'Stonian

That's just the perimeter of the garage you're seeing so far. Once it's wrapped with apartments the set back will be much closer to the street. 

About to jump the crane on the 25-story apartment tower today. 

8 hours ago, swtsig said:

i love how one week of "inactivity" led many to believe the project was dead.

I guess the well documented fragile state of the regional economy has us looking over our shoulders. But oil prices be damned - Roar HOUSTON..., ROAR! 

I stand corrected. Arabella is moving right along now - CRANE being erected!

I'm a project manager for a construction firm and in my opinion virtually nothing has been done in 3 months. I only saw faint evidence of 1 or 2 piers being drilled. 3 months in they should be much further along than hauling off a few truck-loads of dirt.

I'm in no position to say the project is dead (and I certainly hope not) but after driving by this site every morning on my way to work and seeing so much activity going on behind the fence, I'm a bit surprised at the lack of progress thus far.

I drove by yesterday and peered over the fence to see that basically NOTHING has been done in the entire 2-3 months the crawler crane has been operating. Sorry, but I'm not confident about this one AT ALL folks.

Maybe Randall Davis got wind of all the venom Haifers directed at his Aurora project and decided it just wasn't worth the abuse.

There is definitely something white or silver being applied to the very top of this building. I am not sure I like it.

For the first time I can clearly see this silver'ish color change on the crown from my balcony.  I highly suspect its related to a new lighting feature to be unveiled Thanksgiving night at the Uptown Holiday Lighting.

Disappointed? The translucent glass of the crown gives this building 24-7 pizzazz. It's like the crown is lit up both day and night.

I've seen the downtown side lit up better than that in recent weeks when the top crown is also backlit.  Here are a couple shots of the Galleria side.

I've seen the side that faces downtown lit up better than that in recent weeks when the top crown is also backlit, but here's a couple shots of the Galleria side.

Attachments_20151029.zip

Awesome shots of the bhp building, it turned out exactly like the renderings.

Back in August when they were erecting the fence, I was out running and personally asked the project manager if 'it was a go?' He answered yes and that they would start digging at the end of September, so lets see if they break ground next week.

Love the green myself.., I've grown tired of every building around town being some shade of beige.

The entire vertical lighting from the ground to top floor is indeed a lighter blue. The only white lighting is the 2 1/2 story box on top. Very well done.  

In fact, many of the new buildings being completed have added lighting features. The new BHP Billiton has a larger 3 story open top similar to 3737 that lights up at night and the 40-story 2929 Weslayan apartment building not too far away from this one has been testing a dramatic ground-to-top floor LED scheme on both sides of the building which highlights the center portion of the curved balconies.  It's so bright that I can't imagine they would have it lit up year round, but I anticipate it being lit up during the holiday season.

Well it appears you're focused solely on office development and I'm thinking more in terms of the overall real estate market.  If starts were the best indication for how attractive a market is, then San Francisco would not be the stellar performer that it continues to be since they severely limit starts with strict regulations and high cost of entry.  I do not disagree that starts are cooling off, my point was it's not obvious to the casual observer.

Sure Chevron may have gotten built, but even with $100 oil, based on historical cycles, it would have been wise for Houston to chill on office development with the recent office boom.  My guess is that developers would not have been smart about it, but sometimes the market forces them to make wiser decisions.

800 Bell will end up being a Class-B redevelopment at best and I suspect Capital tower is a go.  Skanska is using their own money to fund construction and have already expended a considerable amount of capital with all the demolition, so I think they will finish the deal eventually. There are 2 cranes up at the site and even though there's been no official announcement, I suspect they are proceeding at a snails pace with the overall building in addition to the garage. 

But Triton may also forget to enjoy the present.  Who knows, by 2017 job growth could be ramping back up with developers dusting off some shelved project plans for completions in 2019.

I don't love bad news and this city isn't doomed at all... But to think we have reached some "critical mass" where growth is endless and we'll be building 60 story towers in the next few months, you're probably living in a fantasy land. Is it not obvious that things have slowed down in the real estate market? How can you answer for the net job loss? I want the boom we saw in 2013/2014 to keep going on. I want to see our downtown completely transformed into a true urbanist's wet dream.. where there's an active street scene no matter what time of the day it is. And as for being realistic, Trump doesn't have a chance in hell in winning the nomination but I digress.

Actually, it isn't yet obvious that things have slowed down in the real estate market..., well because, they haven't.  There's cranes still everywhere you look.  We're probably at the absolute peak in terms of projects getting built and completed right now.

Sure office 'starts' have evaporated and many cranes are coming down but the mega office projects (Exxon, Conoco, Phillips 66, Shell, BHP Billiton) are all just now being completed with downtown's 609 Main just reaching its midpoint. Even when a crane does come down, construction still continues on a building for another 6-12 months.  I think it's important to note that even if oil was still at $100 barrel it would be time for Houston to chill on office development with all the projects coming online. We just had a peak of 17-18 million sqft of office space under construction, all at one time - 1/6th of the total office construction under development in the entire country by some reports.  Let's consider ourselves blessed, we got in on a MASSIVE construction boom this cycle.

Residential, retail, and hotel development is still continuing at a break-neck pace.  Hopefully Hanover can start this project within the next few months.  Developers will continue to start projects until the capital dries up and they're denied construction loans but even in down markets, projects with solid fundamentals will still get built.  

Since it generally takes 18-24 months for most projects to be completed after breaking ground, real estate lags the job market by roughly 2 years.  Remember when Houston started creating jobs again in mid 2010-2012, development didn't really kick into high gear until late 2012.  With things slowing down economically in 2015, we should expect to see some real softness in 2017 in terms of development, its just part of the natural development cycle, but for now things are still blazing ahead. 

It's interesting hearing the different perspectives of HAIFers, but I really don't see much to argue about.  I suspect Triton is a forward thinker and HTXUSA lives in the here and now.

It's not an ugly building, but it's nothing to shout about either. For the location I was expecting more of a showpiece

We could have been waiting another 10 years for a 'showpiece'.  

I like it, it looks tons better than the 4-story Camden complex directly across the street and reminds me of the http://www.venuemuseumdistrict.com/further down the metrorail line on Fannin near the Hines Southmore tower under construction. 

 

Text herson:

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Midway Unveils New Details to Luxury 225-Room Hotel Alessandra at GreenStreet

 

 

Slated to debut in late 2016, the luxury 21-story sky-rise hotel will be housed at GreenStreet – the mixed-use shopping and entertainment development whose anchor tenants include House of Blues and III Forks Steakhouse – and conveniently located just steps to nearby downtown destinations such as the George R. Brown Convention Center, Toyota Center and Discovery Green. 

 

 

Not sure if anyone else has mentioned this but I find it strange that the press release highlighted anchor tenants House of Blues and III Forks Steakhouse rather than "House of Blues and Forever 21".

Is Forever 21 going away or something? I'm always afraid of it failing because I never see it as busy as other locations such as the Galleria and Memorial City. 

Hotel Alessandra will for sure start in the "3rd Quarter this year"..., reliable source.

I rarely have much inside information on these developments however I happen to be associated with someone who relocated to Houston specifically to work on this project.  

After the redesign 'delay' last summer, I was told Hotel Alessandra would start construction in September '14, but thank God it was later delayed a second time while undergoing additional re-design over the fall.

Let me offer some perspective. The renderings (construction drawings) I was shown in July that was set to begin construction were FAR less appealing than the rendering Urbannizer posted the other day. Picture this if you will: basically the drawings showed the square box of the lower 20 floors in the latest rendering - absent the top 3 recessed floors and without the glass corner facade on floors 4-20. The exterior materials were listed as cast-in-place concrete with stucco accents. 

Since last summer, additional redesign added the top 'crown' and more glass on the corner. I'm told the facade of the new hotel will now be similar to the brick textured exterior of the new Hanover Post Oak tower at BLVD Place which IMO turned out better than the renderings.

Although the all-glass 'conceptual' drawings with retractable roofs, curves and swoops may have been released to generate buzz, lets count our blessings this thing did not get started last year as the truly value-engineered, watered down version that I saw in July and that someone at Midway actually cared enough to go back and add extra features. The new rendering will most likely fit in more with the facade of the existing Green Street/Pavilions as others have stated.

yay! Another thread flushed down the drain with Dallas v. Houston talk. I'm so excited!

No, actually this thread was flushed down the drain when Urbannizer posted the new rendering (thanks Urb  ). How in the world did Dallas get inserted into this discussion anyway? (Monarch ? strange dude, but I guess we could use a few more strange characters in the world)

I've never seen so much beachin and complaining over a 20-something story building's redesign in my life. There's at least 10-15 posts over the last couple days repeating the same comments, it's like you guys all just happened to post at the same exact time or didn't care to read that others had already made your point.

Seriously, I appreciate the passion, but the comments about no longer holding Midway in high regard are nothing more than childish temper tantrums. Grow up folks!

Oil hit its all time high of $147 a barrel in 2008.

True, I guess I stand corrected 'somewhat', which is why I stressed 'from 2004-2008' when Houston experienced steady, consistent growth absent astronomical oil prices..

However, take a look at the historic price of oil and tell me there's no validity to what I'm saying. To single out a few months in 2008 when oil prices spiked to an all time high is disingenuous at best. Oil was around $20-$30/barrel in the run up to the 2004 Superbowl when re-development was occurring all around the city. In fact, save for those few months in 2008, prices ranged from anywhere from $30-$70 from 2004-2008, a time a great prosperity in Houston.

http://www.infomine.com/investment/metal-prices/crude-oil/all/

Triton, while you may have been paying $100 to fill up your truck in summer of 2008, oil prices were no where near $100/barrel from 2004-2008. Prices mostly exploded after the shale revolution of 2009-2012 began.

I happen to be one of the forumers here who care both about the architecture AND economics of developments around the city. I work in single family residential development and we sell a good chunk of our homes to energy executives. I rarely post, but I certainly read others' posts every few days because I'm extremely interested in land planning, economics, development, and architecture and my lively hood depends on it.

What I've noticed is some of the younger posters here care little about the economics and are mostly skyscraper enthusiast.  However, some of the more seasoned super posters are so tainted by the oil bust of the 80's that it's always in the back of their heads that a bust is right around the corner. So my apologies if I came across as disrespectful to swtig with my 'negative nancy' comment.  Even though I may have overreacted, I'm sure he knows where I'm coming from when I said there's a negative tone to most (not all) of his comments.

I can appreciate both perspectives which is why I enjoy HAIF so much. It's great to keep economics in perspective but it's also good to see new blood in Houston that's not scared to death to develop big projects. That gun-shy attitude has held back investment in Houston for 20-30 years.

NEWSFLASH: Houston is not the only city that goes through these real estate cycles. In fact only a handful of cities like NYC are diverse and stable enough to limit the extremes of cycles. It may be more pronounced here with our relationship to the energy industry but certainly not unique to Houston.

Our motto at my company is do well enough in the good times to carry us through the lean times, but surely the good times will come rolling around again. So just as there may be a bust around the corner, there may also be a boom coming right behind it!!!!