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HoustonIsHome

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Everything posted by HoustonIsHome

  1. HoustonIsHome
    Not taking about sprawl. Talking about building out the core. My understanding is that you build up after there is no more room, but we have so much room downtown, midtown, and even Montrose. I do agree with him in that the corner of Montrose and Westheimer is prime real estate.
  2. HoustonIsHome
    Really? I always thought the time to build up was when you run out of empty land.
  3. HoustonIsHome
    Would have been nice if the shopping strip was at the front of the lot up against the side walk and the mix use development developed behind and over it in a sort of monster ashby hirise sort of way. I know a lot of people who observe the pride parade is going to miss that spot. Many people viewed it from stands built in that lot. I hope these developments cling to each other instead of encroaching on the charm of the Montrose neighborhood. Would suck if say the BJ Oldies building was replaced by these lookalike residential buildings. And can we make a pact to limit the use of the term "eyesore"????
  4. HoustonIsHome
    They can't do that... homeless people sleep around that building. Lol that BBQ place will be right across from it. It's funny how the area is getting all these urban building when just a few years ago they were building drive through restaurants across the street.
  5. HoustonIsHome
    I kinda like the tenants at that strip. I hope they work something out to return after construction
  6. HoustonIsHome
    We are not talking about the rest of the city, we are talking about downtown. I can't see these low rise residentials surviving long if land prices increase awhile availability shrinks. If availability of land doesn't shrink, well then thank God we got something over that darn parking lot.
  7. HoustonIsHome
    This looks like it could be in a quite spot in the woodlands, funny that it is a stones throw away from the busiest arterial road intersection in Texas
  8. HoustonIsHome
    Arche you and I think alike. I think a midget wooden apartment complex in our concrete jungle does sound silly. I would rather ever last one of those little squares have a 15 floor (or more) concrete building. On the other hand if I way my interests I would also like a hefty downtown population. Now waiting for park places and sky houses to develop we may get two each decade. I would rather fill up the lots with the cheaper apts and replace them as the area warrants more space than to sit there waiting years between new residential towers. I think a quickly growing residential population is priority one with me. I think there is more room for error with the towers. You build a bunch of expensive towers that serve one use and then find its costly to serve the growing population properly. If you build more cheaply and the population demands are observed more quickly then it is easier to adjust. Throw a couple more of these 200 and 300 unit low rises downtown and you will see more of an interest from retaillers looking to the area.
  9. HoustonIsHome
    I was thinking along the same lines as cloud. I think they are just going to throw something up, make a quick buck of of rents and in about 30 years sell the land for the inflated value. It's the same thing happening to all these garden apartments in the loop.
  10. HoustonIsHome
    Houston needs to make better use of street trolleys. We (the city) are almost the exact same size of the greater London area with just about a fifth of the population. Traditional rail would be tricky to implement here. I think we should look to the area as a collection of smaller cities (as is actually the case in London as the actual city of London is quite tiny) and grant some of these cities a stop and connect that stop with trolleys. The city is already divided into 88 superneighborhoods. We can grant about 40 of them a rail stop. For example we can have a university line running from the 3rd ward super neighborhood/ city to the uptown SN/ city. I guess the Highland Village would be in the Greenway Super Neighborhood. Once you get off at the greenway stop you can catch the trolley which should circulate around the points of interest. Of course certain SN/ cities will have more than one stop.
  11. HoustonIsHome
    There comes a time when we need to accept that Houston is a multimodal city in a multimodal metro. The Energy Corridor isn't going away soon, Uptown isn't going anywhere, other areas are not going anywhere. Yes, I would rather a more developed core, but Houston will never be a single business district city and I have accepted that. As for the location, it looks fine to me. It not being downtown can't be the only reason it is bad.
  12. HoustonIsHome
    Why not just continue to call the area Highland Village?? It seems less forced than an EaDo or other geographical name like Midwest. River Oaks district sounds good too. I know that HLV and ROD do not cover the entire area, but people refer to all of uptown as the galleria area, why not do the same for the area surrounding Highland Village? Cloud we already have an area called West Oaks.
  13. HoustonIsHome
    I can assure you I am. I am still hoping the building isn't greatly altered, and share your optimism that a reversion is possible, but I was being realistic.
  14. HoustonIsHome
    Some places don't count antennae in height counts it would have to be a spire or crown.
  15. HoustonIsHome
    I would add a nice hat atop the building with disco lights that spin around. But the building itself I would leave as is.
  16. HoustonIsHome
    although I share your optimism, it is highly unlikely that they will turn a perfectly upgraded building back into a significantly smaller (7.1%) building that a lot of people didn't like in the first place.I can imagine the effort it would take the architect to convince the owners to spend all that money to decrease lessable space in an effort to make the building look outdated. Ruining a historic building to increase leasing potential makes financial sense. Messing with a modern building by making it smaller in an attempt to recreate a not so popular style makes no sense whatsoever. I would love it, but there would be no way to justify it
  17. HoustonIsHome
    If I can remember correctly, With the medical center space included Houston was at about 200M sq feet while the metroplex was at about 170M Last I checked DTD had only about 25Msq ft of space. For some reason market reports combine DTD with the office Space of DTFW so while it may show up as Downtown Dallas -37M sq ft you have to keep in mind that that includes two downtown. Uptown and TMC are both large than DTD, and DTH is almost twice as large as DTD
  18. HoustonIsHome
    It's funny cause I am getting the exact opposite feeling. I looked at the building at first and I immediately liked it. But more and more I am looking at it and thinking is just another glass box. I think the building as is is one of the five buildings that I can't picture downtown without. I am thankful that they are not blowing it up, and I do understand that the need for making it more marketable, but that still won't stop me from clinging to prominent fixtures in our skylines. Together with BOA, Heritage, Pennzoil and The former Continental building, the Humble/Exxon building stands out as the most representative of the buildings I associate with downtown
  19. HoustonIsHome
    If I remember correctly both Macys and the city wanted the store to stay. Owners of Foleys wanted a different use of the space. As for not renewing, I don't think the lease was even up yet. I trunk Macys was in the middle of a ten year lease
  20. HoustonIsHome
    It doesn't matter when they knew Macys was closing or how much the mayor supports the Dallas corridor. The project was anchored by Macys and isnt much without it. Corridors like these need major tenants to pull it together. A couple of small clothing retailers, a deli and coffee shop will do nothing to build a string retail district. It doesn't matter what hilcorp does, unless they can pull of a Macys or even something lesser like a Target, the area isn't going to evolve as planned. Parker can support the area till she is blue in the face but she cant dictate where the market heads. Undoubtedly she will improve the area, but I don't think the reality will be anywhere near what was planned. MACY'S is gone, Sarcowitz (sp) will remain a parking garage. Don't mean to sound like a downer but I don't think the project can be anchored by greenstreet. To me, too much depends on commitments from other parties. Like I said, I do believe that downtown will develop a strong retail component, I just don't think it's going to be on Dallas. I think it's going to be in a newer area of downtown. Walking around Dallas up to the shops at Houston center is rather depressing. So many concrete walks instead of store fronts. Conversions are going to be expensive, parking is a problem... I just think that newer developments will build wiser and incorporate retail components at ground level and that will be the area that retail will make a resurgence
  21. HoustonIsHome
    Ha ha, they are right side up in my phone, I guess I need to knock them over before I post
  22. HoustonIsHome
    I was thinking the same thing. Its not the height that worries me (tge area has quite a few one or two storied buildings. What worries ne is the red brick. THAT will look out of place. I guess if there were ten others in the works it won't stand out as much, but something tells me this will be the only one in the area for sometime. The height is fine, they just need to cgange the look of the exterior
  23. HoustonIsHome
    Agreed. As I said, my only disagreement was the statement that remodeling never added value.
  24. HoustonIsHome
    These pics are a week old, but just wanted to comment on how nicely this building is fitting in. I was a bit scared earlier on because of the comments about the skyhouse buildings not being anything to shout about, but I like the scale in relation to Houston House and Savoy, and I like how it blends in to the area. I would not mind it one but if we got 20 more slightly altered Skyhouses downtown.
  25. HoustonIsHome
    I see your point but disagree on the ever adding value part.The value of repurposing is in maintaining continuity. Like Arche said the purpose must be considered. If you destroy all department store structures and replace them with modern buildings, we not only lose our, history and culture but we also lose the multifaced nature of our downtown. How are we going to fit in department stores and large groceries if we only build structures geared to the 9-5ers? In terms of the Texas tower, the value would have been in its beauty, but since that is gone there is not much vslue in renovation. Many tourists like taking architectural tours of downtowns. The Texas Tower would havevalue there over a shiny glass box, but because of what was done to it, the shiny new tower will have more value in this case
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