hindesky

Tower crane is coming down.

And its now open for customers. https://www.bizjournals.com/houston/news/2020/02/20/photos-houstons-largest-health-system-opens-17.html?ana=e_me_set1&j=90481551&t=Morning A&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiWlRnM1pHUmpNalF3TTJSaiIsInQiOiJ6c1NDQVZwMnJhXC9HMHZ0M1F5S3lkWFhiMkZNNlY0RUpSYVlJWUxhXC9zN3RMTzhleFdvWlQwcUpJalI5dWR3NURjQWtrU2s4akNYQkJMNFFxT1wvVVg1b3I5ank1ZEZpbUtvZ2xoazlhSEVBdTdUOUxvdHFQR2hsUjRPVjY1RWw2VCJ9 Some screen grabs.....

Screen grabs from the Houston Chronicle. Notice the south side of the renovated building only has railings on the second floor.

Went by several weeks ago and everything in my pic is still the same.

If the front door is on Fannin Google Maps says 2915 Fannin St. It looks abandoned, seems no work has been done in a long time but all this contractors site look like this.

Looks topped out.

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/article/Frank-Liu-s-big-bets-on-urban-living-pay-off-15053303.php?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=HC_AfternoonReport&utm_term=news&utm_content=headlines#photo-19026905 Frank Liu had an opportunity in 2001 to buy 109 acres in a working class section of Spring Branch for an enviable price: just over $1 per square foot. Yet he wasn’t immediately convinced the then-rough-and-tumble neighborhood — far off the radar of most Houston builders — would be the right spot for an upscale residential development. So he got in his car, day after day, and drove the area, passing overgrown lots and rusty warehouses. “At first I just didn’t quite fully get it,” Liu said on a recent tour of the property. “But then all of a sudden I realized when you have 109 acres it helps create that sense of community — even in a transitional area.” He bought the land, waited several years, and started developing it slowly and in phases. He hired a prominent architect to design a plan for the property and a “modern farmhouse” aesthetic for the homes, which have porches in the front and garages in the back, accessible by alleys. The first homes there sold for around $200,000 less than a decade ago. On HoustonChronicle.com: Former Barbara Jordan Post Office to be reborn as mixed-use project There are about 190 homes on the site today, selling for as much as $600,000 in the newest phase of the project. Liu, 63, has repeated this formula in other parts of town. He’s focused on neighborhoods in and around the 610 Loop where he could buy large enough parcels, by urban standards at least, to fashion miniature master-planned communities complete with dog parks, jogging trails and swimming pools. Over the past two decades, his company, InTown Homes, has built thousands of three- and four-story homes and townhomes in EaDo, South Main, Cottage Grove, Spring Branch and other close-in neighborhoods. Liu was often the first to go into these areas with new housing that pushed the limits on prices Houstonians had historically been willing to pay. “Really it’s Frank more than anybody else that convinced people we could have the kind of urban real estate environment we have today,” real estate analyst Scott Davis said. “He was the one who convinced people it could work at scale.” College ties Born in Taiwan, Liu, who owns a trio of real estate companies — InTown Homes, Lovett Commercial and Lovett Homes — moved to Vietnam a few years later when his father took a job as a textile engineer. He came to the United States in 1971 and to Houston two years later. Liu attended Rice University, graduating in 1978 with a civil engineering degree. In 1980, Liu and his college roommate started Lovett Homes, named after their dormitory at Rice. Lovett Commercial was founded in 1995 followed by InTown Homes in 2003 to focus on high-density housing in emerging neighborhoods. The companies have developed upwards of $3 billion in projects, including housing, shopping centers, offices and industrial buildings, throughout Texas. Chris Weekley, executive vice president at David Weekley Homes, which builds in many of the same markets as InTown Homes, began working in Houston’s urban real estate market about a decade ago. At that time, he recalls, the big names were Perry Homes and Frank Liu. “I would say there’s no doubt Frank and his team opened up various parts of the city and proved up areas,” Weekley said. He also noted Liu’s vast amount of real estate holdings and his ability to hold property for future development. “Through whatever means, he’s been able to hold land over the long term,” Weekley said. “We are buying something in today’s prices hopefully to sell homes in a year.” Top hits: Get Houston Chronicle stories sent directly to your inbox In an industry known for promoters and big personalities, Liu’s style is comparatively modest. He often speaks to student groups but rarely gives interviews, preferring to stay out of the public spotlight. “The young people talked me into doing this,” he said of a recent interview during the tour of his Spring Branch project, called Kolbe Farms. It’s gotten harder in recent years to keep such a low profile. In 2016 his family’s philanthropic foundation donated $16.5 million to Rice, launching the Liu Idea Lab for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. The lab is an on-campus collaborative workspace space for students, faculty and staff that hosts lectures, competitions and workshops. Expanded ambitions In 2015, he was the winning bidder on the downtown post office property, a 16-acre complex on the north edge of downtown that’s being transformed into an array of mixed uses: culinary market, shops, coworking space, concert venue, hotel and rooftop farm. By repurposing the 57-year-old building, a state historical landmark, Lovett was able to earn federal and state historic tax credits. It’s likely Liu’s most ambitious project yet. He tapped OMA, an international architecture partnership founded by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Rem Koolhaas, and Hoerr Schaudt, the Chicago-based landscape architects behind Houston’s McGovern Centennial Park, to design it. Liu’s son, Kirby Liu, is leading the project, called POST Houston. The developer’s more recent investments have made headlines too. Listen on HoustonChronicle.com: The Loopie Awards reveal the best and worst of Houston real estate He spent $10 million late last year to buy the Farmer Brothers coffee plant in the East End, just south of Navigation where Turkey Bend curves off Buffalo Bayou. Liu hasn’t revealed what his plans are for the six-acre site, but it’s likely a ways off. The coffee maker stuck a deal to lease back the property for three years. The timing could align with the planned revitalization of Buffalo Bayou east of downtown. The Buffalo Bayou Partnership last fall announced a master plan for the eastern section of the waterway. Turkey Bend, near the coffee plant, is one of several sites the Partnership plans to repurpose into an arts and events facility, a boating center and gathering spaces. Spring Branch boom Back in Spring Branch, InTown Homes has broken ground on another large project called Avondale. The development has been designed to include 165 homes, each with a contemporary architectural style. The homes, which start in the low $300,000s, have flat or metal roofs with large overhangs, oversize picture windows and brick, stucco, cinder block and corrugated metal siding. Liu is hoping the modern designs will be attractive to Houstonians. A similar project in Austin, he said, was one of his most successful. Spring Branch has boomed over the last five to 10 years and competition has picked up among builders adding new homes catering to families and millennials who can’t afford inner-loop real estate. Prime Property: Get Houston real estate news sent directly to your inbox Liu said he emphasizes design as a way to set him apart. “Warren Buffet always says you don’t want to be in the commodity business. The commodity business is basically dog eat dog. You just compete on price,” he said. “You want to have something a little bit different. If someone really likes this feel, guess what, there’s not too many choices for them out there.” Competitive advantage Liu’s flexibility has offered other advantages. In 2010, he negotiated a deal with the city of Houston to be reimbursed $20 million in public infrastructure improvements to three future residential sites, including Kolbe Farms. The agreement was part of a statewide economic development program in which reimbursement dollars come from the the incremental property taxes the projects create. So if the homes are never built or enough taxes aren't generated, the developer is not reimbursed. Those kinds of deals take time and patience most builders don’t have, Weekley said. On HoustonChronicle.com: Architect Jon Pickard on how Houston could be better Davis, president of Houston-based Location Strategy, has followed local builders for much of his career. He compares Liu’s vision to that of Houston real estate legends whose careers were defined by their some of their biggest professional risks: George Mitchell, founder of The Woodlands; Frank Sharp, developer of Sharpstown; and Ed Wulfe, who transformed Meyerland Plaza. “There’s the kind of developer we refer to as a promoter; someone who has crazy ideas no one think will work but by their sheer will they can get it done. And Frank is not that kind of guy,” Davis said. “Frank’s projects are organized and planned and reasonable. There are no smoke and mirrors.” ‘Uniquely Houston’ Angela Blanchard, president emerita of BakerRipley, a community development organization, got to know Liu when he developed the group’s new home in the East End. She said his story is uniquely Houston. “He didn’t arrive with a trust fund or somebody that was going to bankroll anything he came up with,” she said. Blanchard, a senior fellow in International and Public Affairs at Brown University’s Watson Institute, invited Liu to speak at Brown last fall. The presentation was called Urban Social Policy Meets Real-World Capitalism. In an environment where society’s capitalistic ills are heavily scrutinized, she said, Liu’s talk was well received. “I’m sure he has his critics, every developer does,” Blanchard said. “But his is a true Houston entrepreneurial story — capitalist at its core. A man and a company evolving in response to a fast growing, dynamic region.” nancy.sarnoff@chron.com twitter.com/nsarnoff Nancy Sarnoff Follow Nancy on: http://www.facebook.com/nsarnoffnsarnoff Nancy Sarnoff covers commercial and residential real estate for the Houston Chronicle and the paper’s two websites: Chron.com and HoustonChronicle.com. She also hosts Looped In, a weekly real estate podcast about the city’s most compelling people and places. Nancy is a native of Chicago but has spent most of her life in Texas.

I doubt it, the Thermal Energy Corp is just across Brays Bayou.

I'm trying to guess which way the front of the store will face. I'm predicting Kirby.

Never operated an American but the oldest crawler I ever got the chance to operate was an old Bucyrus Erie crawler friction crane at a shipyard when I was first starting out.

Trendy Austin pizza joint expands to Houston Enlarge Austin-based Home Slice Pizza plans to open a location in Houston. KIRSTEN KAISER PHOTOGRAPHY By Giselle Greenwood – Editor-in-chief, Houston Business Journal Feb 11, 2020, 1:17pm CST Updated 3 hours ago Home Slice Pizza, a popular Austin pizza restaurant, plans to open its first location in Houston in early 2021. The restaurant will be located in Midtown at 3701 Travis St., adjacent to the Continental Club and across the street from the Mid Main Lofts. Additional details, such as square footage of the space and an exact opening date, were not disclosed. Co-founder Joseph Strickland is a native Houstonian who grew up in Sharpstown. Home Slice was founded by Strickland, his wife Jen and her college roommate, Terri Hannifin Buis. The Houston eatery marks the team's first expansion outside of Austin since first opening its doors in 2005. “Midtown is evolving into the most walkable, dense neighborhood in Houston, making it a perfect fit for the Home Slice brand, which is rooted in the pizzerias and slice joints of NYC,” said Joseph Strickland. “I am personally thrilled to be part of the team bringing Home Slice to my hometown.” Rumors of Home Slice coming to Houston first broke in October. Home Slice has three locations in Austin — two on South Congress and one in the North Loop area off 53rd Street. The home of hot slices was ranked as one of the top pizzerias in the country by TripAdvisor. In Houston, pizza is big business. Houston-based Russo's New York Pizzeria & Italian Kitchen recently expanded to the Dallas-Fort Worth area and has plans to open 10 to 15 units over the next three years, partially owning some and partially franchising out other locations. In January, Russo's announced it would open a location in the Heights, and in June 2019, it announced plans to open a string of breweries. Houston restaurateur, Benjamin Berg, and his brother, partner and executive chef, Daniel Berg, also launched into the pizza space last year with the opening of B.B. Pizza inside his Italian restaurant concept, B.B. Italia Kitchen & Bar.

Better than what is currently there.

My new t-shirt arrived, I'm still an Astros fan despite all the controversy.