about hitting people with rocket parts (plus it's fairly sparsely populated anyway).
  10. rechlin
    Kind of like the groundbreaking, er, groundbreakings of 6 Houston Center?
  11. rechlin
    This is such a travesty. Every day I look out my window, see the beautiful old building, and then see it flanked by those hideous gray ~1980s monstrosities. If anything they should tear down the gray buildings, not the old building. At the very least they should leave the façade and build the new building behind it. That's fairly common in Europe, to keep the historical feel while still being modern.
  12. rechlin
    Right now they are drilling into the ground right above the tunnel to investigate: So now we know exactly where the tunnel is going. It's going from the west ("southwest") corner of 609 Main to the south ("southeast") corner of 601 Travis. I chatted with one of the guys working, and apparently there was no actual collapse. The news media exaggerated as usual (not surprised, considering that by the time they were reporting that the rail was shut down, it had already been reopened). They are digging the tunnel by hand (because things underground do not match what is on record -- they encountered one fiber line that was 7 feet lower than the map showed, and they found an old CenterPoint duct that wasn't even on the map!), and in the process, more dirt came out than they expected. The METRORail tracks are on an 18" thick section of rebar-reenforced concrete, so there is no concern for the rail (it would act as a bridge over the tunnel). But out of an abundance of caution they are investigating. I asked about the abandoned tunnel towards the east to the Magnolia Hotel, and the guy told me that that tunnel was too small to be useful, so I guess there won't be a connection to the Magnolia, at least not initially. Too bad; I was hoping they could go through there to get all the way over to the old Texaco building.
  13. rechlin
    Looks like they had a minor incident building the tunnel to connect this to the Chase Building: http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Tunnel-work-6139030.php However, the news media is inaccurate in reporting that the light rail is shut down. I witnessed trains going in both directions, picking up passengers at the Central Station Main and carrying them across the "closed" section. Here's a train going through, along with a bunch of police and news media: Bonus: Here's a view of the current state of 609 Main from above: You can click either image for a much larger view.
  14. rechlin
    Montrose1100, my company leased a couple floors of BG Group Place. They didn't really bother building it out, though, so it's just bare concrete ceilings and pillars, plus rusty fire sprinkler pipes and fluorescent lights hanging by wires from the ceiling. The HVAC system is fully exposed with all the insulated ducts that are supposed to be hidden by a drop ceiling. I guess they are going for the industrial look.
  15. rechlin
    It seems they've been focusing a lot of attention on the roof of this building lately. This past two weeks they completely stripped off the old membrane from the roof. Now there are no more trees growing on it! The crane apparently broke down, too, about a week ago, causing debris to pile up on the roof because they couldn't lower it down, but within a few days they were able to fix it. They brought in a mobile crane to lift something up and had people working on it. This week they've taken out a truck-sized section of wall on the mechanical penthouse of the tall building. Not sure what is going there yet. Also they've been power washing various brick and stone at the roof level. There are always lots of people working on it (I count 12 people on the roof as I type this, one of whom is sledgehammering the floor and several others who are jackhammering), so even if it appears to be going slowly, they still are putting effort into it. Click for larger view:
  16. rechlin
    It's normal. If you look closely, you can see the train has a horizontal red bar, meaning it must not proceed (it gets a vertical white bar when it is allowed to go). But I've watched the trains at the intersections a lot, and I can say they are as bad at ignoring red lights as Houston drivers are. Not surprising, though, since the trains are also driven by Houston drivers. It's a wonder there aren't more collisions.
  17. rechlin
    I may have said it before, but I'll say it again just in case. That State National building is really looking nice now that it has been cleaned up. So happy to see another historic building restored. But this new tower will completely cover the view of the back of it, so enjoy it while it's still visible!
  18. rechlin
    Interesting how they no longer even bother listing the Chevron Tower, Five Allen Center, Six Houston Center, or the International Tower/One Market Square, and for the Capitol Tower they are only mentioning the parking garage. I wonder if this was to indicate that they don't expect them to be built, or they just ran out of space on the sheet and pushed off the less-likely (in the near-term) buildings.
  19. rechlin
    It's still on the map, just they have their layers ordered in a non-ideal manner so you can't click on it for details. It's still listed in the "grid view", and there you can click on it.
  20. rechlin
    LTAWACS, Nothing. Rules haven't yet changed for personal use. All they've done now is legalize it for commercial use, with many of the same restrictions as for personal use, plus the requirement of a license.
  21. rechlin
    That's what I've been saying all along, Avossos. It fits in other contexts, too; not all old buildings are worth saving. Places like Europe have lots of cool old buildings because all the worst ones were eventually replaced in later times, but now all that is left in some cities is hundreds of years worth of very cool buildings. Houston is still a relatively young city and hasn't had enough of these "30/70" (or even 10/90, long term) situations to weed out all the bad stuff. Until the 1990s, pretty much all apartments in central Houston were the 2-story garden style. Then you started seeing 3-story garden apartments. In the late 1990s, the "wrap" started showing up -- for a while, I lived in a ~1998 apartment complex that had a 4-story wrap, along with 3-story garden-style outer buildings, with a mix of garage and surface parking. Then in the early 2000s, so 10-15 years ago, the typical construction was the 4 story wrap. Then in the last decade we started seeing more 5-6 story wraps. And now, the new trend is the 7-9 story pedestal, with parking at the base. It's all about getting denser. The high-rises generally are just extensions of these pedestals, though unfortunately the ubiquitous Skyhouses still insist on an ugly separate garage (but presumably the Skyhouses will be shorter-lived buildings, fitting in the "30%" category). It sounds like this project is probably likely to have the pedestal-style buildings, just based on trends. Those seem to be well-suited for ground-floor retail, too, because the garage bases can easily handle commercial units, so this may end up being a walkable, livable neighborhood unlike what some fear.
  22. rechlin
    Here you go (it gets a little sharper if you click on it):
  23. rechlin
    Glad to see this happening. The Melrose building has been vacant for many years. Obviously they will have to completely gut it, but apparently the structure itself is still fine. I believe this was one of Houston's first "modern" skyscrapers, if not the first one, so it does have some architectural significance. The original façade had a bit more color (maybe turquoise -- you can see bits of it where the black panels have fallen off), so it will be interesting to see if they restore the original appearance. This building, along with the Texaco building, was in one of the worst smelling areas of downtown. But since the Texaco building has been under construction, and since the city put a portable toilet right in front of the Melrose building, the smell has mostly gone away, so this could work. The old Texaco garage next door to it isn't going anywhere anytime soon, because the garage was extensively renovated last year. The only problem with this building is that the back side, not normally pictured, has almost no windows. There's a 20-something story brick wall with not a single window in it on the northwest side!
  24. rechlin
    The Days Inn isn't in that photo, Nate99. It wasn't built until 1971.
  25. rechlin
    The sign was put up on Saturday. This photo was taken 2015-01-24 13:42, while the crane was lifting it up. It's possible it's more than just a sign, perhaps some kind of mechanical equipment (click for a wider view):
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