gwilson

Bit about the new project on the Luxist which is actually sourced from the Chonicle I believe.

http://www.luxist.com/2007/08/20/turnberry-tower-houston/

We've mentioned the Turnberry tower in Las Vegas before, now Houston is getting its own Turnberry complex. The 34-story Turnberry Tower, Residences at the Galleria, will have 184 units with twelve different floor plans. The condos range in size from 1,800 square feet to two huge four-bedroom condos which will be 15,000 square feet. The building will have eight elevators, concierge service, doormen, valet parking, fitness center and a swimming pool. Price start from $1 million to up to $8.5 million for the largest units. The tower is expected to be finished in December 2009 and so far there is a waiting list of 45 people.

Link at the Chronicle:

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/5061455.html

(I just noticed the Chron bit was posted above, oh well)

Palm Center is/was not an enclosed mall.

I found this description in chron:

While on the topic of first malls...

I have always heard that about River Oak Center

But 15 years before another center was built in the nation???

I have also heard that Highland Park Village (1931) in Dallas was the first shopping center in America .

So i guess the key is to define a category so you can be "first" in something!

Sharpstown Mall also had an honor as the first enclosed/climate controlled mall.

Everyone is first at something.

"This is the second mall to be built in Houston after Gulfgate Mall opened in 1956. Sharpstown Center was the first air-conditioned, enclosed shopping mall in the Houston area. Because it was Houston's first air conditioned mall, many Houston residents residing in the central part of the city wanted to experience the 'mall of the future.'

this is a GREAT street.

We tried buying the lot two doors down from there to build a house for resale a few years back. The lot was GORGEOUS with a three level terrace down to the stream below.

It was a real shame the project didn't happen.

Smokers need to quit complaining. It's very simple.

If you can keep your smoke out of my lungs, great. If you can't, don't do it next to me.

No condos? That's disappointing.

I'm glad I'm not the only one that likes the hotel/condo concept.

As a single man, the concept of living in a condo with 24 hour room service to feed me, as well as house keeping, in house laundry, valet, concierge, etc is great to me. condo complexes like the ville de este and montebello cannot even compete with these services.

I love the smoking ban in bars. I don't think it should go so far as tobacco shops or places that are specifically smoking lounges (Richmond Avenue Cigar, Robustos, Tobacco Habana, etc).

I know places that don't allow smoking certainly aren't hurting, so there is no financial reason to do away with the ban. Johnny's is a no smoking place. Get there at about 1030 tonight, and as you elbow your way through to the bar, tell me if you really think no smoking is hurting their bottom line.

The smokers simply head out to the deck.

Best. Freedman's Town. Picture. Evar.

That person sits there every day and will gladly chat you up if you want to stop by. That is right across the street from the pastel townhouses and a block away from Valentine.

I see no problem with doing some house cleaning and getting rid of some old buildings. Being old does not equate being historic. We have sort of a pack-rat mentality about things like this. We cannot continue to grow without weeding out some of the old. There isn't anything particularly historic about this block. Sure, the buildings were cool looking, but they will be remembered long after they are gone for nostalgias sake.

Quick sort of off topic question:

When these 600-1000+ foot tall structures outlive their life expectancy, how will they be demolished? Just collapse/implosions? Have we had any examples of really tall towers being brought down with controlled demo in an urban area before?

with subsidence so bad in houston because of wells, the city no longer allows it, at least for residential

I just put a well in at a job in the city in November of last year. CoH permitted as well.

Here is something I found.

eco18

This building uses solar and geo-thermal as well as many other technologies to be eco-friendly.

While my motivation isn't necessarily a penchant for tree hugging but rather a desire to keep the building sustainable even in a time of crisis/disaster and to keep costs down over time, the techniques and technologies are still the fundamentally the same.

Here is an article about it.

First building to meet Tier Three status under Chicago's Green Permit Program.

Natural gas is expensive electricity. Combined-cycle would be too large/complex for a single building, so it'd probably be just regular turbine, at half the efficiency (twice the fuel costs.) Your residents would strangle you after the first electricity bill. It would probably be several times the cost of grid electricity. If on the other hand, you mean switching over from grid to on-demand generation via diesel generator, this is a standard system hospitals, data centers, etc. use. In this case, your residents would strangle you when they realized the premium it added to their condos w.r.t. to the small benefit. Even then, it wouldn't be fast enough to switch over before all the computers in the building shut down. You'd have to add a very expensive Uninterruptible Power Supply system for that. And if you want to offer datacenter grade electricity, start adding in various line conditioners, triple redundant generators, etc..... I think there's a reason this doesn't exist in residential buildings It'd be cheaper just to give a small UPS system to each tenant for their computers.

My building has backup generators, but only because extended loss of electricity would be catastrophic. People could lose their entire life's work.

I didn't intend natural gas or diesel for primary power generation. When talking about a building on the scale of 40 stories, there is plenty of room for photovoltaics and with proper engineering, wind turbine power could be used on the roof. I've done no research in to how much this would cost over traditional electric sources over time or what the impact would be on the construction budget. Geothermal technology could be used as well.

While it would be great to have a building completely self sustaining, I suppose the primary goal would be to just make it as sustainable as possible. Energy efficiency, low heat gain, alternative methods of heating and cooling.

Yeah, apartments would matter, since apartments are leased already built out and ready to move in. Many condo towers are just shells, and the buildout is decided by and paid by the buyer of the unit.

As for 765,000 sf for $60 million, I'm stumped. $78 per square foot just doesn't sound feasible, especially in an expensive market such as Chicago. I can only say that my architect friends tell me that office towers in Houston generally cost $200 per square foot to build (obviously, this is a VERY general figure).

Condo buildings are usually built as shells, but there is a per square foot allowance in the purchase price for basic build out. So there is a basic build out cost included in the construction of the building. The owners simply have to supplement that if they want anything that isn't part of the basic build out.

How do you handle water purification and wastewater treatment and removal?

I'm no engineer but I imagine well water could be used to supply the building. I've already had a couple projects in town where I've sunk wells and they provide a lot more water (with the right pumping and storage system) than people realize. Waste is another issue though. I read not too long ago of an office building in Nebraska that collected all of it's waste water, treated and filtered it and used it to maintain grounds and public areas (it was what came out of the water hoses to wash windows, grounds, it filled the water fountains and toilets in public areas, it watered the grass, etc). This concept could be extended where the waste water re-use is used for all toilets and such. Solid waste was also collected and treated and turned in to composted fertilizer and sold to nurserys.

I don't know how well any of that would work on the scale of 600,000 square feet though.

I never make judgements on houses until I see the master suite & bathroom. From what I can see, the house is nice.

There is nothing wrong with the area.

The HBJ article said the building will bee 900,000 sq. At $200 psf, that would put it at $180 mil. The new Enron Tower, at 1.2 million sf, reportedly cost $300 mil to build, $250 psf. Admittedly, that tower was a Taj Mahal, but tower construction is expensive.

Interesting fantasy you have, g. Me, I fantasize about building high speed rail nationwide.

Well, I guess I'll keep with building big houses for a while. But who knows.

I did some searches of projects on skyscraperpage and most of them in the sub 40 floor range are well under 100mm.

I've always wanted to build a tower.

My goal would be to build a completely self sustaining mixed use tower that combines office and living space and some dual spaces (living spaces with attached working spaces for at home professionals). ideally, the building would be able to keep running in spite of power outages, etc. It would also turn it's ability to generate power in to a revenue generator where the building could sell it's power to it's residents at a substantial discount over being on "the grid" and paying reliant or someone else.

wow. Is that in large part due to land cost, or is that construction only?

I'm curious. What do you think the estimated cost of building a 50 story tower like this would be?

+100mm or -100mm?

The pictures are up. There are drop ceilings throughout the ENTIRE house.

I...just don't know what to say. 31,000 sf of drop ceiling (less pool).

What in the flying f...

wtf drop ceiling?

so you're saying it is CHEAPER now? that is so not true. they are out to make a buck too.

I didn't say cheaper. I said more accessible. They are building combination of $400k townhomes and low income starter homes.

reverse white flight......4th ward was less than desirable at one time...people realized how far they moved out and hated traffic they decide to reclaim the easiest area possible close to downtown....unfortunately, with no zoning and greed, they let these developers drop anything down....one bad economic bust, those tin homes turn into urban jungles...this makes the projects in New Orleans look spacious...

a a black male, this teaches the value of ownership..you own the land, you have the power...you rent you get nothing..but no telling what kind of underhanded deals folks used to make blacks think they were owning instead of renting back in the mid 50s to 60s...

This looks like a fad to me.....

Much of the development is by black owned companies. The company I am working with, for example (that built the three pastel colored town homes, the retirement center and the row houses across the street) is working to make home ownership more accessible to those who it would have been out of reach of before. It is a mutually beneficial situation where a company can make money by helping others build wealth. This isn't to say that they don't make deals to help improve the area overall as well.

For $250k I could build you a pretty nice 1300+ square foot home in that area.

Companies like Camden who are almost singlehandedly responsible for "Urban Warehousing" style apartment development are setting the MFH market up for a problem in the future. The only saving grace is that the market is cyclical. When apartments in Gulfton are being torn down, places like Camden developments will be downgrading their renters and new nicer complexes will start being built.

It is tough to see how some of these are going to convert though.

Yeah, I think you're probably right. She's probably perfectly content in her corner of the world. The irony in that photograph is of course the sign for new townhouse development - coming soon to this location.

The sign is actually for the townhomes across the street (also pictured in the original post).

When I walk though there, there are a number of sweet old ladys who are sitting outside, knitting, or just rocking and singing worship. It is quite amazing actually.

The last time I walked through with my client, an old lady was sitting on the porch of the pic below singing worship with so much joy. It was hot outside, she lives right across the street form a cemetery. She knew my client well and invited us up on the porch where we sang with her for a bit and simply enjoyed her company and the world. I never though I could have so much fun and feel so good just standing there.

That is the mentality of most of these people. They see it as the world moving on and they don't dwell on it. If you ask me, we could all stand to learn a lesson or two from these folks.

i hope the inside isn't as plain at the outside. those are horrible.

They are pretty decent inside. Pretty much the same as every other three story town home in town though. Not bad, not great.

The guy that had those three townhomes built also built the retirement home down the street (in one of the pics) and the row houses across the street from it.

One of my customers built some of those.

the view of downtown from those pastel townhomes is awesome.